Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

On the way to the event, the radio promised us the "latest MFR news". Such a thing might have been expected to include things like "Clare Baker on the comeback trail after the birth of her son" and "Blair Trewin faces a late fitness test before the second day of the Scottish 6-Days". Instead it was all about the passing of Cilla Black (who, as far as I know, has never been a member of Melbourne Forest Racers) and deteriorating police response times in the Moray region. (In this context, it stands for Moray Firth Radio).

Traffic was a bit of a theme of the day, starting with the travel to the event. The numbers attending the 6-days were rather more than they're used to and there ended up being an hour-long delay getting into the parking field - I think for no more reason than that the entrance couldn't cope with the numbers, and the odd person got stuck in the mud and needed some pushing. (We tend to forget that, outside of parking fields, most Europeans have zero experience of dirt-road driving). We both made our start times (without a lot to spare); many didn't, though punching starts were on offer so it didn't cause too many issues on that front.

Traffic was also relevant once on the course. I'd heard that Strathfarrar had been rejected as a WOC candidate area by the SEA on the grounds that "orienteering is a running sport", so I was expecting something tough, reinforced by the returning Krystal saying that the light/medium green final section was the nicest part of the course. In reality, there was heavy bracken over much of the terrain and it would have been a horrible slog for the earliest starters, but by the time I was out the area was heavily tracked (although very muddy).

I'd been very doubtful as to whether I'd make any impression at all. I wasn't sure how my back would respond and was quite prepared to do only a few controls if it gave too much trouble. It wasn't 100% and I didn't try to run up too many hills on soft ground, but certainly vastly improved on Saturday. Still felt I was blobbing around (and I suspect my splits on the short downhill legs, 10 and 19, will not be a thing of beauty), but after an early 90-seconder or so on 2, I got into the map and terrain quite nicely and was happy on the technical front. The result turned out to be more respectable than I was expecting too; fastest times when I left were in the mid-50s, and I was a few minutes closer to the likes of Nick Barrable and Tuomas Tala than I had been in the equivalent races at the WMOC qualifiers.

Possibly somewhat demotivating was hearing the commentator describing me, as I went through the pre-warning control, as a "planner and controller". I suppose this is official confirmation of has-been status.

C • planner and controller 11

S6D - Day 2 Strathfarrar - C38 - Splits

I was never going to be able to get to the first day of the 6-days because of a clash with an IOF meeting, but in any case injury would probably have stopped me from running - certainly the way it felt running across from the run-through chute to the finish chute at the WOC sprint didn't fill me with confidence that I would have been up to doing a course today (and certainly removed any temptation I might have had to try to squeeze a run of another kind into the schedule - which, as is often the case at WOC for me, was a long one, not returning home until close to midnight).

Might not be great times for me at the moment in terms of personal performance, but much more uplifting was watching our team go around in Forres. Very impressive run by Hanny - must have been a bit frustrating to have been only 2.2 seconds from a medal, but fifth is still an outstanding effort and should hopefully set things up well for the rest of the week. Rachel had a respectable result too (with a particularly good start - she won two of the first four splits and was second at #4), though nothing really compares with Maja Alm - winning 16 out of 22 splits at this level is quite something.

The longness of the day was added to by a rather slow dinner in Forres at an Indian place I remembered from the 2003 6-days which was based here (they were somewhat overwhelmed by actually being full of customers on a Sunday night). One other Forres main street sight I didn't see this year was the local MP's office, which last time I was here had something in the window saying that among other things, the local MP (who has plenty of distilleries in their electorate) was deputy chair of the House of Commons committee on the whisky industry. They must have some interesting fact-finding tours.

C • Parlimentary whisky tours 1

After some promise early in the week this was a terrible disappointment - mostly through my body letting me down. I had been a bit apprehensive because my back (which hasn't otherwise been troublesome this trip) wasn't feeling right walking around yesterday, but it felt OK on the warm-up (and 2.4k to the start gives you plenty of warm-up) and I thought it would be reasonable. By 10 minutes into the race, though, it was apparent it would not be reasonable, and as usual when this happens, the consequences were loss of power uphill and in soft ground (which between them account for a lot of the course).

Had this been, say, a State Series, I may well have called it a day at number 3, but on a day like this when there was no immediate tomorrow, I was going to keep going as long as I could keep moving, and hope that it loosened up, as sometimes happens. It never really did, and all I could do was keep slogging on and watch helplessly as the front third of the start list progressively cruised by. Finishing was just about the only positive to draw from this (and at least I didn't come last - one person was even worse).

Perhaps not surprisingly, as I struggled physically the concentration lapsed and the mistakes began to come - perhaps two minutes on 6, 45 seconds on 7, a minute on 9 and another minute on 13. A very disappointing and frustrating day all round.

The course was a bit longer than expected with about 5.5% climb - Matthias Niggli won in 71 (it's supposed to be 65). The terrain was certainly no faster than the first qualifier so I suspect that upper 90s/low 100s would have been about what I might have been able to do with a decent run, which would have been about 40th place.

Off to Scotland tonight. I was never going to run tomorrow due to a clash with IOF meetings; hoping that I'll get to the start line for day 2 of the 6-days if it settles down in time.

