Training Archive: KatIn the 31 days ending 2006-05-31:
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| M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wednesday May 31 | ||
| Running 30:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Includes about 8 minutes warm-up before the race and about 22 minutes afterward, jogging with Jon M. and then picking up five controls (which I did using three maps and no compass). | ||
| Orienteering 59:00 [4] 7 km (8:26 / km) | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| EVENT: The fourth "sprint" in the TVOC Summer Series, this time at Wittenham Clumps.
COURSE: "A" - order of loops ZYX TERRAIN: Two large "clumps" (hills) that were mostly grassy and some woodland behind them. Lots of fences, a few really muddy trails, and nettles as always, although the course-setter did a good job of trying to avoid them. Overall, the terrain allowed for fast running, but also (due to lack of concrete features) for some messing about trying to find the control once in the right area. MY RUN: Since it was announced at the start that all three loops together would sum up to 7km, I tried to pace myself in the beginning and not go all out. Even though the fast guys had disappeared after the first control, I was still ahead of a bunch of people to the 8th control on the first (Z) course. But then I misread the map and tried to go around on the trail to the left to #9. This was a decent route choice, but there was a fence and even though it was passable (and there was a gap in it, which I didn't see at the time), I didn't want to climb over it and had to head back. So I lost about a minute of time and energy there running on the hillside. Then on course Y I was going fine at first and I was happy to feel like I was on my own and not with a crowd in front of me to follow. But #4 was a "rough clearing" in the middle of nowhere and I searched for it for about two minutes in the nettles before finally finding it. Other orienteers were lost there as well and there was little to relocate off of, so I don't feel so bad about it. Other than that, I hesitated on #6 (probably cost another 20-30 seconds). Finally, I had a good run on the last (shortest and easiest) course X. I spiked all of the controls except for #4, where I lost about 30-60 seconds because I was going too high on the hillside and ended up going to the wrong control first. Two other people followed me to this wrong control, an old guy from TVOC and Ollie Hughes. I said it was the wrong control and the old guy checked it, agreed, and we both went to find the right one. Ollie unfortunately punched and didn't realize until several seconds later that it was the wrong one. This is how I was ahead of him at the finish - even though he gained some ground on me after realizing his mistake, I sprinted from the last control and managed to hold him off. I love fast finishes! RESULTS: 16th on the A-course. THOUGHTS: This was a really fun course. It was basically a one-hour tempo run with plenty to occupy the mind. There were even sheep on one of the clumps! | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Tuesday May 30 | ||
| Running 58:50 [4] 6.7 mi (8:46 / mi) | |
| ahr:151 max:182 shoes: Orange Asics | ||
| I jogged to South Park, did a loop with CJ, then did intervals with Helen (running up the hill, jogging back down). Afterward, I did another loop around the park and went back home.
Helen and I did 5x2 minutes up the hill, using the downhills for recoveries. The HRM chest strap was bothering me and felt too constrictive, so I tried to make it looser after the first three (hence the longer rest there) and finally took it off for the last one. Although the last one still felt hard (because my legs were dead by then), at least I could breathe freely. I think I will have to try a different chest strap. The one that Greg lent me for the road race in January felt fine. Perhaps I should try that one again. I didn't manage to get all details for each interval because I'm still learning how to use the watch and I haven't really figured out the timer function yet. Here are some relevant details: 1. max HR 180 2. max HR 180, avg 171, (7:33/mile, 0.27 miles) 3. max HR 182, avg 173 (7:22/mile, 0.28 miles) (Several minutes rest - tried to make chest strap looser.) 4. max HR 179 (Took off chest strap.) 5. (7:09/mile, 0.29 miles) These intervals were the hardest I've ever done. Part of this has to do with not being able to breathe fully because of the HRM, but even when I took that thing off, I was still so tired! My legs felt better this week than last week, which is why I was able to go faster up the hill and have a higher heart rate. But going up a hill (even a not-so-steep one) kills my quads and calves. After the last one, I felt like I was dragging my feet around. I was so tired! | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Monday May 29 | ||
| Biking 16:00 [2] | |
| Biking to Shotover. | ||
| Orienteering 1:16:57 [2] | |
| ahr:142 max:166 shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| I designed a course for myself on the Shotover map which consisted of short line-Os followed by clusters of controls (31 controls in total). The line-Os were meant as a break from concentration. I was trying to practice smooth flow in and out of controls, so I took along a control-descriptions holder and my SI (because it feels strange not to have anything on my right hand). I was even keen enough to create a control description card for myself, with the feature of each control as well as a made-up number. I can never keep those numbers in my head for more than a few seconds...
