Training Log Archive: PaulT

Test run Blue at Brierley, running hard with no aches and groans.

WU, CD plus some jogging around

Various WU, to start and back , from finish.

CSC at Scardale and Knapton. Physical area but good running, and good to get some hills. Aimed for a clean run: one weird area of map in a quarry (45secs) and 4 other 15 sec slips, and 30 secs recovering from being stabbed on the nose by a branch. . Will need to be more aggressive next weekend. And good to see Alastair and Chris very nearby in the results.

Tagging sites at Brierley with Tim H. Lovely spring morning, lots of wildlife, and we have picked the best bits. All's well with the world.

Horse track, dolomite, HC, Sledd, PCR, Secret, HT. Rode climbs hard, so a good workout. Left knee feels weak somehow, perhaps due to left ankle nonesense.

Loop of Guis Woods, Sleddale, Gribdale, HS. Dusty tracks, cool air. Rode hard. Great.
New barbed wire fence right next to the moor edge track is un-nerving though.

Did catch up with the forestry guy (lumberjack?) below High Cliff Nab and tried to find out how much more he was to cutt down.
Me, sat on bike, sweating.
Him sat on 8 wheel drive, 6 litre diesel harvesting machine, in the cab, wearing ear defenders, also sweating. And he was a Geordie.
It wasn't a high quality or efficient conversation.
But I did find out that there is still a few weeks harvesting left to do, in quite a small area of limited orienteering value anyway.

Leg Strength, core set

Most of the 'A' course from NOrthallerton Urban Race. Some really good longer legs, and the map isn't that shabby (or at least there are no new mistakes). Calves sore from the hard surface by the end.

Missed the fell race,so, terrain Loops below Green Hill.
Four off 3.5mins in 2:16, 2:19, 2:20, 2:19, then long cool down.
First was a lap record, but conditions good.

Loop to HC, to E end of Guis woods, to Belmont School, home

Various warming up, cooling down, going to starts, car etc

Br Sprints Qual 3, Chorley
Fairly easy area. Fun housing estate, but with few dead ends so couldn't go that far wrong.
#3 - 12 secs - Missed a shorter route and then over-ran it
#9 - 10s - dithered a bit, over-reading the map to make sure the mid-green wasn't olive green
Qualified for #B# final, though it was a bbbbiiiigggggg B final

'B' FInal (same course as A - GG won in 14mins).
Easy start around town area, back through park
#6 - 8secs, missed best exit from #5
A few other time losses of some seconds getting through terrain
#11 - 10s - stuck in green - could see flag but not get to it.

2nd M50, but nearly 2 mins behind TT.
Overall, disappointing terrain, but a competitive result in a well presented event..

Warmup, warmup map twice cool down.

BM, Haverthwaite.
Quite the worst I have orienteered for ages. Perhaps didn't give the terrain enough respect - it is a great test of all techniques.
#1 - 15s - was going in the right direction for the right distance, nothing much was seeming to fit but then a flag came into view. It had the right number on. Result.
#5 = 20s - wrong re-entrant on short leg, but many lost time there as the small re-entrant was full of brash from the direction of approach
#6 - 70s - pulled left by terrain, then distracted by other control even further left when I 'knew' it should be right.
#7 - 15s - hesitant after previous two
#12 - 70s: longer leg and got to edge of circle well with low risk attack point, then got on wrong, lower line of crags.
#15 - 25s - lazily ran to wrong crossing point without checking compass.
#17 - 120s - good to circle, saw my stone but not the flag, so ran on for some reason, when I #knew# that this was the feature.
#23 - 60secs - very tired and lazy. banana route through kack on a 30sec leg to a crossing point.
6+ minutes of fairly basic errors.
Against all that, I had some good legs wit good pictures and simplification. Had several top 5 splits so speed was not as shabby as it seemed. Also, the best M50s made mistakes today, even Bilbo who won by ages.
6th out of 60, so what was everyone else up to?

Really enjoyed the whole day. It will be hugely satisfying when I have a clean race around a venue suchas this. More time doing 'proper' orienteering needed before that happens though.

C • "proper" orienteering 2

Knaresborough lunch run; 3 * 90sec reps up various crag routes, trying to remember the routes from the CLARO races.

Easy loop of woods with Jenn. Somehow didn't expect it to be cold, which it was.

Terrain loop at good pace in Hutton - all small tracks or terrain. Dry feet the whole way and felt fine in terrain for a change.

Steady loop around town with yet another course on the map - trying to read EVERYTHING. Still some weaknesses in the map .....

Brierley again, fairly easy rate but good agility workout.

Early morning up to moor edge, back through terrain.

Full Loop of Hutton and Guisb'o

Up to Sledale, back via HC, plus some long overdue stretching.

Lord Stones / Cringle

Long walk in G'boro Woods to Stretch out a bit

Dear post-JK Diary,
The 2nd place in the sprint was flattering. I was well prepared but some parts of the run were very scrappy, too scrappy to deserve a medal in a premier national competition. My route choices were made quickly but were not the best in 2 cases, almost ran to a wrong control, and was distracted by the ambulance fuss on another leg. 40 seconds mistakes in total perhaps. Others must have fared less well. The sport can't be that difficult.

On the other two days, was relieved to survive physically and never felt my left ankle through the whole weekend. I've never done well at JKs for various reasons so perhaps a realistic comparison is with 5 years ago; at that stage I had perhaps 2 years experience of 'taking it seriously' .
- 2005 (2nd yr M45): winner 106 mins Tim Tett, me 31st in 138 mins
- 2010 (2nd yr M50) winner 107 mins Tim Tett, me 9th in 122 mins.
Although that must count as some sort of progress, the nature of the sport is to highlight what might have been.

Sat #1: despite all my focus in the last 6 months on nailing #1, I ran off too fast with a loose plan, didn't pace, and didn't see the wretched rootstock - minus 1 min.
Sat: experience said that it was worth avoiding morasses and keeping your map clean - I didn't and spent 1-2 mins washing my map at various places
Sunday #3: relied on an unreliable aspect of the map - the marshes. Poor risk management. Felt things didn't quite match at the track crossing but pressed on at a time when a 5 second stop would have put me right: minus 2mins.
Sunday #6: still not sure what happened, but the map did not match my picture at all. Its still a confusing bit of map, with form lines that don't help - minus 1.5mins
Sunday #7: being cautious after previous control - minus 0.5 mins.

That still leaves a big gap to work on and , whilst I don't think I can ever quite sustain a winning speed, there are still things to be improved.

Mapping: compared with early attempts, my sprint events now feel really solid and the only reason I can come up with is having the experience of drawing some sprint maps. Understanding how to do that makes other peoples' ISSOM maps that much easier to read. Perhaps drawing some ISOM maps in contour rich areas would have the same effect for normal orienteering?

Caning it: I'm not sure how to force myself to run faster and not coast. Well not coast - everything is relative. - but at no stage in an O race can I seem to get my average pulse to a rate similar to in a fell race. I just don't seem to have the mental bandwidth to do this.

Orienteering in the future - even at my speed there are still times when I don't navigate far enough ahead.

That's all.

JK relay, M120+, leg2, with Pooley and Julian S

WU/CD JK relays

WU/CD at JK day 3

JK day 3

JK Day 2

WU/CD at JK day 2

WU/CD at JK Sprint

JK Sprint