Training Log Archive: MikeW

Home, up and round woodhouse moor. First run since blood donors on Tuesday. Found myself a bit short of breath on the uphill bits, but pace was ok.

David's 6 mile run incorporating both Crystal Palace and Dulwich park. Lovely, slightly cooler morning. Steep climb back up through Sydenham hill woods.

Similar run to yesterday, but Sam and David came along too. Found ourselves running in amongst the 'Run in the Park' runners at Crystal Palace.

Run with Abby from Pat & David's through Sydenham to Crystal Palace Park. Went along Sydenham hill to see the former site of Lionel Logue's house - not marked by anything at all...

Short run on a hot afternoon from KECC whilst Sam was having some coaching. Ended up being about 1k shorter than I was hoping, but it was hot to be running :-)

Took the MG out for a spin with roof down and parked at Danefield. Fabulous day but was getting a bit warm for running hard, and I found the hills a bit tough today. Beautiful hazy views from the top though.

Brown 8.9km +170m Really enjoyable brown course with a mixture of fast parkland and lovely runnable beechwoods. I made a slight error leaving No. 1 and had a problem with 9 as there was a kite missing when I got to it (or it had dropped onto the floor) anyway, I only found it by almost tripping over the stake. Fabulous weather made this a great morning for a run. I wasn't brilliantly fast (only made Brown standard by just under a minute in fact..), but got round ok. 25 mins behind the winner, so much better than last week :-)

Brown, official distance 8.65+235m. Very poor result for me... Had real problems finding No. 1 again (as with Marsden) missing it by some margin. Had similar issues going south from 2 to 3 (about 200m out) and then 5 to 6 which was due north, so followed needle, to find myself coming to No.1, again some 200m East. This was really frustrating, and combined with the physically tough terrain, pretty disheartening. The woods were lovely and navigation more straightforward here.

When I got home I decided to check my thumb compass. I know I am not the most proficient orienteer around, but these errors seem pretty consistent. Anyhow, against the others compasses I have I found that it has a error of 3-5 degrees. I don't understand how, it may be that I've damaged it during a fall sometime. Anyway, I'm going to try my baseplate next time and see if it improves things. If not, then it's just down to me..

Finished some 40mins behind winner.