Training Log Archive: Psuba

Event: Wessex Galoppen
 

Setting controls for the Galoppen.
Already muddy and feet wet early on, great :) but, lovely sunshine and being out early means that I got to see a pack of deer in the woods - surely they ran far away by the time the competitors were out.

Wessex Galoppen, Brown course

Had to run non-competitively as I set out some of the controls.
I have decided to treat this as a training exercise, so I have done an O-interval training - roughly taking 3 controls fast, then jog slowly 1 control, then do the same again.

Still made a few mistakes, even to the 1st control.
Good practice though.
Getting out late means I have missed the hailstorm that most competitors got caught up in. It was still very wet and muddy. I thought the course was well planned, but really New Forest is never the most technically challenging. That said, I should have been more precise with the compass and so make less mistakes. I was planning to do pace counting, which I did, but on one occasion I didn't when I should have - I thought the vegetation will be obvious (it was on the map), but wasn't at all in real life :(

Warmup+Parkrun+Cooldown.

Mostly tried to stick to Z1, except for the last 1km of the Parkrun which I tried to run within 4min but without looking at my watch to check pace.

Shakeout jog with strides

Wessex Night League, Gillingham

Pretty poor performance if I am honest, mainly down to poor strategy - which is what I often do in score events. I was kinda hoping I was getting better in that in the last few events, but this one was planned well in that there were lots of options and the choices did make a lot of difference.

Looking at the order of controls, I was the only one going with the order like this. It didn't help that I also missed out a control at the edge of the map so I never visited it...
I got there late anyway due to work and left my dibber+compass at home so had to borrow them also.

There were also a few errors I have made throughout the run, didn't see a few of the lines properly (is my eyesight getting worse?) during running so ended up having to double back a few times - those errors lost me about 3 minutes even within the strategy I was following.

By the time I was near the 1st of the 2 50 pointers that I left last (with a hope to get bonus points... hahaha), I had about 3 minutes left and seriously thought if I should not even bother going to the last 50 pointer. I did my quick calculation and I figured it is about 50-50 whether I would lose out point wise due to the minutes over the hour, or if I would be better. So I thought - sod it, I'll just give it everything I have and ran on a red line to the 50 pointer and back. This was my fastest section, and in fact at least I did that calculation right: I was just a bit more than 4 minutes over the hour, so if I had been about 10 seconds faster it would have been more points getting the last 50 pointer. As it happens I ended up with exactly the same amount of points than if I didn't go for the last control - but I got a bit more training out of it for myself.

This will drop out in the scheme of the League - Dan also didn't quite get the run to win and Alan couldn't go, so Dan collected another 500 and the League gets yet more tight at the top. I hope I can clean my act up for the next one, I will miss out a few afterwards.

Event: WIM/WSX Monthly Evening event
 

Z1 HR control run before work.

Started in the dark, got back after sunrise. Very cold out there.
Don't want to say anything too fast, but compared to previous runs of the exact same route and same target HR, I seem to be getting shorter (so faster) runs as a trend. Let's hope this continues, we'll see in about 2 months time whether the training plan gets me the results I was after. Fingers crossed.

Wessex training - 1k loops

Only 4, again probably should do more reps in the future.

Clearly I am faster when motivated to run with others, as the last rep I did alone, and it was slower. The good news is that none of this was at maxHR, although not yet in Z4 which will be the target for sub-4m

Paces:
3:42
3:44
3:50
3:58

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