Training Log Archive: BrandNewMe

5 x 800-ish. Felt ok. Sub 6:20 min mile pace average

Then went back to work, had a shower, at lunch, sat at my desk for an hour, then had to sprint across the meadows with legs so dead they barely moved. Not good.

Still ill, but bored and I had some jobs to do so I went on a run. Felt shocking, but nice to get out.

Beecraigs Green course with Laurence

Operation ‘teach the kids how to orienteer’ continues. Beecraigs East was nicer than expected, but expectations were as low as they get, so that’s not saying much. A fun morning, with hopefully lots of learning. Disqualified again alas. Number 2 wasn’t there, and I thought it was as we were v early starts, but 6 was the same control, and it still wasn’t there. I had s scoot around thinking someone might have chucked it, and found it by a hedge, either misplaced originally or moved by someone. So we couldn’t punch it cause it wasn’t there. Moved it to the right place after.

Feeling ashamed that our kids never get any Orienteering instruction whatsoever, I took Laurence out at Dalkeith country park. We did some controls that looked at significant trees, contours, form lines and dot knolls, and practiced taking bearings and doing sightings from them etc. Then went to the cafe. The pace was nice and manageable in my ill state. Lucy is at school camp.

C • Club training 1

Ill. Some sort of fever & aches shite.

JK relays w120+ class

I was first leg, with Jane Ackland and Lorna following. In the start box were Megan C-D (men’s short) Sarah, Jenny and Rachael. Not such a fan of 1st leg, but we needed to be away promptly so it made sense. Everyone caned it off, esp as we start with the M18-ish relay and men’s short. It’s really crowded, and I hang back as per, but the forest was nice so moving through was easy. Confused by having a much longer gaffle than most others to number 1. Sarah had it too, tho I had stopped to check while she ran on and got a lead. Chased her down to 2. Sarah Rollins is a really classy orienteer. Consistent, reliable, and very very fast, and it’s her home terrain. So I felt really very let down when she stuffed up number 2 big time! Come on Sarah - I expect better things from you! We maybe dropped 90secs.

I pulled ahead a bit after that, as I felt surprisingly sprightly, and managed to claw back Jenny at 7, and Rache at about 10. Now I was with Tune’s bloke from Stavanger, who stayed with me until the end. He was quite a good pace, and it was a fun head to head.

Cracking relay area with great planning. I came back first old lady, and Jane maintained the lead. Kim chased Lorna down on last leg and got her I think. I don’t know the results for sure, but who does?

I was disqualified again at the finish, but I still had my back up emitag from the day before and knew the back up had punched properly so was reinstated. The control that did not work was 2, and I actually hit the emitag to the sensor box thingy, which makes you think it really should have worked.

C • Box touch 1

JK long (W21e)

JK long was long. Very long (I ran 9.16 miles!). And hot. Very hot. And I got tired, very tired.

Lots of small and or silly mistakes, and one very big very silly mistake.

1 - a bit high, 20 secs. Then nailed 2-6. Went straight from 6 cause the forest was nice. Got a bit offline though and got really confused. Was left of the line when I can’t out of the green and hit the track. The heavily hatched bit was open felled, and it didn’t fit the open areas on the map at all. Jogged East on the track for a bit, saw the property and relocated. D’oh. 1min?

7-8 straight, fine. 8-9 went right which I think was the best route, but made me miss the drinks. I don’t really like that planning, where they say the drinks point will be 1/3 round and 2/3rds, then best route misses one. 9-10 I went straight which I thought was the best route, but dropped time in the circle. 1 min at least.

10-11 getting hot here, walking up the hill. 12 got to the circle well then got slightly offline and ended up punching 13 first. 14 fine and 15. 16 there was an unmapped green blob just before the control which was v confusing. 45 secs?

17 - long leg. Aimed right, but didn’t see the path through the houses and hacked through the wood. Got on the road here. Then came off the road before the oob field near 10, running with Chloe Potter and Sarah Jones here. Sarah took a wrong path heading off east instead of North. Chloe and I took a wrong path, also running off the map, for about 500m. Then I realised something was wrong. Chloe disappeared off. I backtracked to the map, and took the correct path. An extra k was not what I wanted here. Disheartened! Saw no one else the rest of the course, and was tired and not terribly inspired. Not great to 26 and dropped about 90secs at 27 by not thinking and taking the wrong path.

Too tired (from unfitness and the heat) to think properly today. 11+ mins of mistakes today. Not a great run. Chuffed to survive. I need to do more long training to run well in this sort of stuff. Inspired a bit I think.

P.S. one punch missing today, but I got reinstated cause it was on the back up. And I wouldn’t have been if I was a punter and only had one emitag.

JK middle. W21e

It was hot today, so I used that as my excuse to skip a warm up. CBA. Got to the start. Both Emitags worked on the first check, get descriptions, then at poss -2 there was another check. One emitag failed. I fail to get stressed or even remotely nervous about races these days so I was ridiculously laid back about it. The starters were v nice about it too. Get sorted after a few mins faff. Start time missed. Asked to check the start list to see where I can find a gap. I am sure there are some bit gaps, but late start guy said I would have to start in a 30 sec gap. Was pretty nervous that there were some people on my course 30secs either side of me. Not fun for me. Didn’t really know when I was starting, so asked the guy, who told me 10secs ago. So I set off v flustered and a bit stressed. Didn’t really know where the start kite was. Confused - thoughts everywhere on the way to number1. Didn’t know if I was supposed to have punched the start. Should I go back? Oh f.