The control flow worked out about as well as it could have, given that there were no flags out there and the map I was using is outdated. Good stuff. | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Sunday May 28 | ||
| Running 35:09 [2] 4.39 mi (8:01 / mi) | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Morning jog by myself. It was sunny and wonderful outside. I ran around the left side of Christ Church Meadow and up the river to the blue bridge and back. 17:40 out, 17:29 back. | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 8:00 [1] | |
Saturday May 27 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Average HR for 5.5 hours last night was 45.
I have exams in a few weeks so I really need to start spending solid hours doing maths. Thus, I've decided to take this weekend off and focus on my work. | ||
| C • off 1 | ||
Friday May 26 | ||
| Running 38:02 [2] 4.83 mi (7:53 / mi) | |
| shoes: Orange Asics | ||
| An easy run by myself. I went up Marston Road and cut across to University Parks. I ran around there aimlessly, observing people and birds.I felt really slow when I started out (legs are sore), but warmed up after 25 minutes or so and felt like I was cruising at the end. | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
| Note | |
| This is the most running I've ever done in a week. I have 41 miles recorded, but this is not including about 70 minutes of running that I did this week which I didn't record distance for (this is over 7 miles, probably closer to 8). Plus, I run much more distance when orienteering than the figures I put down, which are the straight-line distances. Thus, this week I've probably done around 50 miles all in all. Pretty cool. | ||
Thursday May 25 | ||
| Running 1:42:29 [3] 12.77 mi (8:01 / mi) | |
| ahr:148 max:168 shoes: Orange Asics | ||
| A long run with Scott, incorporating Club Run. We ran around the right side of Christ Church meadow, up the river all the way to Port Meadow, around the right side of that, a loop around the Nature Reserve, then through the city streets to the Rad Cam to meet others for Club Run. Only SGB and Alex Goodwin showed up. We waited 15 minutes for Joe, then gave up and started the run without him. I think I would have felt stronger had I not had this short break. When Scott and I resumed running, we both felt a bit stiff and my quads felt sore. Also, I realized how hungry and dehydrated I was. So for the next 40 minutes of running, all I could think about was eating oranges. We ran through University Parks and did a loop around the meadows across the bridge there. To make it easier on myself, I ran ahead of the guys for the second half, even though it felt antisocial. (When I'm tired, it's mentally easier for me to run ahead and even speed up a bit rather than slow down, whereas trying to keep a group's pace wears me down.)
This just might be the most mileage I've ever done in a day. I've certainly gone on longer runs (in terms of time), but those were usually in the woods and therefore the actual distance I went was considerably less than it would be on flats. I'm quite pleased with the average speed of 8 min/mile. Some parts of the run were quite quick (on paths and roads) but the majority of it was on muddy paths and even muddier fields where there was several inches of water on the ground. By the time I got to my room, I had mud all over my legs and clothes. My pretty, new white-and-orange Asics are now brown. | ||
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Wednesday May 24 | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [1] | |
| Hip and ankle exercises while doing Outreach. I was standing by control 5 so there was lots of time to kill until the kids came around. I'm ashamed to say that the kids orienteered sort of like I did yesterday. They would run to the control, punch, immediately run off, then stop a few meters away when they realized they didn't know where they were going. Then they would spot another control, run to it, discover it wasn't their control, and run around in circles. | ||
| Running 1:16:50 [3] 8.82 mi (8:43 / mi) | |
| ahr:142 max:172 shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| I did a Christ Church meadow loop by myself, then headed over to South Park for the OUOC hilly session. SGB, Joe, Timmeo, Scott, and Chris M all came and we did several short zigzag courses up the hill, meant to be long intervals. It was very unstructured - nothing was timed, we drew our own (different) courses, and the map is very dodgy so I only aimed to go in the right direction and not even necessarily get to the exact feature (which half the time wasn't mapped as it should be anyway). I did three such short courses, using the downhills as recovery. My legs felt tired from yesterday so even though I tried to push as much as possible, my heart rate wasn't getting very high and this felt more like a tempo run with breaks than an interval session. After I did these courses, I attempted to do a short rep uphill just to see if I could get my heart rate up. No luck. I ran uphill for about a minute or two easy, with my HR at 150/160. Then I pushed for 50 seconds all out and could only get my HR up to 172 (average of 170 for those 50 seconds). Hmm. I can get my HR higher on flats, but it doesn't seem to happen on hills.
