Training Log Archive: BrandNewMe

Hot date with Graeme.

From Castlelaw car park, along, down by the trees to the road, up the rezzies to the end, and back via the path on the n side of black hill, harbour hill, bells hill, capelaw and the w side of Castlelaw. Great fun. V windy indeed. I was trying to convince graeme to try to make a kite with his cag to see if he could take off. He didn't want to - boo!

I was thinking about why I managed to go 9 mins quicker on Friday. I think part of it was that I was up for it, and my running was much more relaxed. I think that's maybe because if you spend less time looking at the route, you can look more at the terrain, and don't feel the need to brace your body for unforeseen undulations. Anyway, I always think that I am a pretty good natural terrain runner as I have the particular type of strength needed for the likes of Craig a Barnes, so I don't bother too much about terrain running. Maybe I am not so used to looking ahead and anticipating the terrain as I could be though, and this is something that I could improve further with more frequent terrain running. At recent races I have spent much more time either racing to the start for first start or with the kids directly before the start (balmoral, forvie, tentsmuir, Alvie, loch ordie) and I think this has meant that i end up tense, tired and stressed at the start, instead of focused. Something to work at for big races if I want to START feeling up for it, instead of plodding the first few then getting into it later.

Tinto twin night.

Middle brown 4.6k.

So stupidly tired today. Kids woke up uber-early, and then were tired and grumpy all day like me, so I was glad to get out of the house in the evening to this. A nice blunder around Lanarkshire, and that was just getting there. Didn't read the details, forgot where Carmichael was, no internet, so I drove down pretty much every road in in Lanarkshire.

So got there late and rushed to the start. First night o for ages. It was v rough and heathery, and v windy, but warm, and I felt v strong and I was enjoying myself immensely. Number 1 I was too low and I was not concentrating as I thought it would be reflective and easily visible but it wasn't, and 5 always going to be a total bingo. 7 made no sense, but there was a control there with my number on so I am not complaining. 8 was really nice forest. Not a race to read anything into, but a fun way to spend an evening.

http://www.scottish-orienteering.org/doma/index.ph...

Jog to the start, not including the scramble from the path to the cairn.

Craig a Barnes.

Sol5 brown course re-run.

When nick suggested re-running the course a month or so ago, I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't. Re-running the course has the advantages of a forest time trial with Helena J to compare yourself with, to see how much quicker you can go without mistakes, try out new routes, see if I've got quicker in various bits of the forest over others, micro / macro route choices, see to what extent I can push myself in training etc etc.

What a beatiful morning it was. A bit wetter in the forest than last time, but perfect temperature. It was much more relaxing physically being able to go for it without the navigation and the hesitations. Felt great, and 9 mins quicker than last time. So the few big learning points of interest to other competitors was left was massively quicker going 1-2 (I got 11:00) and 6 was still a shite control site. The veg is just not right.

Such fun. Buzzing. Big smiles! Stacks of geeking fun lined up for tonight.

I've now managed to get GPS from today (see Ray Ward) and during the event (see Claire Ward) on the rg2 site from this event. It is totally cool (for a saddo like me) as I can see my GPS from the event running against myself from today. I did go to all of the control sites today, the tracking is a bit off.

http://www.esoc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/

Splits:

1 - 5:27 (8 secs SLOWER than original)
2 - 11:00 (2:12 quicker)
3 - 3:15 (39 quicker)
4 - 5:52 (27 quicker)
5 - 4:05 (1:14 quicker)
6 - 2:18 (2:03 quicker)
7 - 6:21 (51 quicker)
8 - 15:20 (53 quicker)
9 - 3:56 (24 quicker)
10 - 1:27 (19 quicker)
Finish - 37 (1 secs quicker)

So the descent was quicker in the race, esp as I picked up mark Johnson at 8 and was trying to drop him (i ran much further in the race to 9 than I did today!). Today I navigated the following bits:

Leaving the path at 1, all the way to 2, leaving 2, to 6, the second half of 8 - this could still have been better, to 9.

The rest was just running.

C • Chicked 4

Easy week. I am really showing off with my lack of injuries now, and doing easy weeks, medium weeks and hard weeks, for probably the first time ever. Nick tells me that's what people do when they are not perma crocked. It feels v wrong though! The cycle was competitive this morning though, which made things a bit better :-)

Trying to think rationally...

Wasn't really meaning to go that fast, it just happened.

Raging, still absolutely raging! Helpful this morning though, as I cycle into the remains of hurricane gonzales.

There are many ways to motivate yourself to train compulsively, but I think rage is one of the most productive. If I can control my rage enough to communicate with British Orienteering enough to get to WOC, it could be a very effective (if not very positive, or nice, or enjoyable) way of producing a good result. I have plenty of anger to last me to WOC 2015. Its all good!

Just so angry, and sad and getting quite depressed. 6 x 5 mins with 1min standstill recovery. The canal towpath is nice and muddy just now, which makes the pace pretty good, esp if you take off the 7 min jog at the start, 10 mins jog at the end, and the 5mins of standstill recovery. 30 mins of effort, 4.8miles.

My problem with reps is that I usually go for time based reps, and just start when my watch shows that the recovery is up, without stopping and starting my watch. I never really know how far I have gone, so it is hard to compare week on week. So I am going to start and stop my watch in future, so I can check what pace I am running, to compare with my long tempo pace. I downloaded my garmin, and this particular session was approx 6:30 miling, but is was very windy, so I am not sure how comparable that is, but it will be interesting to compare week on week.

I was going to have a rest day but after a morning of struggling to compose myself at work, a lunchtime run was required. I had to stop at half way for a 15min sit down in a nice bit of forest, taking some deep breaths, then ran back at 6:45 pace.