Training Log Archive: PaulT

Here starts hills. Lunchtime steady run up and down forest behind house.

I came across a crashed mountain biker being sorted out by his mates. He actually looked pretty shaken up, sore and bloody. Help was at hand so I didn't stay long. Clearly no experience, no helmet, smooth trainers, baggy cotton clothes, little idea where they were. His girlfriend was so concerned that she even gave him a puff of her fag. You couldn't make it up.

C • Home 3

Steady around Guis streets. Too many grumbilng parts for circuits but the run eased things off well.

Torver Common - some strong legs but overall very poor and disappointing run
1: really had trouble reading the map and the overprint, and then relating to the ground, therefore very hesitant. 45s?
2: Hesitated short on what I can now see is a hill almost completely obscured by the circle/line. 30s? Took next few very steadily
6: lost concentration falling down a crag, then ran up a re-entrant that doesn't seem to be on the map. Easiest control on the course but overshot - 120s gone.
Caught by Mike B for five whole minutes here! He very gradually ran off on the easier section on the moor, especially on the uphills. Caught up at 14 via good route choice and also again coming onto ....
16: good high route choice, came steadily in to within 5m of flag but did not see it tucked in a calf high 'ruin'. Arrived back to punch 2m later. Did not have a good enough picture of the circle, and drifted in rather than from a solid approach.
Took the remaining controls very steadily, spiked everything and regained some confidence. Had a few comedy moments with (un?) crossable walls.

In an area with so much detail, its difficult to know how people don't think it appropriate to cut the occasional circle or line. And when there are now 'accredited ' printers, why not use them or get accredited

Wu and CD

Wu and CD

Bleathwaite Middle
Fairly pleased with this considering how little orienteering training I have done so far.
6: 5 s hesitation for no good reason other than lack of confidence
7: positively chose a longer right hand route thinking that it would be all runnable (it was) but turned out about 40 secs slower than a more direct route. Man up .
11: slightly right on vague contours in some pasture - 5secs?
12: overshot to another control whilst brain disengaged - 40 secs
Somehow lost 10secs on a 15 sec 'stumble in'
Much more practice needed to increase confidence and start being navigating more aggressively.

Leg stretch with head torch, mainly for owl watching reasons.

HC, moor, US ,Hutton.
Felt strong and good to be out.

Rest day - actually 16 hours of work and traveling which left no time for anything else.

Roads round Waterloo. Felt good to be out after two long work days. And my first post using the iPhone app

Home to Gribdale, then 2 hours checking all control sites for Coate Moor event. Interesting process but glad I am not a controller. Any map never looks quite good enough when you are going slowly and wondering how other people will see it.
Physically felt good, if tired by the end.

Mulgrave for final time - just on 2 hours

Easy down to the post office and back. Feeling good - easy running does feel fluent at the moment.
Very chilly again. This did not affect the sixth formers queuing outside Greggs in T shirts. It must be all the pies.

Early evening lost to work, so eventually got out for short run to test ankle in terrain again - no problem.
Run was notable for owl spotting - one established territorial pair in usual spot and two separate males kicking about although they may have been the same bird.

Down to opticians and back, incorporating most of a 2.5km sprint course on the Westgate map - concentrated on reading absolutely everything. No grumbles from right ankle - hooray.

Pinch and Bousdale, feeling sprightly. More felling.

WU - then terrian loops
short in 2:19, almost a lap record despite the slippy conditions
loner in 4:11
10 short sprints on the rough ride
Tweaked right ankle on both laps. so stopped. Actually feels worse now thatn it did at the time - iced and strapped so will keep fingers crossed

Easy headtorch run with juniors - to school, top of quarry, HC, school, home.

Sherwood pines - to start and back, warm up, minimal cool down.

NOC - Sherwood - very long orange course, named brown.
No major time loss but very tired in last third. Small time losses (10-20s) were all due to not being sufficiently precise around AP or faffing exit the control.

I'm not sure why I enjoy this regular NOC event, but I do. The orienteering is mostly <=TD4, there are lots of paths, and some of the forest is rubbish. But it comes at that time of the season when a fast run in simple terrain gives good practice for the proper orienteering which comes later. You need some extra focus to occupy your mind so I tried always to have a 'negative' attack point, towards which to leave the control. That worked well as long as there wasn't too much happening on the leg.

In hindsight, the planning was uninspiring. I haven't tried yet, but would hope to find at least one decent long leg, or one area to support some very short legs. The overall impression was lack of variety. It should be possible to automatically compute some sort of 'variety' index based on the course layout.

Risinghurst to Shotover. Had intended to do two shjort courses but the old map was not up to it. Good explore, reading everything, then 12 times 30second hills reading and planning 2 legs each ascent.
Then road route back into town.

Easy loop in Guis woods at lunchtime. Climbing felt easy for some reason. And they are cutting more trees down.

WU and CD, then some terrain work in woods behind house:
- normal loop plus new trace, each about 600m and 40m up/down, 5 times each around 4:11 off 5:45
- 10 times 15s sprints through terrain.

More tagging in Mulgrave

Meandering route down to track. WU, drills, CD with juniors. 3km, leading juniors around - first km easy, next medium, next hard - 11:50

over 3 hours tagging in Mulgrave

An hour updating some bits of Coate moor map

WU and CD for British Nights

British Nights. Really enjoyable event. Gist = lost 4 careless minutes early on, otherwise careful and solid, finished 3 minutes down. Grr.

Solid first 3 and surprisingly leading. On #4, lost contact through green, picked up wrong ditch, eventually relocated on depression - 2:15 mins down. Stronger compass would have prevented that. Then lost direction exit #4, picked up wrong one in a set of parallel rides and lost time stuck in green - another 1:30. Compass again.
Solid after that - perhaps over-cautious choices in 6,7,14 - but no significant loss.

4 intervals each around 4.5 minutes on the way up/down from Hi Cliff. Definitely not feeling the speed but good to get these things fitted into the day. Lots more fallen wood.

Coate Moor: round a forthcoming course with Headtorch. Some parts very tricky in the dark

WU, CD then:
- 5 terrain loops each 2:31ish - not bad as quite slippy and some new obstacles on the loop
- 6 sprints of 80m or so in terrain.
Two male tawnies calling at 1pm.