After this, I jogged down the hill again, did a loop around the park with the others collecting the tapes Joe had put out, then jogged home with Scott. My hands were freezing when I got home - it has been rain and chill all week. | ||
| C • Monitors 1 | ||
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
| C • Around on 7/22-7/23 9 | ||
Tuesday May 23 | ||
| Running warm up/down 23:05 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| About 16 minutes warm-up, 7 minutes cool-down. | ||
| Orienteering 48:00 [4] 4.41 km (10:53 / km) | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| EVENT: The third sprint in the TVOC Summer Series, at Brill Common
COURSE: ZX2Y TERRAIN: Mostly rough open with lots of contour detail. Although there are no huge sequences of contour lines, there are constant ups and downs, hills and depressions of only 5 meters, but *everywhere.* MY RUN: I started off quite well and was even ahead of Chris Millard through control 7. I felt I was moving fast and navigating well. But then when trying to get out onto the road, I got caught up in brambles right by the pavement! I tried stamping them down, but they were really thick and over my head. Eventually I managed to get through (30+ seconds), but by this point everybody who had the same first loop as I did was well ahead. I had thorns in my hair and digging into my hands when I finally managed to untangle myself from there. As soon as I got out onto the road, I tried speeding up, but suddenly felt quite tired. As Boris was just telling me the other day, it is possible to feel like you are flying, but then trip or something and totally lose that wonderful feeling. It was like this for me today. After getting tangled, I tried to pull myself together and keep focusing and managed to make it back to the start/finish without any further big mistakes, but then I didn't look at the next map properly before running off and took a terrible route choice to the first control. To make matters worse, I had trouble finding it (I couldn't see it because of the tall grass). I got the next few ok, but none were smooth. This was partly because there were areas of totally impossible brambles not mapped as green which I had to go around (such as on #4) and partly because I wasn't concentrating well. The ultimate mistake of the day was the first control of course Y, which I believe I spent almost 10 minutes looking for. I went to the right area right from the start, but I was expecting a pit in the open grassy bits. Actually, the pit was hidden beneath a tree which I personally would have mapped as distinct. Thus, because I was expecting something other than what was on the terrain, I ended up relocating for a long time, even going from the third control once. After that, another minor slip on the route choice from 4-5 (where I misinterpreted which buildings were which on the map), but ok otherwise. RESULTS: 18th on the A course (all three loops). Time is an estimate - may be off by a few minutes. THOUGHTS: Brill is lovely and despite the nettles and brambles (which I experienced a *lot* of), it's quite a fun place to orienteer in. As for my navigation there, I can honestly say that tonight it was lack of concentration rather than lack of experience which caused my mistakes. On Saturday I had a bad sprint because that particular type of area was so different from what I was used to. Tonight I just couldn't focus. Nonetheless, I had fun and got a good mini-hill workout :) | ||
| Strength Training 5:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Monday May 22 | ||
| Running 45:33 [2] 5.38 mi (8:28 / mi) | |
| ahr:145 max:182 shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Ran around South Park with an old map of the place, then ran around the small park across the road. Then I headed back to Rose Lane and did a Christ Church meadow loop, followed by two strides (about 30 seconds each, with jogging in between). By this point it was raining really hard and I was totally soaked. It was fun. | ||
| Strength Training 6:40 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Sunday May 21 | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Running before and after the race in the rain. | ||
| Orienteering race 49:55 [5] 5.6 km (8:55 / km) +250m 7:17 / km | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| EVENT: UK Cup at Rowney Warren
COURSE: W-Open, 5.6 km, 250 meters climb, 25 controls TERRAIN: Hilly, but quite runnable, with a network of small paths and lots of contour detail. MY RUN: I started off with a 4.5 minute mistake on the first control, then was hesitant to the next few. I had a 2.5 minute mistake on #5, which is where Liis Johanson (as well as Vicky Whaley and Blanka) caught up to me. I pushed on the next few controls and stayed with Liis all the way through number 15 or so. We both messed up #14 by about a minute, although by this point I'd thought I'd lost her since I didn't see her. I was surprised when I finally found the control and started running to the next one, I could see her running along the path. After this, I was really hesitant to #16 (and in fact, went straight instead of taking the big trail right below, which I should have) so I lost about 30+ seconds there. Finally, I lost over a minute on #19. I was right on the mark and knew I was going on the right bearing, but the control was a pit which I just didn't see and kept running about searching for. After this, I was reasonably clean to the finish. With three controls to go, I hit a thick branch head-on and it knocked out my contact so for about 15 scary seconds I was sort of moving forward, but couldn't really see out of one eye, but luckily the contact hadn't fallen out and after a lot of blinking, I got it back into place and I could run again. RESULTS: I was 13th out of 25 women in the women's open. The winning time was 35:49 by Pippa Whitehouse. Although I had