Training Log Archive: IanWIn the 7 days ending Mar 29, 2010:
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Monday Mar 29, 2010 #
Circuits 40:00 [2]
Not feeling too bad considering...
Sunday Mar 28, 2010 #
Orienteering 2:45:00 [3] 10.6 km (15:34 / km) +735m 11:34 / km
spiked:19/30c shoes: 2009 Falcons
UK Cup/World Ranking on the Trossachs. A completely contrasting run to yesterday - terrain was tough, brain wasn't awake, made some silly mistakes and got frustrated.
I think it was primarily a mental problem - my first time on the area, knew of its reputation, knew I had to treat it with respect. Also at the back of the mind was that I'm not really fit enough for a classic race, my left foot was feeling a bit funny and I hadn't had a great deal of sleep the last couple of days. Approach was the complete opposite of the day before - continual doubt with the navigation, never convinced I was in the right place/the control was going to appear. Found it difficult to read the map on the run with the detail at 1:15 and the terrain underfoot, so very hesitant and stopping a lot - far more concerned with where the feet were going.
What went well? I managed to finish. The big route choices I made were generally good. I spiked more controls than I screwed up. I never felt I had nothing left running-wise.
What went badly? Three big errors, on #6, 13 and 19. All easily avoidable, I should certainly have stopped the first two.
- #6, reached the big marsh above the flag and switched off. Turned off the marsh in semi-unknown location, then didn't think - went down between two hills even though I knew it was wrong, could have easily stopped myself and worked it out. A 6' loop later, I'm back at the same point, get it right this time...
- #13 went wrong on the exit of #12. Went down wrong marsh (no direction check) and saw Andy Powell going off in a different direction, knew I was wrong but carried on anyway 'cos thought I'd be OK. Then paralleled on the ridges/hills and eventually found the flag - the control site didn't match my visualisation, was expecting a far bigger hill (4').
- #19 perhaps the most frustrating. Pretty good right to the end - over the spur and - the mistake - *down* to an unmapped crag to the right. No flag. Headless chicken checking out anything that looked like a crag (all unmapped...). Eventually helped into the flag by Tullster - 5' gone and it could have been a lot more. Initial approach must have been just below (< 20m) and I looked the wrong way. Very annoying, but didn't read the map correctly and relocation technique was very lacking...
Other time loss mainly due to slight errors in route near the circle - like at 2, although the map didn't really make much sense here. Didn't read the control description for 3, really hesitant into 10, poor lines across the hills to 11 meant more distance & climb, overshot 12 being too close to crag, dropped a little too low to #14, bad direction down the slope to 20, poor line to 27 meant more climb.
The other thing that went wrong was the mental approach whilst out there. I got frustrated by the physical nature of the terrain and my inability to match up what I saw in the terrain and what was on the map. The difficulty of reading the map on the run meant I was mainly navigating ground-to-map. I wasn't seeing things on the map quickly/found it difficult to keep track of progress, but wasn't then stopping/slowing to work it out. This, and my complete screw-up of 13, meant that I decided to walk most of the way to 14 claiming to myself I was 'bored' - it felt we were covering the same terrain quite a bit.
In hindsight, I'd always viewed the course more as a survival mission than a race, and so had now lost any motivation to keep running. People of similar standards who'd started 15-20 minutes back were passing me easily and then disappearing off into the distance didn't help either. Kept going because I didn't want to be beaten completely by the Trossachs, navigation got better after the road crossing but still no real motivation to keep running.
Looking at the splits is quite revealing, and also frustrating. I was less than a minute behind Jon M at #5, had I read the description for 3 or not screwed up 6 I would have seen him - that would have done wonders for the motivation... and probably taken 20+ minutes off my time...
In summary, definitely 1-0 to the Trossachs, but I'm determined to come back and tackle a course properly on here - definitely need to have better endurance and hill fitness so the physicality isn't so much of a problem and I can concentrate more on getting the navigation right.
I think it was primarily a mental problem - my first time on the area, knew of its reputation, knew I had to treat it with respect. Also at the back of the mind was that I'm not really fit enough for a classic race, my left foot was feeling a bit funny and I hadn't had a great deal of sleep the last couple of days. Approach was the complete opposite of the day before - continual doubt with the navigation, never convinced I was in the right place/the control was going to appear. Found it difficult to read the map on the run with the detail at 1:15 and the terrain underfoot, so very hesitant and stopping a lot - far more concerned with where the feet were going.
What went well? I managed to finish. The big route choices I made were generally good. I spiked more controls than I screwed up. I never felt I had nothing left running-wise.
What went badly? Three big errors, on #6, 13 and 19. All easily avoidable, I should certainly have stopped the first two.
- #6, reached the big marsh above the flag and switched off. Turned off the marsh in semi-unknown location, then didn't think - went down between two hills even though I knew it was wrong, could have easily stopped myself and worked it out. A 6' loop later, I'm back at the same point, get it right this time...
- #13 went wrong on the exit of #12. Went down wrong marsh (no direction check) and saw Andy Powell going off in a different direction, knew I was wrong but carried on anyway 'cos thought I'd be OK. Then paralleled on the ridges/hills and eventually found the flag - the control site didn't match my visualisation, was expecting a far bigger hill (4').