C • Split WOC 2

Feeling pretty stiff today, and generally glad that this wasn't the day of the final - hopefully tomorrow will be better. It was the nicest day of the week meteorologically-speaking (i.e. there was only one brief shower), and once I was back from the jury meeting in town - protest dismissed - we spent some time on the coast of Tjorn, the next island upwards, with its bare-rock-slabs coast and quaint towns clinging to it.

Various bits of news from home have been somewhat unsettling this week - I've been quite glad to be out of the country for the ugliness associated with the Adam Goodes affair, which is not exactly casting our nation in a flattering light. Also unsettling were the goings-on at One Tree Hill in Bendigo - it helps that there's been a rapid arrest (and am I the only person who thinks it bizarre that the victim, whose name was all over the media this time yesterday, now "cannot be named for legal reasons"?), but you could certainly forgive people for being a bit apprehensive the next time they venture into Bendigo bush (something we'll be doing at the State Series in a couple of weeks).

As for prospects tomorrow; although I plan to run more aggressively tomorrow than yesterday, the 18-minute gap to the lead yesterday is a fairly good indication of where I stand relative to the best people in this type of terrain. A placing in the top half of the field would be great but may be too much to ask for. A technical course would help, although there seem likely to be more tracks than the last couple of days.

C • Bendigo 1

Went into today knowing that as long as I didn't blow up or make a significant mistake, I was almost certainly going to qualify, and hence had a race strategy centred on minimising the risk of either blowing up or making a significant mistake. I was a little apprehensive about the former - I've had a lingering cold through the week which doesn't seem to have had any appreciable impact on my running (except perhaps on the last day of O-ringen), but was at the coughing-up-stuff stage today so didn't quite know what to expect. (I must have sounded awful to anyone around me on the first leg, but was fine after that).

Whilst relevant caveats are the conservative pace and some conservative route choices (I'd almost certainly have gone straighter on 3 and 5 in a final), I think this is just about the cleanest race I've ever run in Sweden - nothing bigger than going around the wrong side of a rock a couple of times and one brief hesitation on the way in. Particularly pleased with the potentially perilous later part of the course - in particular, 16 and 17, both small features in green, screamed out "here be dragons!", but care was taken and dragons were avoided.

It did seem a course with less potential for disaster than yesterday, and this was reflected in the smaller number of blowouts; I was a little surprised to be as far back as 23rd (same as yesterday) with a better run than yesterday. Had about 10 minutes in hand over the cut line, but actually slipped back one place so I'll have an early start on Saturday. Others had other start time priorities - Tuomas Tala (2nd yesterday) started 2 minutes behind me and I suggested to him before the start that I'd see him early on, but he said he needed to start no later than 11.40 (equivalent to 12th place) on Saturday to make his flight. He was around me at times in mid-course but clearly decided that he needed to go slower than that because he dropped another 9 minutes over the last few controls, including a 3.30 finish chute. (His mission was duly accomplished - he was 18th).

I'm not going to get out of this week without some jury work. One of the W65 heats got incorrect printed descriptions (this sounds like the same problem as 2009 - can someone who remembers the details confirm or otherwise?) which were picked up by some of the earlier starters. The organisers have voided the course (thus qualifying on one day only) but someone has protested against that decision. We'll be meeting in the morning.

C • confirm 4

First WMOC long qualifier. A decent run in terms of finding the controls, apart from a frustrating one-minuter when I came in just below the third-last, but lacking in other areas which leaves me a little too close to the edge for comfort (23rd, with 26 to qualify). 27th is 8.30 away so as long as I don't do anything stupid tomorrow I should be OK, although I'd hope for something a bit more than barely qualifying, if only for a better starting position.

The main deficiencies today were insufficiently aggressive navigation - was very much going from feature to feature and not thinking far enough ahead - and, more pronounced, struggling to come to terms with the terrain. There were some very nice patches on the tops (the shorter courses spent most of their time here), much of it encountered on the two-kilometre first leg, but a lot of the map had shin-deep marsh-type vegetation even where there were no marshes, and I struggled to lift my legs enough to deal with those. Starting to lack a bit of strength later on, too.

Many, especially the early starters, will remember today for its foul weather - 11mm in two hours between 8 and 10 (not particularly well forecast) on top of heavy storms last night. This turned the forest even wetter than it already was and wasn't especially pleasant to be waiting around in, either. I was especially grateful for one of the perks of being a jury member - officials' parking which means I could park 400m from the arena (instead of 2k) and could thus use the car for gear storage, and only go up myself fairly close to my start time.

Long model event with Jenny, in a forest on the edge of Gothenburg, late in the day but before the late afternoon thunderstorms really got going. After some navigational challenges trying to get there (which may have been exacerbated by my not paying attention to my passenger's directional advice), it was a typically slow model event session, trying to learn as many lessons as possible. Main lesson learned - steep slopes are difficult, with numerous 45-degree rock slopes which are mapped as bare rock rather than cliffs, but which I would consider effectively impassable (especially in the wet). Some very nice stuff on top of the ridges though, and between some of the hills (where it isn't marshy).

The enjoyability factor of tomorrow's course will depend a lot on the setting - the terrain has a lot of elongated north-south ridges, which will be nice to go along and not nice to go across. We've got 7.4k for a 55-minute winning time which suggests that it won't be especially easy.