gained time on both Vicky and Blanka after they'd caught up to me in the beginning, I didn't gain enough to beat them, so they took 11th and 12th place right in front of me. In total, I had about 9-10 minutes of mistakes. THOUGHTS: I absolutely *loved* this race! It was hilly, but my calves didn't cramp up this time and I felt quite strong throughout. Also, it was very cool to run with Liis. I didn't have the speed to get in front of her and she never hesitated, but I was looking at my map and could anticipate which way she would turn and sometimes I'd take micro route-choices different from hers. So I did feel like I was orienteering (although not absolutely confidently) but also I was going *fast*! Sadly, because of my less-than-optimal choice to #16, I lost her and was on my own from there. Even after that, though, I was still going at a good pace. This was such a great event! After I finished, I wished I could go out and do it all over again. I felt awesome. | ||
Saturday May 20 | ||
| Running 30:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Easy running before, between, and after the sprints. | ||
| Orienteering 22:48 [4] 2.51 km (9:05 / km) +30m 8:34 / km | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| EVENT: British Sprint Champs in Milton Keynes
This was the first (qualifying) sprint of the day. I was in women's heat B, seeded quite high because of some previous results I had (somewhere along the line I guess I managed to earn UK cup points). I was afraid that this sprint would include some new type of features/situations and I would be confused, and my premonition turned out correct. After some hesitation and small mistakes on the first few controls, I had a 2 minute mistake to control 10 because I couldn't find the way to get across the highway (which involved running in the mud along a canal under a bridge). I kept running across the bridge and up and down the side of it and finally some guy yelled at me to go directly under and I figured it out. By this point, I was the last person out since I was one of the last starters and the other women had somehow disappeared under the bridge minutes ago (which baffled me). I went on to make a 3:40-minute mistake to 14 because when leaving 13, I thought I was looking for 15 and there was somewhat of an identical situation on both legs, so I got confused. Once I realized this mistake, I got #14 and finished the course. Very bad result, which put me in the B final. I realistically had a chance at the A final with my speed, but I didn't have the experience and consistency to pull it off. | ||
| Orienteering 16:45 [4] 2.38 km (7:02 / km) | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| The second sprint of the day. This time, I was hoping to win the B-final and have a clean run. I was having a decent time of it in the beginning (a few minor mistakes and some hesitation, but still good) but then I wasted 1:15 trying to find control 4, which had apparently been stolen. I kept trying to attack the feature from all angles and didn't see the flag. I didn't have the self-confidence to decide it was missing till some men (who had the same control) came and decided it had been nicked.
I had some bad control flow towards the end (was beginning to lose concentration) and lost 20 seconds on #14, #15 each, but then straightened up. Other than this, I had a clean and fast run. I think I ended up fourth overall, but if the time from controls 3 to 5 was taken out from everybody's results, I would have ended up second, behind Vicky Whaley in first place. (The control was there by the time she and other later-starting girls got to it.) | ||
Friday May 19 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| I decided to take today off because I have three races in the next two days. I'm looking forward to the British Sprint Champs tomorrow! | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [3] | |
Thursday May 18 | ||
| Note | |
| slept:4.5 | ||
| I wore the HRM at night again. I have the watch set to take a split if I bring it close to the heart rate monitor strap automatically and I think I did this in my sleep by accident. Average heart rate from the time I got into bed to the time I took a split was 51 (max of 134, surprisingly) and average heart rate from then to the time I woke up was 48 (max 75). I wonder what causes HR to occasionally jump high while I am sleeping. I assume it is because I'm a bad sleeper and toss and turn a lot in my sleep, wake up in the middle of the night, etc. and all of these little things boost my HR momentarily. But I also wonder if HR changes with the different phases of sleep, such as REM sleep and deep sleep. | ||
| C • High readings 2 | ||
| Running 38:44 [3] 5.03 mi (7:41 / mi) | |
| ahr:155 max:183 shoes: Orange Asics | ||
| Club Run. When I started out running, everything hurt - knees, shins, calves, even the bottoms of my feet (which cramped up during yesterday's run). As the run progressed, I began to feel better and actually ended up at the front of the group for the second half. | ||
| C • boys and toys 1 | ||
| Strength Training 10:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 6:00 [1] | |
Wednesday May 17 | ||
| Note | |
| I tested out my watch today. I started off by putting very particular time zone limits on the pace and the result was that the watch was almost constantly beeping the first five minutes because I was below/above the proper pace zone. So I stopped and changed the setting to broaden the pace zone (so instead of a 20-second window there was a 75-second one). This proved to be ok in general but still the watch screetched every few minutes or so and finally I just turned the pace zone thing off completely. | ||
| Running 5:11 [2] 0.61 mi (8:30 / mi) | |
| ahr:137 max:145 shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Watch was set to keep my pace between 8:20 min/mile and 8:40 min/mile.
