Training Log Archive: AliC

Event: British Orienteering Champs - Relay
 

A really, really good leg for me!

I was a bit flustered at the start, because I realized 10 minutes *after* Kat started that I had left my O-shoes in the car and had to run back to the campsite to fetch them. Good warm-up! Since Kat pulled out from really bad blisters, I also had to decide when to start- I made sure some of the first women had come by, and then didn't start exactly with anybody because I didn't want to distract them!

All in all, I ran about a good a race as I can run right now. I messed up a bit on the first control, but nothing huge. After that, I looked at the map when I had to, ran hard when I could, and noticed the other women around me, but didn't get distracted by them, which is good because I had different gaffling.

I felt lots more comfortable than the day before with the map and what I was seeing in front of me. I ended up finishing in 3rd, having made up 2 or so places since when I started, and the announcer got real excited that I had made up tons of time- not realizing our team was disqualified- oops!

Fairly intense warm-up back to the campsite to fetch my O-shoes!

Event: British Orienteering Champs - Individual
 

Warm-up run. Very short from assembly to start so had to go back and forth a bunch!

A good race for my current abilities, but not an amazing one. I was 3rd for W21L, about 2 minutes back.

The terrain was open moorland plus mineworkings. I'd had very limited experience on this type of terrain- just a few controls at BUSA individual and that didn't have the massive complicated spoil heaps all over the place that Pwll Du has! The W21L course was very different than the W21E; it didn't go out to the Blorenge- just went from complicated bit to complicated bit closer in with fairly short legs.

What I'm happy about:
- came up with some techniques for running through deep heather
- read the contour detail decently
- didn't get distracted by other people


What I'm not happy about:
- got mentally lazy a bit-- didn't always have a complete plan about where I was going, but kept running anyways
- I have no distance judgement

Need to work on having some sense of distance judgement!

Down to Chofu Airport park and back to the Mitaka observatory. Lovely day for a run!

20 minute tempo run at 8 or 10 k pace? Definitely slower than 5k pace, but still quickish. I did it in a few laps around the park that has been converted from an old WWII airport base. The concrete airplane bunkers are still there- and the runway is still used for some short jet flights to nearby islands. It was a national holiday in Japan so the park was absolutely packed with people. Almost all of whom I'm sure now think I'm crazy!

Sort of half-hearted. I was distracted by the fact that I was hungry and really wanted lunch more than to do a core workout!

Easy run around Mitaka. Legs felt tired from yesterday's intervals!

Warm up, down and between intervals.

Intervals in Mitaka (a suburb of Tokyo). Tried to keep them relatively flat so I could get some speed! Discovered random abandoned telescopes out in fields and surpised people at a bus stop. Felt pretty good, but I'm very psyched to get back to Oxford and not have to train on my own anymore!

Intervals- 4 sets total:
1) (3 min on, 1 off, 2 on)
2) (3 min on, 1 off, 2 on)
3) (3 min on, 1 off, 1 on, 30 s off, 1 on)
4) (4.5 min on, 1.5 off, 1 on, 1 off, 1 on)

Abs, back, side, push-ups!

On the Day 2 course for the upcoming Golden Days event, so again, I won't talk about the course! I was orienteering pretty well for the most part, but felt a bit hesitant. I worked on map memory for a string of 5 or so controls, stopping at a control, looking at the route to the next one, then putting the map away. It was very hard not to look and check on things (and ok, I did cheat a few times, when what I saw really didn't mesh with what I remembered!), but it worked pretty well and I'm sure it improved my running speed!

I raced myself back to the car on paths and roads!