Training Log Archive: Jon X

Event: SLOW Night-O Series 2012-13.3, Richmond Park
 

SLOW night-o at Richmond Park. Despite my SE England orienteering upbringing I have never run here before!

Assumed it would be really simple - it was, but that assumption plus headtorches everywhere when near the circle plus multiple unmapped paths together were enough to make me v scrappy early on through the first four. Had a crashing fall on the way to #6 and then missed that too, gave myself a bit of a talking to after that and started to use compass and orienteer properly.

Okay after that and feeling good running. Turns out the guy in the red o-top who ran past me v easily early on was Simonas Krepsta, no shame in not keeping up with him! He ran 28:20.

As ever with these events then based from a pub with great food and beer, missed the start of the pub quiz unfortunately....

Jog to start, tight right calf afterwards so ten mins extra warm down before heading to pub to download.

Long Course - Splits

Busy there today, we need them to invest in a few more mats!

3 sets, worked pretty hard. Legs in pretty good shape after the weekend racing.

Warm up to first start, warm down after, mini warm up for second race, team warm down after.

EUOC Weekend Chasing Sprint, Prologue, 4th place.
Robin Galloway 22:18, Martin 22:39, Jase 22:40.
Physical course, not great weather (ran in cagoule). Not feeling too powerful on the hills. Probably not the best route to the penultimate either.

The Chase. Urban sprint chase after the terrain prologue.
V enjoyable and intense, could see Patrick behind from #3 and he was past when I hesitated then got confused at #7. More confusion at #9 (circle obscuring dead end) and #10 ('shed' was attached to the next building) but was right on his heels at #12.
Then got v confused when he punched a different control from me at #13, was shouting to tell him that he had mis-punched.....he carried on but then seemed to double back so I thought the head-to-head was over. Slowed up a bit until Graeme suddenly appeared behind me with two to go and I had to leg it again.
But...it turns out that the chase involved parallel courses rather than all doing the same and so the race with Patrick would still have been on (in the end he finished 18secs ahead). Very strange. Might have been nice to know that in advance! Although tbh not at all sure I could have caught him anyway!

Decent length warm up jog then a few drills etc.

Edinburgh City Race, Men 40+, 3rd place.
Another fun race, lost time at #9 because of the extra unmapped passageway (-40s, although I was hardly alone losing time here), and at the end where I tried to run the last little loop in the wrong order and went to #24 before #23 (-45s).
Winner Mark Wood was 50secs ahead, then 1sec ahead was Dave Robertson who took three seconds off me on the (short) run in....
Martin W should have won by a minute but ran past #25 without punching it.

A shorter lap to warm down. Feeling like I had tried.

Event: Edinburgh Big Weekend
 

Quick leg stretch.

EUOC night race, Kings Buildings. All a little bit hesitant and lacking in flow, even though not pushing hard. Wrong side of the fence at #2 but nothing significant apart from that. SI only at start and finish so no splits but would expect them to show just a steady percentage off the pace.

Recovery run after two fairly hard days and with three races to come over the weekend. Enjoyed trotting along feeling no pressure to go any faster - and slowing down on the hills rather than feeling I should press on up them. Nice!

Top of left calf very tight all day after reps yesterday. Seemed to be okay after a brief warmup plus jog to the start so decided okay to race properly....

FVO night race, Dunblane. Quality course from HelenB with surprisingly little road running, very enjoyable.

Brisk start took us into the Laighills for some complex butterfly loops. On my own here, doing okay until I got confused by control number printing and missed one out - luckily only a short leg and realised immediately but a minute or so lost. Arrived at end of butterflies with Jase but he confused me (and himself) by going awol on the way to cross the railway.

Roger visible behind and closing on me towards #18 as we came out of Laighills and passed me when I took a bad line out of #19. He returned the favour out of #20 though and so I led us through the next section including us having the same gaffle on the second set of butterflies. Then I went round to #31 and he went straight - straight much quicker so he passed me - I could see him go left on the longish leg to #32 in the Hydro and I went rightish.....dead end! Turn about and round further to the right, but en route to #33 could see Rog already down the bottom of the hill and some way ahead. Worked hard to get closer but still 10/15 yards behind heading to the last control at #36. Rog cut in too early....I cut in later....still to early! We both thrashed through the green and I was the one who got lucky and got to it first - cue full pace down the hill to the finish!

About 4 mins or so behind Rosco who was ahead of Ruari and Will, just ahead of Rog and Jase. Pretty intense in parts - decent prep for Edinburgh on Saturday too.

My turn to plan the night race in two weeks time, so a vested interested in getting the units and canes back! Collected #19-#36 with Rosco, slightly longer distance than intended when I realised I had dropped my map somewhere and had to cast back to retrieve it....