max pace: 7:18 min/mile average pace: 8:30 min/mile | ||
| Running 18:00 [2] 2.15 mi (8:22 / mi) | |
| ahr:146 max:157 shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Watch was set to keep my pace between 7:45 min/mile and 9:00 min/mile.
max pace: 6:54 min/mile average pace: 8:21 min/mile | ||
| Running 53:20 [2] 6.49 mi (8:12 / mi) | |
| ahr:155 max:182 shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Watch was on the "free" setting, which means I can run however I want to and it just records time, HR, and distance without screetching at me.
max pace: 7:07 min/mile average pace: 8:12 min/mile [While running on the flat trails, my pace was averaging 7:40 min/mile, but while running back south across Port Meadow, I was running with the wind in my face and uneven swampy grass underfoot, so I slowed down to 8:30 min/mile (at times even 8:45 min/mile) there. Then, on the way home, my speed was back up to 7:35 min/mile running around on the Christ Church Meadow path.] | ||
| Note | |
| I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with the watch. I wore it to bed last night and although I didn't note my morning resting heart rate, I can say that my average heart rate from the time I got into bed to the time I got up this morning was 51.
Also, I now have an idea of what my usual good-feeling easy pace is. Going about 7:40 min/mile on a flat wide path with not much wind feels quick, but comfortable. On the other hand, going slower than about 8:30 min/mile in the same situation feels like I'm dragging my legs. Both of these subjective feelings change quite drastically when running in different circumstances (wind, uneven ground, etc.). | ||
| Strength Training 5:00 [2] | |
Tuesday May 16 | ||
| Running 45:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Jogging around Youlbury setting up controls for the second sprint of the TVOC Summer Series. I know the place so well now that I barely had to glance at the map at all to know where my control sites were.
After weeks of thinking about this sprint event and planning the courses, it felt so good to yell "go!" and watch people head off in all different directions (six different forkings) at the mass start. I stood around at the start/finish and helped people exchange maps and kept time. Afterward, many people came up to me to personally thank me and tell me they had fun. Even the people who complained about my sneaky bridge control (where the control was almost under the bridge) seemed to enjoy themselves. So I think today was a success. =) | ||
| C • Shame I missed it 1 | ||
| Strength Training 5:00 [3] | |
| C • Youbury - sounds good! 4 | ||
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Monday May 15 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Involuntary rest day - I wanted to go for a short jog, but there was a lot of stuff to do before I left for England and I didn't have time. | ||
Sunday May 14 | ||
| Event: 28th Annual Billygoat Run | ||
| Orienteering 2:00:00 [4] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| The Billygoat. I was right behind Sam in the beginning of the course, but my calves started to get really, really tight on the way to #3, so after punching I stood around for several minutes trying to decide whether to continue or whether to DNF. It was a mental struggle, but I decided to go on. So I walked uphill to (the eastern) #4. Then, while heading downhill, Kseniya caught up to me and after chatting a bit, I decided to run away from her. So I sped up and got #5. Then, Angelica caught up as well and we sort of ran together for the next 10 controls or so. By this point, I was feeling good again. My calves felt ok on downhills and flats and the navigation was going well for me. It was really fun to feel like I was running *with* someone, but at the same time, to be navigating on my own. Angelica strayed too far left on #15, but I contoured around the hilltop and hit it right on. I was careful to #16, not wanting to make a big mistake, and then careful again to #17. My route choice to #17 was solid, but I guess I was expecting to actually see a gray smooth rock ground so I missed #17 by perhaps 20-30 meters, ended up going into the green (perhaps even off the map), then coming back, not seeing it a second time, and having to relocate from the trail. I was quite frustrated by the time I found it. The control site really wasn't what I was expecting! But I pushed onwards. I actually made it through most of the course. It was #20 that killed me. By this point, all the main packs had passed and I was alone trying to find a rock on a steep hillside. I spent at least 20 minutes wandering up and down through the bushes trying to find the stupid rock. This again made my calves hurt a lot and after coming back to the top three times, I decided to give up and go down. This was a tough choice to make, but I think it was the right one. | ||