- #19 perhaps the most frustrating. Pretty good right to the end - over the spur and - the mistake - *down* to an unmapped crag to the right. No flag. Headless chicken checking out anything that looked like a crag (all unmapped...). Eventually helped into the flag by Tullster - 5' gone and it could have been a lot more. Initial approach must have been just below (< 20m) and I looked the wrong way. Very annoying, but didn't read the map correctly and relocation technique was very lacking...
Other time loss mainly due to slight errors in route near the circle - like at 2, although the map didn't really make much sense here. Didn't read the control description for 3, really hesitant into 10, poor lines across the hills to 11 meant more distance & climb, overshot 12 being too close to crag, dropped a little too low to #14, bad direction down the slope to 20, poor line to 27 meant more climb.
The other thing that went wrong was the mental approach whilst out there. I got frustrated by the physical nature of the terrain and my inability to match up what I saw in the terrain and what was on the map. The difficulty of reading the map on the run meant I was mainly navigating ground-to-map. I wasn't seeing things on the map quickly/found it difficult to keep track of progress, but wasn't then stopping/slowing to work it out. This, and my complete screw-up of 13, meant that I decided to walk most of the way to 14 claiming to myself I was 'bored' - it felt we were covering the same terrain quite a bit.
In hindsight, I'd always viewed the course more as a survival mission than a race, and so had now lost any motivation to keep running. People of similar standards who'd started 15-20 minutes back were passing me easily and then disappearing off into the distance didn't help either. Kept going because I didn't want to be beaten completely by the Trossachs, navigation got better after the road crossing but still no real motivation to keep running.
Looking at the splits is quite revealing, and also frustrating. I was less than a minute behind Jon M at #5, had I read the description for 3 or not screwed up 6 I would have seen him - that would have done wonders for the motivation... and probably taken 20+ minutes off my time...
In summary, definitely 1-0 to the Trossachs, but I'm determined to come back and tackle a course properly on here - definitely need to have better endurance and hill fitness so the physicality isn't so much of a problem and I can concentrate more on getting the navigation right.
Saturday Mar 27, 2010 #
Event: FVO Middle Distance Race
Orienteering 42:30 [4] **** 5.4 km (7:52 / km) +220m 6:32 / km
ahr:187 max:202 spiked:18/21c shoes: 2009 Falcons
Middle on Touch. Fun course on a relatively small but runnable area, and a very good technical run for once - highly enjoyable :)
Simple aim - to make sure the navigation was good, and let the running take care of itself. Didn't think I'd be great physically after little sleep and legs feeling heavy - really surprised how high the HR was when I felt I wasn't pushing, probably due to the undulating nature of the area.
And technically it was good, perhaps go as far as saying very good! 10" hesitation into #4, minor overshoot low at 14 (15") and another 10" when dropped too low for the crag at #17. And that was pretty much it. Splitsbrowser graph is really quite straight! Got a bit flustered when saw the long leg to #2, route choice probably not ideal but made sure I hit the correct valley - with the 'bonus' of checking out 6 and 9 on the way through. Perhaps the only part of the course where I felt a little out of control. Otherwise was navigating smoothly, keeping contact and had the confidence to expect the controls to appear where I thought they should be - and generally they did. A feeling it would be great to have more often!
GPS distance - 6.0km
Simple aim - to make sure the navigation was good, and let the running take care of itself. Didn't think I'd be great physically after little sleep and legs feeling heavy - really surprised how high the HR was when I felt I wasn't pushing, probably due to the undulating nature of the area.
And technically it was good, perhaps go as far as saying very good! 10" hesitation into #4, minor overshoot low at 14 (15") and another 10" when dropped too low for the crag at #17. And that was pretty much it. Splitsbrowser graph is really quite straight! Got a bit flustered when saw the long leg to #2, route choice probably not ideal but made sure I hit the correct valley - with the 'bonus' of checking out 6 and 9 on the way through. Perhaps the only part of the course where I felt a little out of control. Otherwise was navigating smoothly, keeping contact and had the confidence to expect the controls to appear where I thought they should be - and generally they did. A feeling it would be great to have more often!
GPS distance - 6.0km
Warm up/down 10:00 [2]
shoes: 2009 Falcons
Jog/walk to the start, then from assembly around the parking field with Ed and Jon for a short warm down.
Good spectator value after that - could see the guys and gals flying down the hill into the assembly field and across to the final control - the leading times were pretty impressive, especially as splitsbrowser suggests the top guys all made a few little misses.
Good spectator value after that - could see the guys and gals flying down the hill into the assembly field and across to the final control - the leading times were pretty impressive, especially as splitsbrowser suggests the top guys all made a few little misses.
Thursday Mar 25, 2010 #
Running 39:45 [3] 7.05 km (5:38 / km) +90m 5:18 / km
ahr:158 max:179 shoes: Walsh Ultra
Pretty relaxed run out to Shotover and back with Stu just to get the legs turning over. L foot feeling a bit strange to start but loosened off after a while. Nice and muddy underfoot again with the recent rains.
Wednesday Mar 24, 2010 #
Note
10.6km/735m climb for the Trossachs classic... gonna be a toughie!