Training Log Archive: Bomb

Big day out, and felt pretty rubbish from the start. Calf was sore from yesterday, but not enough to not run, so I just hoped it would warm up. Eventually it stopped hurting... but only when enough other things hurt to drown it out.
The start was ok. Slotted into my ploddy spot in the pack and just kept going. Eventually ended up running near Krystal and Tash - they were both running a bit quicker but I managed to stay in touch by taking slightly better route choices. Came through the map change in 5th, then worked out why I'd been so far at the back of the W21 field early on - the alternate split was much shorter - skipped the whole early part of the course. We ended up with Aislinn and then Liis through the common part of the course. The bunch sped up and I got dropped. I then got sucked in by a combination of being super tired and assuming that the last part of the course was common and got dragged off line going to 9 (102). Took a while to relocated and we were much too far down the hill. This was my only real mistake of the course, but it was a big one, and Liis was with me.
From there to the finish was a battle. Liis was just behind me and both calves were starting to cramp badly. but I made sure I hit the last controls well and just held her off on the line.
I'd been looking forward to this race for ages so it was disappointing to feel so rubbish physically. Very flat in general, and then the dodgy calf on top. It didn't get any worse, but running hard wasn't an option. I guess I haven't really recovered from the cold a couple of weeks ago... but I've been feeling pretty rubbish for the last few weeks so its hardly a surprise.

Not sure about the way the course was split - the start was good, I'm not sure what the point of the common section through the middle was, but the ssplit last section I don't think was very fair.

C • Are you sure there was a common section? 3

Scrappy race. Struggled to get map contact at the start, and was a bit wayward with direction. Lost a lot of time on 9 where I couldn't see that a passage way joined up with the stairs and ran all the way around, and ended up in a bunch with Aislinn and Tash. Then I made a mistake on 11 running to the wrong control. The three of us then stuffed around for the rest of the course with stupid little errors. I backed off a bit on the last climb back up the hill as I was feeling pretty rubbish and calves were tight - I figured I was in the A final by then and there was a lot more running left for the weekend.

Much more complex map for the afternoon race, and flat, which I hoped would suit me better.
I think it was even colder for the afternoon race than it had been in the morning, and my 'warm up' consisted of running around getting steadily colder and having my right calf cramp really badly. oh well.

The race was pretty good. biggest time loss was a few seconds on 1 - not reading the map properly to see that the path near 3 didn't go through and hitting the dead end. Mainly just slow trying to not wreck my legs. Faded a bit at the end as calf tightened more.

hot yoga. good stretch, which I needed.