| Running 10:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Warm-up jogging before the start. | ||
Saturday May 13 | ||
| Event: Pre-Billygoat Sprints | ||
| Running 20:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Jogging before/between/after the sprints. | ||
| Orienteering 16:00 [4] 1.8 km (8:53 / km) +50m 7:48 / km | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Running the first Billygoat sprint. I was very hesitant to the first control, getting a feel for the map, then messed up number 2 by several minutes. (Neil had started a minute after me and had caught up to me, but then started drifting too far left on the way to 2. Even though I sensed he was going too far and not in the right direction, I assumed he knew what he was doing and followed him.) After that, I was still a bit hesitant on some of the controls, but no more mistakes. | ||
| Orienteering 28:07 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| I aimed to jog the second sprint and get used to the woods and practice control flow. But despite going slowly (which I thought would make it easier to navigate), I made more mistakes on this second course than on the first one. | ||
Friday May 12 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| Spent today walking all over downtown Manhattan. | ||
Thursday May 11 | ||
| Running 32:15 [2] 3.7 mi (8:43 / mi) | |
| ahr:126 max:158 shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Easy jog with Boris in Fort Tryon Park so I could try out my new HRM/distance watch. | ||
Wednesday May 10 | ||
| Biking 15:00 [2] | |
| Biking up to Shotover with OUOC. | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:22 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Jogging the flat grassy paths on top of Shotover Hill before and after the race. | ||
| Orienteering 42:00 [4] 5.15 km (8:09 / km) | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| EVENT: The first of the TVOC Summer Series sprint events, this one at Shotover.
COURSES: Each "sprint" in the summer series consists of three loops: X, Y, Z. So really, the event is not so much a sprint as three consecutive sprints without any breaks. Each person has a different order of the loops (I had YXZ) and comes back to the start/finish after each loop to exchange maps. COURSE LENGTHS: X was 1.41 km, Y was 1.77 km, Z was 1.97 km. MY RUN: This event was fantastic fun and I felt great after finishing! There was a mass start and I was confused about the start triangle and direction and therefore ended up standing at the start for 10 seconds, then taking the straight (and bad) route choice to the first control, so everybody was ahead of me then. But then I caught up to Helen, who had the same exact forking (YXZ) that I did and we kept passing each other during the first two loops (mostly because I was faster but she had better route choices), then finally I got ahead at the end of X and stayed ahead for Z. This is the first time I beat Helen and even though this was just a short event on a map we've both run on before, it's still significant. I'm really happy about it!!! I had some bad route choices during the first two loops (I ran through a swamp, went through the green, went way around (which included a lot of extra climb) on one long leg, etc, but I sort of got it together for the last loop (even though I still had some questionable route choices there). It definitely helped that I've ran on this map a few times already - I at least had a general idea of where stuff was. Obviously I didn't know it well enough to have a clean run, but I still felt great during and after the race. Very fun!! | ||
| Strength Training 9:00 [3] | |
| C • great orienteering! 2 | ||
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Tuesday May 9 | ||
| Running 51:13 [2] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Running to and from Port Meadow along the river while looking at the Cold Ash map from last term. Nice warm weather, but too many bugs! I wiped about 20 flies off of my body throughout the course of the run. | ||
| Strength Training 13:00 [3] | |
| Core stuff, hip exercises, and some push-ups. | ||
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
| Note | |
| The toe is still swollen but at least it hurts less and I was able to go running. On the downside, my knees felt sore and there were occasional twinges of pain, probably from the fast downhill running I did on Sunday. | ||
Monday May 8 | ||
| Note | |
| (injured) (rest day) | ||
| The scratch/wound from the wire fence is still bothering me. I went to see the college doctor about it today and he said it's a bad infection and prescribed some antibiotics for it. I hope the problem goes away soon. I had to wear flip-flops to the OUOC annual dinner because wearing real shoes hurt.