So not really going smoothly or with any sort of focus for the first bit. I wasn’t great at all. Finding them, but not with any urgency or flow. It was crappy underfoot down to 4, and couldn’t really be bothered to attack. Punted in the general direction to 5 and 6, 6-7-8 was crappy underfoot, and I was hot and tired. Ran down to the in between canal and railway going to 9 - doh.

Fought the tiredness a bit to 9 and 10, crappy underfoot to 11, 12, 13, 14. Ran past 163 (15) cause it was basically on the path and thought it couldn’t be mine. Ran 16-17 straight which was a mistake. The rest was fine. Thought the win would be 30-32 with faster forest later and faster athletes so pleased to do 39:06 and be not far down.

Hope they get my time sorted soon. 8th I think.


https://www.jk.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#78&cours...

JK Sprint - about 12% of the field mispunched. Is emitag an acceptable reliable punching method for the JK?

JK sprint - W21e

Quite good fun. Fast and furious. Took me ages to find the course on the map. Realised that I had run out of fitness and was exhausted at about half way. Misses at 12 and about 5 cost me about 40 secs, and I totally missed out 14 (?) which cost me a valid result. Not fussed at all. Maybe I should start getting fussed though. I have done 4 sprint races this year, and mispunched 3 of them!

Lucy was pretty gutted not to have registered at one of the controls. The boys were both lying 4th when we left.

*EDIT* I have been reinstated, which is interesting. I presume that they checked my other emit brick and found out that I went to 14 after all. How confusing. I didn’t study them map at the finish as they took it off me, just someone showed me where the control was at the finish. I thought it was on the north side of the building, which would have been a fair way round so I knew I didn’t do that, so I thought that I had definitely skipped it, and didn’t hang about to hear what they said about the backup brick. Now I see that the control in question was actually on the south side, v close to 13, no thinking required, so I may well have gone there just can’t remember doing so. It will make more sense if I see a map and splits. If I have the fastest to 15 I know I will have missed 14. Very confusing.

If you have orienteered well you should be able to picture the whole course and the routes you took in your head after. I was way in too much oxygen debt to do this!

*Edit2* - I have seen the splits and really don’t think I went there. I’ll fess up tomorrow if they don’t take it down in the meantime.

C • Reinstatement 5

Lunchtime fresh air. Good to get away from work stress. New job on the horizon though!

Nice to get out. Need to get out more, and drop home stress (which should subside now the builders have finally finished) and work stress.

Up to the Commie gym for some leg strengthening then crags, back of Whinny, back down to Dunsapie and home. Stopped halfway up Whinny to speak to the Darwin-Clements, then realised my legs were quite f’ed and running up the rest was tough.

6 x 5 x 20kg leg extensions and 3 x 10 x 50kg leg press

A faffy fun home to pick some stuff up.

Warm up

SOL 3 Brown - Falkland

I was pretty nervous about how tough this was going to be, and my heart wasn’t really in it from the start, lumbering around the deep heather, not at all cleanly, and fairly half heartedly. Had a gel up the hill after 8 then felt much better, and got going on the fell. The rest of the course was lots of fun, and I felt much fresher in the second half than my training back ground and general shape deserved! Always nice.

Tentsmuir, Middle.

Ran really hard to try to beat Megan’s time. Might have had more fun / done better had Ray not told me what it was and I just ran in a bit more relaxed fashion. Reminded me what running hard feels like. Some misses, but not enough to quite hit Megan’s time - very impressive!

Sprint Falkland

Set off too hard doing a 180 to number 1 and never really settled after that. Got a bit flippant on the easy bit at the end and made a humongous mistake (nearly 2mins), so wasn’t too fussed when I found out that I had missed number 11.

Warmuppery

A bit ill

8 x 3mins w 1min rec. Then trp to the gym.

Leg extension - 3 x 10 x 15kg

Still staggeringly exhausted. Brain fog-tastic. But I needed to take Lucy to rugby and the van is unwell, so we cycled. Then I ran back from Meggetland over South (West) Craiglockhart, BBVP, and Braids.

To Meggetland to pick up Lucy and my bike.

Daily life is quite exhausting. Especially when you are an insomniac. But for various reasons the last three days I have taken as holiday from work, and yesterday the kids had classes that coincided to give me the first official 90 mins peace for about 4 months. This was fatal. I had a relaxing day. When I relax, I realise how crippling tired I am, so instead of going for a second run, I fell asleep on the sofa at 9pm, waking up really confused 2 hours later. Then went upstairs for further sleep.

Jog around the meadows and home via the Commie gym

Leg extension 4 x 5 @ 12.5,
Leg press 3 x 10 @ 50

Pentlands with Graeme. Panic JK long training for both of us.

Fun. Very misty, and we got very disoriented doing a lap of Bells Hill. You think you know the Pentlands perfectly, but you don’t. Lots of mud and off-roadiness. Graeme seems to be more agile than me, which is a bit of a worry when he is 10 years older than me and only has one functioning leg.

C • 10 years older.. 3

Porti Parkrun. With Lucy. This is the fastest I could manage after the Trotettes party last night.

To Trotettes.

Trotettes. BBVP, Mortonhall loop, Braids summit,Hermitage and back to Eilis’s.

Lunch run. Indecisive on my route, up water of Leith to roaseburn and onto the cyclepath, then a bit of a loop and back down the water of Leith again.

Work is so shit. Stress relief. Meadows, Pipers, Dassies, and back up Castro

Martin’s. Nice to run reps with company for once! 4 x 1k (3:55, 3:53, 3:52, 3:50) and 1 x 1.25k in 4:53. Felt better than expected.

From work across the meadows to the crags, over then then up the Dassies, travers the dry dam, down to Dunsapie then around the road home. My legs have felt terrible all day, so I thought this would kill but they felt ok and ran every step, even when it got v steep.