Training Log Archive: Olivia

Gentle jog to the start with a few drills and stretches to try and make my legs work again.

This was a lovely walk in the mountains, at least for the first part of the course. My legs were utterly wrecked from the hill and dale on thursday so the first couple of controls were just a plod up the hill. I still managed to make a few mistakes though, I was hesitant to 1, not trusting I was on the right ditch and cut in too early to 2. heading to 4 and 6 I had to deviate off the route slightly to find gates/styles since I didn't fancy hefting a labrador over a barbed wire fence. Had dog related issues on the open mountain in that she kept wandering so had to put her on the lead which slowed me down considerably to 8. 9 I was in the right place but on the wrong side of the hill so lost about 30s standing scratching my head. Overtook a group standing still on the way up to 10 as they hadn't identified it was up, messed up 11 not realising where I was and which path I was standing on, ran past 12, was too short to 13 and got hunted down on the way to the finish by a 14 year old....... not the best race ive ever had, my nav has gone out the window in the last couple of weeks.....bring on the IOC

Gentle warm up with some stretching as my right calf was quite tight

First ever Hill and Dale, and I was pretty apprehensive before the start, having not done any hill training in about a year! The start was absolute chaos, 244 runners heading down to the bridge, so I got an outside line and ran it at a comfortable pace since I didn't want to go too hard to early. It was slightly worrying that after a mile we still hadnt done any uphill, and I paid for my easy pace, being stuck in a very long line of runners walking up the first hill. I kept attempting to dart around a few but it wasnt really working, so I took it as the 'walk to the start' with my race properly starting once I'd crossed the wall. Over the wall and I was able to go a bit harder, tried to take the clever line to overtake the folks pansying over the ditch......ended up in the ditch, oops. Managed to overtake a few people on the way up Small Mountain and passed the stone in 155th, tried to let rip on the downhill but it wasnt until we were back onto the track that I started to overtake people. I wish the race finished by the bridge since on the way up the final hill I was overtaken by a 4 people as I had nothing left in my legs, ended up in 151st and 16th Female, so not to shabby for a first attempt.
+46% behind the winner and 19% behind Shileen. I'm fairly happy with that considering the total lack of hill work and in recent weeks total lack of running cos of my leg. Back to intervals on Monday and post IOC a few more hill races I think.

Bit of rolling once I got home to try and save my legs so I can get up and down the stairs tomorrow.

Good tough class tonight, thankfully it was mainly aimed at upper body work since my legs are a tad knackered. Lots of press ups (over 140) and dips. The skipping rope was introduced today and it was good fun, I haven't skipped since I was about 11 so initially kept whacking myself with it, got the hang of it by the end... I'm probably gonna bruise though

C • Skipping 2

3rd Leg with Susan and StephP, it was chaos as I headed out so I had no idea what position I was in. Saw Susan before I headed into the holding pen and she told me just to floor it as the nav was pretty easy. I headed out hard and hit the first two perfectly, slightly mis-judged 3, which lead to another headless chicken moment (grrrr), but instead of running around I headed back to the path, attacked it again and hit it bang on the second time (-2mins). A little hesitant onto 5 I was headed from above and wanted to make sure I was running onto the correct re-entrant, -30s. The rest was easy peasy and I just went as hard as I could. I tended to take the high route at all times, my legs didnt have anything in them for climbing.

I need to work on confidence, hills, and speed in terrain over the next couple of months as they really let me down this weekend.