I didn't really mind taking today off. I intend for this week to be relatively easy. | ||
| C • infection 3 | ||
Sunday May 7 | ||
| Running 12:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| Running around the string course with Chris M and then around some more through the green with SGB. Towards the end of this warm-up jog, my foot caught in some old, rusty fence when I ran out of the green onto a path. The fence was practically lying on the ground, which is why I didn't see it, and had sharp spiky things attached to it. One of these tore through my shoe and actually broke the skin on my big toe. It hurt jogging back to the car afterward, but when I took off my shoe and sock, it looked like nothing more than a scratch, so I put a plaster on it and ran up to the start. | ||
| Orienteering 1:14:25 [4] 8.4 km (8:52 / km) +245m 7:44 / km | |
| shoes: Orange O-Shoes | ||
| EVENT: BADO Regional event at Perham Down
COURSE: W21L, 8.4 km, 245 meters climb, 18 controls WOODS: The east side of the map was mainly open with rolling hillsides and lots of grass. There were lots of holes in the ground (rabbits, probably) so it wasn't a total joy to run on, but the sunny weather made up for it. The west part of the map had bigger areas of white and green woods, with the usual assortment of brambles and nettles. However, visibility in the white sections was particularly low, especially when trying to locate a depression. MY RUN: Physically, I felt tired after last week and my calves were really tight on the uphills (need to work on that), but I was still going quite fast (would have been just under 7 min/km if not for three big mistakes). Technically, I felt good about the navigation in general, but still made a few big mistakes - 7 minutes on #9, #2 minutes on #12, and 4 minutes on #13. Add this to the several small mistakes I made, and it sums up to a total loss of over 15 minutes. STUFF I NEED TO THINK ABOUT: (1) Pay attention to the type of vegetation in the woods (what is mapped as white, green, etc.) and take this into account when picking route choices. All three of the big mistakes I made were due to trying to attack a control on a bearing through brambles and nettles, with low visibility. This did not work because I would get stuck in the woods with nothing to relocate off of and not much desire to go running around in a spiral because of the undergrowth. #13 is a great example of this. This control was in a depression in the woods, close to the vegetation boundary which separated woods from rough open. I ran along the rough open, then decided to cut into the woods early and keep running down along the edge, thinking that the control might be more easily spotted this way. The result was that I ran around through the undergrowth for several minutes without finding anything and finally came out into the rough open again to try and relocate from there. I did so successfully and when I entered the woods again, I saw the depression right in front of me. In Southern England, it is often wise to go around on a path or on a nice bit of ground, then cut in only when necessary, rather than to go straight through the woods. The route choice I chose to #13 would have worked quite well (and probably been best) in nice, runnable woods, but is not the right one to make on this particular map. (2) Keep my head up while orienteering to pick out features in the distance. My fifth control was on a vegetation boundary in the middle of some white woods. I was looking at this while running down a grassy hill to the woods section and it dawned on me that if there is a vegetation boundary in the woods without change of color on the map (everything was mapped white), then the only difference must be the type of tree. So I looked ahead at the woods more closely, and indeed, I could make out a pretty distinct vegetation boundary separating some type of leafy green trees and coniferous ones. That was quite neat! (3) Have a good attackpoint when the control is on a vague feature (for example, "rough open with scattered trees" from white/green woods). I should have tried harder to do so on #2, but I just went into this rough open hoping I'd see the control and ended up running around for 30-40 seconds looking for it. It was a vague feature, to be sure, but I should have been more careful about it. | ||
| Note | |
| During the race I was focused on navigating and therefore didn't notice the pain, but after the race, my foot was killing me where the fence had scratched it. As the evening progressed, the big toe swelled up and hurt. Now it seems to be a bit better again. I hope it was just a small infection and nothing serious... | ||
Saturday May 6 | ||
| Biking 1:00:00 [2] | |
| Biking to and from Youlbury. On the way there, it was sunny and uphill. On the way back, it was raining and downhill. By the time I got home, I was completely soaked through to the skin and cold. | ||
| Orienteering 1:31:00 [2] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Running the three courses I designed on Youlbury. I made sure that I myself could find all of the features and that the main things in the area matched up with the map. For clarity, I made a few minor changes to my courses. Then I worked out final details for each control such as which side of the feature the flag should be on.
After I finished, I found Ian (who had been walking around surveying the map itself) and we went for another walk through Youlbury to check some stuff out. Hopefully Ian will be able to update the map soon so that I can draw the final versions of my courses on it, along with control descriptions. That is exciting! | ||
Friday May 5 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| I decided to take today completely off because I wanted to have some quiet time alone by myself. I spent my afternoon planning courses for the Youlbury sprint I'm organizing on May 16th, then biking around town trying to find the best place to print maps. Now I am once again thinking about courses... | ||
| Strength Training (hip exercises) 5:00 [1] | |
Thursday May 4 | ||
| Running 42:00 [3] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Club Run. There was a record number of people there tonight, especially girls!
Kat O., Kat A., Helen, Chris M, Chris W, Ben, David, SGB, Scott, Joe | ||
| Running (track) 13:00 [5] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| The set today was 3x{800 at 3K pace, 100 meter jog, 300 at 1500 pace, 3 minutes rest}.
