Training Log Archive: Jon X

OO Cup Day Three
M50, 48th place

Knee not good, walked the whole thing bar maybe 3-4 mins of jogging, just 10-20secs at a time.

Terrain very rough and pretty tricky so walking good enough for around half way down the list!

C • Quarantine? 4

To the start.

OO Cup Day 2, Les Moussieres
M50, 28th place. (down to 19th overall).
Al Landels and Dave Peel 31mins, 3rd place 37mins.

Uh oh - near #6 I put my leg down a limestone hole as far as my knee, just as I was changing direction. Twisted my knee. Finished today but currently swollen and painful to use so not looking too hopeful for running tomorrow. We’ll see.
And #6 was the control where they had warned us to take care nearby because there were many dangerous holes in the ground...

It was already going v badly anyway, took 7mins for the 1min leg to #2 (depression on a spur) mostly running up and down the spur past it a few times :(
Then missed #3, dropped time at #4, poor route to #5 and had just run past #6 when put my leg in the hole.
After that I missed #7 and #9 , and was part way to #13 when I realised I had skipped #12 and had to backtrack.

So not really my most successful day out in the forest! But the sun shone and they were selling cold beer in the arena. So that offset the rest fairly nicely!

Event: OO-Cup (new Date)
 

OO Cup Day 1, Col de la Faucille
M50, 14th place.

Chairlift to the arena, option also of cable car from there to the start. Fine views over Lake Geneva from the top.

First half of course in alpine pasture and ski runs with reasonable details and diffuse vegetation, second half in rough Grizedale style woodland.

Struggled to understand veg mapping off the start and v scratchy to #1, similar to #2 which I then compounded by thinking I was going to #7 and being unable to relocate. Sorted it out eventually but several minutes lost. Main difficulty thereafter was the first control in the forest, tried to use small paths in amongst all the trods and stopped way short and searching on the wrong hill. Had to go back out to edge of forest to relocate. Five mins lost. A bit scrappy through to the finish but no major dramas.

Turned out that #2 had gone missing early on so the legs either side were taken out, lucky for me! So ended up 14th around 5-6 mins off 2nd (so very doable) but nearly 10mins begins the flying Al Landels who won easily. Pretty average but could have been worse...

Edit: top 5 on half the splits but still only 14th despite one of my two biggest errors being removed. Hmm.

OO Cup training, Plans d’Hotonnes.

A pleasure to be out in this forest, quite soft going in the leaves apart from the numerous places where the limestone was sticking up. My navigation took a while to wake up...

A bit of faffing at the beginning with route finding etc but all good sussing out new loop using path under railway, a classic Weald run with sunken lanes, dappled paths and past houses.

Left hamstring still niggly as it has been past couple of weeks, I am sure a drive across France will sort it....

Rest day. Again. Oops.

At the crucial moment I was in one location with my running kit but my running shoes were in a different location. Not ideal.