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Fling Training - Saturday Mornings at Hornsby. Any interest?


jp's picture

By jp - Posted on 04 September 2015

I'll post official rides if there is any interest in this...

With 9 weeks til the Fling I'm stepping up the training a bit, and keen to see if others are interested in joining me. My regular Saturday morning is a 7am start at OMV, then either do Quarry Track out n back + 3-4 laps of OMV, or the full "Saturday Loop" which covers OMV, Quarry Track, Old Northern Rd to Cherrybrook, some trails n single track around Cherrybrook, then back to Pennant Hills via Stringybark Ridge, then Westleigh. Over the past couple of years @Tristania and I have done this loop many times, but as I approach 50 and he approaches his prime, the gap between us is widening. Luckily he is very patient with me:) Hopefully he will continue to join me/ us when he's up for an easier day out!

So, is anyone interested in joining a regular Saturday morning "medium-paced" training group? The full loop is about 60km and 1300m of climbing, and takes around 3.5 hours.

These will not be beginners' rides... there are some very steep climbs. The overall difficulty is similar to the half fling, but with a bit more techy singletrack thrown in. I like to go at a decent pace (say the equivalent of doing the half fling in a bit under 3 hours) with just 1 or 2 brief stops. That said, it's meant to be a fun but semi-serious training session.

If there are some faster guys who want to join, we can make that work too... sometimes Tristan does an extra lap or 2 of one of the loops if I'm too slow for him. And when we had a slower guy with us last weekend he sat out one loop. But overall the plan is to stick together.

Any interest?

Cheers,
JP

skipper_nz's picture

JP
have you done the Convict 50/100, what were you times, i am interested, but have never ridden the Fling, or any tracks mentioned other than OMV, i would like to join next saturday but i don't want to hold you up!!

jp's picture

Hey Scott,

I did the Convict 50 in 2013 and 2014 and took 2hrs. I'm probably a bit slower than that at the moment.

By all means come along. Maybe I could post a group ride for Saturday Sept 12th - we can go at an easy pace, then see who's keen for a bit more intensity starting the following week?

skipper_nz's picture

yeah copy, i have done 2:12 and 2:05 for convicts so shouldn't be too far off the pace. For sure you can pencil me in, that would be great to see other tracks.

Tristania's picture

Here's a map of the route. Don't be put off by the 80km loop, I did some extra laps of OMV at the end and the ride to the track from my house would have added some more distance.

Great all round workout, with enough variety to keep it interesting. As JP said, we can do extra loops of the singletrack if there's a difference in pace.

https://www.strava.com/activities/369205518

duck's picture

Yes, as soon as I'm able to ride again I'll come with you guys. Will let you know week to week so please post the ride in the calendar

hawkeye's picture

Post the rides. Smiling

domstam's picture

JP,
I've just moved to the area from Canberra a few months back so I'm keen to check out some of these trails. Let me know when you're next planning on heading out and I'll see if I can tag along. I'm not doing the Fling this year but have completed this race the past 2 years.
Cheers
Dom

jp's picture

Hi Dom, you're welcome to join us. We've only done one training ride so far - last Saturday was wet, and tomorrow's not looking much better with OMV trail closed today. Next ride will probably be Oct 3 - I'll post it as an official ride on this site.

Cheers,
JP

jp's picture

Only 4 training weekends left! I hope everyone's Fling training is on track. Theses Saturday group rides are proving to be great training... very similar distance and just a bit harder than the half fling. The plan for the next few is to reduce the stops, practice race nutrition, eating on the go etc... basically to simulate race conditions and intensity. Train hard, race easy!

Brian's picture

Race easy... There's no such thing

jp's picture

But many of us have been guilty of racing harder than we've trained in the lead-up, which creates problems like cramping.

jp's picture

Since there were no takers on NobMob for the last ride I won't keep posting them, but PM me if you're interested in joining our Saturday group.

Cheers,
JP

jp's picture

There were just 2 of us yesterday... but the other guy was the national XCM champion of Hungary 10 years ago - he kept up a solid pace, and I got a good workout!

It was a great morning. Beautiful weather and only a couple of very brief stops over the 3.5 hours.

Just 3 more of these training rides to go before race day.

jp's picture

There were 3 of us again on Saturday, and I was the slowest so I got another very solid workout. I could barely turn the pedals yesterday morning.

@Tristania led the charge, occasionally doubling back to watch me suffer and offering very unhelpful sledges like: "I thought we were going at race pace today?". When we finished he continued on for another 50km, then did 75km more MTB on Sunday to clock up 175km MTB for the weekend.

@beetle was close behind him on our loop, riding stronger than ever. He and I have finished the Fling within a few seconds of each other for 2 years running, but I think my days keeping up with him are over.

Final training ride coming up, assuming I can get my wheel sorted.

I hope everyone's Fling training is on track.

Brian's picture

The problem with being the slowest in the group is it is compounded by getting the least recovery Eye-wink

jp's picture

Final training ride on Saturday was a lot of fun. I never get tired of this loop - so much variety and so many beautiful trails. The highlight on Saturday was a wallaby bounding along beside us on one of the Cherrybrook firetrails. He kept pace with us for about 50m before turning off and heading into the scrub.

Once again I was the slowest in our group of three - but I smashed myself trying to keep up with my training buddies.

Over summer I'll post this ride as a more relaxed social outing for anyone who wants a tour of the local highlights.

See you at the Fling!

JP

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