I had no idea how to pace an 800 since I've never done a 3K race nor have I ever done a track session with 800s. So the first set turned out to be rather screwy: 89, 97 (3:06 total) 43 seconds to VERY SLOWLY jog 100 meters 68 for 300 meters (I didn't attempt to go faster than on the 800s, so this was 90 sec/400 pace) I decided to try and be more organized about the second set and thought I would aim for 94, 94 for the two 800s. So I purposefully forced myself to slow down a bit on the first lap, which worked just fine. But then I couldn't tell how much to speed up on the second lap and ended up going two seconds past my mark. The results were 94, 96 (3:10 total) 48 to SLOWLY jog 100 meters 68 for the 300 again Something didn't feel right about today's session. This is why I stopped after the second set. I think there were two main reasons for this: One was the longish break between warm-up (club run) and these intervals. When I got to the track, there was some middle-school race happening and all of the Oxford students had to wait for 20-30 minutes for these kids to finish up and get off the track. So even though I did a warm-up session, the effects were kind of lost by the time we actually started doing intervals. This might be why my calves hurt afterward as well - they tended to hurt last term when I didn't do proper warm-up. The second reason was the heat. I already know from past experience that my body does not tolerate heat well. It wasn't *that* hot today (NYC summers are much worse), but it was warm enough to make me begin to feel dehydrated and sluggish. My throat hurt during intervals. I realize that runners somehow keep running during the summer and therefore I'll probably get more accustomed to the heat, but in the meantime, all I can think about is how nice it is to swim in a pool and never feel sweaty or hot. | ||
| Running 6:30 [2] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Jogging home. I didn't feel like doing a longer cool-down today. | ||
| C • gear and heat 5 | ||
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
| Strength Training (hip exercises) 3:00 [2] | |
| Note | |
| I feel I did too much pavement running today during club run and afterwards (to and from the track). My knees were starting to hurt a bit towards the end. I think I will take it easy tomorrow and go swimming in the afternoon. | ||
Wednesday May 3 | ||
| Biking 30:00 [3] | |
| (1) Biking up Headington Hill to St.Andrew's School to do two hours of outreach with Chris and Kat Asker. It was a lot of fun introducing the concept of orienteering to kids and I think Chris came up with an excellent lesson plan.
(2) Biking from the bottom of Morrell Avenue to Shotover. | ||
| Orienteering 46:52 [2] | |
| shoes: Shoes w/ Holes | ||
| Helen drew a relatively short course/line-O on the Shotover map during lectures and then we ran it together this afternoon. We split up a bit at times (micro route-choices), but mostly ran together. I admit most of her routes turned out to be better than mine (meaning she would go straighter or through less crap than I did), but not always. This was fun! | ||
| Strength Training 9:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Tuesday May 2 | ||
| Running 31:44 [2] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Running to South Parks, doing two loops there, and then off to the track. | ||
| Running (track) 9:01 [4] 2.4 km (3:45 / km) | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Most of the girls at the track were doing 200s but I wanted to do longer intervals so I decided to join Sarah, who was doing 500s by herself. She is considerably faster than I am so I knew it would be pointless to try to do 500s with her. So I thought maybe I would start 100 meters ahead of her and just do 400s. The problem was that since she was doing more distance than I was, the only way to start each interval 100 meters ahead of her was to cut across the track during my recovery jog. This ended up being confusing and I had to run fairly quickly after the first 400 to get to the right position on the track. (This is why my second 400 time was slower - no real recovery.)
So I did 3x400 with not much rest, then 5 minutes recovery (walking around mostly, some jogging), then 3x400 again. The second time I just started from the same spot on the track each time and got about 45-60 seconds rest. My times were: 88, 94, 92, 89, 90, 88 | ||
| Running 18:30 [2] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Cool-down - from the track through Rose Lane, one Christ Church meadow loop, then home. | ||
| C • Intervals 3 | ||
| Strength Training (core) 6:00 [3] | |
| Strength Training (hip exercises) 2:00 [1] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
Monday May 1 | ||
| Running 56:41 [2] | |
| shoes: The Purple Ones | ||
| Ran around the three University Parks permanent O-courses with Helen. She wanted to stop afterward, but I felt good and it was a nice day, so I did an extra 20-minute loop around the meadows by myself. | ||
| Strength Training (core) 6:00 [3] | |
| Stretching 5:00 [1] | |
| Swimming 25:00 [2] | |
| Short evening swim.
1x50 (literally, to warm up) 4x25 easy (watching my friend Misha swim) 7x50 easy free 4x50 (25 fly, 25 back) 150 easy 4x50 (25 free, 25 back) 200 easy Total: 1,250 meters | ||