Training Log Archive: BrandNewMe

Bad sleep. Warm up / down. No kids so I had the leisure of time.

Sol3 mark hill

We (actually Mrs Graeme - thanks) drove through 45 mins of blizzard out of the 2:30 it took to get here. No gloves or cag with me. Not even a spare buff. I was going to do a long warm up but with the sleet I had to get out of the car and run, so it was limited to 5 mins and some drills. Long warm down in the sun after.

A new area for me. The course was cool, the forest was cool, I was hopeless, for the first 2 at least, and after that I started thinking, and felt fitter and stronger than for ages. Nice, so nice. The sort of rough scottish forest that really plays to my strengths, and good technical orienteering. Perfect middle race terrain.

The mistakes were thinking the map was 1:7500 when actually it was 1:10000. I stopped way too short at 1, thinking I must have overshot, and then took a wander for a good 2:30, then another 1:30 at 2. Nick was picking apart my poor JK o-technique last night, then the next 2controls I run I make the kind of mistakes (especially the 2nd) that I really ought not to be making. Poor poor poor! Great orienteering from Solway though. 10/10.

Results:

http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/d...

Same course as short blue.

Routegadget, so you can all have a laugh at my woeful headless chickening, is here:

http://www.solway.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#26&co...

C • You'd have an even better l... 1

Park run. Really quite windy, and I made the disastrous mistake of making it to the turn all by myself and did most of the 2.5k into a head wind all by myself. Crap. Still, Graeme didn't quite manage to beat me. Even after a decent warm up I felt stiff. My legs weren't firing at the start, and I was behind at the outset. Lots of physical improvement to be made.

Warm up / down.

I have really struggled to manage all of the various stresses of late. On the whole this week has been a tiresome one :-(

Tempo run, all about 7:20's until I got to Arthur's seat and radical road, the crags etc spoiled my stats.

Tired. Lacking in motivation and direction. The problem has been that I have put off the planning weekends with Ray meeting for ages, so haven't known what I am working to in the short term. Discussion had tonight, so some progress made.

It was great to see Cat and Hollie running well last weekend. Hard work and dedication paying off. They may be thinking that they had some pretty good performances - they may even think that some of those performances warrant pre-selection for woc - but look again girls. Take a close look at your ranking points, and you'll see just how pants you really were!!!

C • The Future 2

Jog, around braids and blackford, then Astley Ainsley, bruntsfield links, then George Square for ESOC training.

Getting my ass kicked on drills by pensioners. Its quality that counts, not speed. That's my excuse anyway and I am sticking to it.

Sprint training from George Square. Still umming and ahhing about 10mila or BSBM. Not sure. Got to keep my hand in with sprint in case I have to run a world cup sprint at some point (I have heard nothing on this front).

Then to the pub with ESOC. I kept it alcohol free. I have learnt my lesson. Roger Scrutton offered to get me a drink at the Big Weekend Ceilidh a few years back. He nearly choked to death when I asked for a g&t. WHAT!?! YOU DRINK??? As I was dragging the average age under the pensionable age by my presence, I thought it wise to stay sober and avoid inducing any heart attacks.

C • Lack of training 1

C • Lack of training 1

C • BSBM if you want 'easy' UK ... 4

Jog home

I was fine after the long race, back to the campsite, dinner, packed the kids off with the Murphy's kids to the campsite, and sat having restorative juices and chatting in the Murphy's van. After an hour or so I got up to wash up, and I couldn't put weight on my left foot. The heel was excruciating. So I staggered about all evening. Moving about on it seemed to ease it off a bit, but I was limping badly. I had a bit of a sleepless night stressing about it, and woke still limping, thinking the relay was going to be impossible. Couldn't get hold of the captain to drop out, so I had to turn up, and by the time I got there it had eased considerably. It was still painful, but I could run without limping so did the course.

Jk relays.

Women's first leg.

I got really confused at the start. Half way to 1 I was so confused. Nothing seemed to fit at all. I couldn't just keep on running, when I couldn't make things fit. Eventually I came to a ruined wall which made sense and I ran on. I worked out later that I had been navigating from one of the last control circles to 1, and that's why I got so confused. 2 mins dropped here. The rest was just a fairly tiresome run through the pack. A minor miss at 8 too. 30secs probably. At least I managed to finally pass Nick (on the way to 5) and Pippa Dakin (going to 7). Phew!