Daniel Rowland: November 2011

Corpbanca 5km race in Las Condes

Today I ran a 5km race with Vanessa that started in the park a block away from our house. It was really well organized and plenty of people turned up for the race. We had a great run and enjoyed doing a new route with the lanes closed so close to our apartment!

V in action and going strong!

First medal for a race in Chile.

Happy after a great race together.

V really enjoyed the run and ran very well. I'm sure there'll be a few more races for her on the roads and trails of Santiago in 2012.

Atacama crossing #3

Weekly test of my training progress for the 4Deserts Atacama Crossing.

10 mins with 8kg pack at race pace on the treadmill:

Date: Friday 11 November 2011
Average Heart Rate: 138
Perceived Exertion: 7

Slowly getting used to the pack.

Wednesday weekend

Wednesday is always my favorite run of the working week. When I trained for triathlon we came up with "Wednesday weekend" because that was always a low intensity day and sort of like taking a mid-week break even though there were still two or three training sessions. Now Wednesday weekend is my hill running day and a chance to explore outside the city- almost a mini adventure to keep my running spirits high.

Somehow the dark of late night feels different to the dark of early morning.

Santiago is always beautiful from Cerro Carbon, it doesn't matter which was you look.

I never see any one on the mountain when I do this run, but I feel like I'm at least an intimidating cyclops to the spring hares!

Running the water canal

Today's schedule called for 2 hours running without any definition to pace, place or objective of the run. It's only three weeks after all my trouble with ITBS during UMA and a lot of my training is still done on feel and testing if there is any pain in my knee.

I wanted to go and do a run off the roads and headed towards my reliable route along Cerro Carbon and Manquehue. I didn't want to push too hard in the climbs or come bombing down any descents so I ran along the contour trail that formed part of the UMA route.

Left along the contour path, right across the bridge to start climbing.

To make it a little more specific I went out at 1pm in the heat of the day to test how I would handle the heat and to start acclimatising for the desert. It felt brutally hot and I now know that I've got a lot of work to do to prepare for up to 50C in March.

Dry, dusty trail next to irrigation water.

I don't think that I drank enough water in the first hour and a half and could feel the effects slowing me down. I know how much water I will receive during the race, so now I need to get used to rationing it and drinking at a race pace.

Feeling dry-mouthed and hot!

Bridge to no-where.

Atacama progress #2