Training Log Archive: bradc

Glasgow Parks race 1, Bellahouston Park. (2.9km + 65m).
Reasonably solid with this one; just 10s lost on #8 and 20s on #9, nearing the end and losing a little concentration. Started pretty fast with virtually no warm-up and struggled in the middle, but started feeling better again later on.
17:03 by my watch, 16:53 by race clock; the extra 50s is me sprinting across the car park to get to the start to rescue the kids (thankfully already taken care of by Dawn!)

Race 2, Tollcross Park. (2.6km +75m).
Beccy started first this time, and I was too flustered starting off; worried about no warm-up and the kids and not thinking about orienteering. Promptly couldn't make head nor tail of the map and lost 40s on #1; by #4 I was 1 min down on Jon X! Then I buckled down and started pushing along very well, feeling pretty good, and made no more mistakes to the finish. Annoyed to throw away so much time, though.
Watch time 12:10, race time 12:24. Forgot to switch the GPS back on so distance/climb is an estimate, but it sure wasn't 2.6km as on the course description!

Race 3, Drumpellier Park. (4.1km + 40m).
Back completely seized up and hardly able to muster a hobble; Hazel kindly supplied a couple of Paracetomol to get me to the start! Off the lead pack but with Ian Maxwell 1 min ahead and Jon X 5s down, so a nervous start. Took a little while to get the legs flowing, and missed the path I'd intended to take away from the loch, but got to #1 just ahead of Jon. Started running well and caught & passed Ian M en route to #3; then missed the sensible route to #4 because I had my finger over the path and ended up hacking over some crap, losing 40s to Jon X. A**e! Thankfully caught it back up when I got to #5 ahead of them, misread the control description for #6 so Jon got ahead again, Ahead again on #7, caught at #8 where I floundered in the swamp, then Jon took a banana to #9 and I was able to hold my advantage to the finish, despite a poor direct route choice to #10! Well down on Jase's awesome time of 22:45, but I could find at least some of that in my errors; young Mr A hoovered up Ian and Jon but thankfully didn't catch me - I hadn't been looking for him behind me and had relaxed a little towards the end, whoops!
Pleased to have survived and be competitive despite absolutely no speed work since god knows when and really shoddy training full stop over the last, well, year!

Warm down jog with Jon & Graeme around the loch. Plus a small allowance for the 200m I managed before the start of the first race.

Tempted out by Dixie for a nice, easy-paced run along a new route (for me!) to the east and north of Comrie. We beat our way through the floods to get there; thankfully there was only light rain whilst we were running. Some diversions to avoid the flooding around the back of Comrie, then it was nice to head up into a mix of wood and open fell. Still some bits of ice underfoot in places, which slowed us down a bit, and really mushy trails where frost heave had turned what must have been decent, hard-packed LandRover tracks into an earthy mousse. Lovely.
A good use of a foul day!

Coming back from Liverpool.

All day at a customer bash in Liverpool

All of yesterday's ice (plus the overnight snow) has turned to slush... time to do an exploratory run to the Gathering Stane. Slightly heavy going west of Dykedale up to the Stane, but MUCH nicer underfoot on the whole. Pleasant.