Training Log Archive: jonny crickmore

Woke up a bit sniffly after yesterday so complete rest.

Surprise surprise on first leg at Tio. Looking forward to it though. Some shocking news in the final details though about public wifi
"It will not be possible to access streaming services such as YouTube, Netflix, NFL and others in the free WiFi network."
I was so keen to watch some offseason NFL action at the weekend.

C • NFL 1

Pyestock Orienteering

More orienteering. Standard Wednesday army event, start was about 2km south of the arena from Monday. Very different area though being flatter and a lot rougher and some low vis meant it was a bit more challenging at times.

Decided to do roughly 2x10min hard 10min jog but would adjust to fit bits of the course. Worked well and fast runnable first 10min then in the rough hardest orienteering for the last rep before a nice cool down round the rest of the easier bits in the open.

Hadn't had enough orienteering so test running and checking control sites for an SO event my dad is controlling. As apparently he hasn't had enough of that after JK middle.

Absolutely great fun. Mostly an offroad 4x4 area so loads of ditches, bushes, rides and mapped really well at 1:5000 as well as a great course by Kenny Leitch.
Just taking it very easy and feeling fairly good energy and soreness wise but still a bit too wheezy and phlegmy for my liking.

C • Kenny 1

Skipped evening run for a cricket net with my dad. Going to have a sore left arm tomorrow.

JK Relay 2nd -- 3rd leg for EUOC

Great runs by Alex and Ali sent me out in 2nd maybe 45s behind Will and with GG 20s behind. Unfortunately completely spooned 1, luckily so did GG a bit but blew my advantage. Surprised to see Will about only about 20-30s ahead across the field. From 2-10 me and GG were mostly together and closed the gap. I got dropped a little bit. Had an Emitag turnaround at 11 then the gap was up to about 20m then in the green bit at 12 I made a mistake a control on a ditch. GG didn't have it and Will also missed it but in a different place to me and sneakily got it. I guess an advantage of no beep for him was I didn't hear.

Came out to the open area and surprised to see Will only 50m ahead so worked on just grinding it out and whilst he made some small misses I closed the gap and got ahead at the end. Felt a bit guilty cause he was understandably very tired after a hard weekend. Really happy with the result and loving the orienteering at the moment.
Annoyed I couldn't make GG really work for it, he was faster but if he had had to close the gap physically it should of gone all the way and then who knows.

6 of the last 7 years on the podium at the relay (4th in 2016). Always seem to have great battles and definitely one of the best days of orienteering in Britain each year. No idea what will be happening next year though. Looking for a new club/life.

In terms of illness had some minor breathing issues but definitely on the mend and some more easy days before Tio now.

No shakeout today but just a run. Ran to south end of Frith and just wiggled my way north on some amazing forest tracks before heading back.

Decided against going today as didn't fancy dealing with the heat and sitting around arena whilst family are running. Shame as I like spectating but was very nice running early morning.

Shakeout. Had to break up my morning date with Will as got worse overnight and now sneezing with a blocked nose and didn't want to infect him.
Energy levels okay though and very excited for today.

JK Middle

Very excited for this and it didn't disappoint. Good area good course. I had a pretty good run a few small misses but mostly I just died on the run back from the far end. The heat and illness got to me and suspect I lost a lot of time 15-18.

Probably going to drop out of tomorrow unfortunately. With Tio next week and wanting to do the relay on Monday I probably ought to look after myself.

JK Sprint 4th?

This is going to be a long one with some thoughts I had whilst not being able to sleep.

Firstly my performance.
Physically I was struggling to breathe but legs felt rested. Yet I felt I was lacking a bit and not really a speed guy at the moment but I suspect this wasn't a major problem.
Technically I felt very poor. I just seemed to constantly be hesitating and stopping, throwing away seconds constantly. This is annoying as normally I thrive on the micro side of sprint orienteering. I had very little flow today. I think this could be due to me being a bit rusty (yet I managed at Scottish Sprints and last weekend) and also the course found a way to mess with this smoothness. Firstly I am weak at checking descriptions and planning .There was a fair few ambiguous controls today that required checking. I need to improve this myself. I never ended up the wrong side of anything but did have end up stopping at a lot of those controls. Then a couple of brain fades. Not analysed it yet but seems most RC's were obvious 50/50 or just a second or two losses but have to check that.

I thought the planning wasn't great. First 8 was okay then I think that middle section was wasted. 31 controls seemed excessive and that middle area was so perfect for a long leg or two and we just had lots of small ones everywhere. Also I didn't enjoy all the controls in the back of one way bin sections/bike sheds. Yet maybe this is good planning as caused me issues.
My parents had nice looking courses so maybe just drew the short straw.

Now onto the big questions.

1) Is the ability to use descriptions to find the control placement an integral part of orienteering or a leftover from the days when it was a requirement?
I am biased as I dislike it but I would much prefer using unambiguous features or the little red dot. Either way it is a part and I need to get better.

2) The elephant in the arena today. EmiTag punching. I think there are issue with the technology but my main query and the most important thing to me is what is expected of the athlete? So below is a bit of a flow chart and what I think is a logical approach to the problem.

Questions

1) Can the EmiTag flash at a control yet not register and thus causing the person to be disqualified?

a)yes
b) no

2) Is it the athletes responsibility to check the tag flashes at every control

a)yes
b)no

3)Is it the athletes responsibility to just do the correct punching motion within the required guidelines?

a)yes
b)no

Answers and solutions

1a -- Throw it away it is useless

1b,2a -- Then why do we have backup punches and athletes who miss it on the original should be dq'd regardless of the situation on the backup as otherwise it disadvantages athletes who do check it and go back when it doesn't flash.

1b,2b,3a -- Fair enough and make it a statistics game that with two tags the likelihood of it not registering on either is slim. If this is minimal enough then this approach should work

The organisers I think need to decide and I guess we will see depending on reinstatement. Most likely from now on I will just check if one of them flashes I'm good as I think they are going to reinstate people.
I think an issue seems to be a similar punching motion does not always get the same result. You could see people at the last controls pretty much tap it and then get no punch. Hopefully it will be less of an issue in the coming days. The relay could be fun though.

Most importantly Will showed up after a few years of great training and smashed it.