Training Log Archive: SusC

home from work via the Sapodilla tree

after dinner

Hello again bike. To work. Is dark and cold (comparatively) here!

at my desk at lunch

More Lok Cabay, taped sites, built a bridge and worked on the other track.

Spent the day on the Lok Cabay map, tidying the assembly area and building the track to the remote start.

Sore throat, baking entries to Royal Show, updating 2 weeks of attackpoint....whew!

Arrive home, 6am. Getting sore throat but not surprising given lack of sleep since Saturday. Nice to smell Darwin, and we have birds here.

C • Welcome home 5

Fly Singapore - Darwin.

Pack, depart. Calves sore, must be dancing in thongs:) Head too. Need sleep. But have just had absolutely the best time ever. Can't wait to see what next year brings!
Fly Geneva - Singapore with Wendy.

Chalet a Gobet again, a full day watching womens and then mens relays, then home to hostel, beer O down at the atletics track, then to Banquet. So so much fun!! This has been the best month of my life!

We got matching party dresses for 7 people in 45 minutes, must be some kind of record...! Managed to find a length that fit everyone.

Swiss5 Day 5, enter on day course. Basic nav but enjoyed it a lot as mostly runnable and lots of tracks. Lots of tracking. Found controls well from my attackpoints. Not very warm today.

on way to start, then got talking to Dick O.

At Chalet a Gobet, watching Aislinn & Julian in the Long final. Aislinn got lots of screen time as had the lead for quite a while. She did really well! A fun day of spectating. Aussie supporter arvo tea under the big screen after races ended.

Along the lake before a swim, incuded some log running. Legs felt fast after a whopping massage last night and burny rub stuff from Elin this morning.

Swiss5 Day 4 area, Assembly area at 1800m alt at top of cog railway in mountains at eastern end of Lake Lausanne. Started with DE map and after 300m had worked out that the 8.8km would take 2hrs plus, which i wasn't ready for, so just mostly walked and did controls in the complex area between start and finish (1, 11,12,13,14,15,19,20). Very beautiful area, gorgeous flowers in the grass but grass lumpy and mixed with ferns, rock, blueberries and azaleas to knee deep. Huge steep hills & slopes in the part of the course i didn't do. Winning km rates around 12 mins/km, course cut off time was extended from 2.5 hrs to 3hrs at some point during the day. Think there was a large number of dnf's, as there was an announcement that you must come to the finish when dnfing, as otherwise you will be looked for with a search party, and you will be billed for the cost of the search.

DE course of Swiss5 Day 3, opposite middle final area. Small area of mosty spruce forest, with fields around - trained here three weeks ago when it was wet, today sunny and beautiful. Comfortable with map although couple of control sites had visited previously. Aimed to take it fairly easy, not rush decision making and to be aware of exact location when mid leg between controls. Did this well, just over-ran my departure point from track when a gully didn't show how I wanted it to and also started navigating to the 2nd last by thinking i was somewhere else but not more than 2 mins lost all together.

on way to start and also later on in the afternoon, with V and Lizzie warming down after their final race.

Made it across the road to the middle final arena in time to just see Ness finish. Very exciting watching Edgar Bertuks win the mens!

10 min lap of model map before start and 8 mins on grass in warm down area after.

WOC 2012 Middle Qual, on slope above St George, approx 1100m alt. Heat A. A very disciplined & careful run for nearly all of it, listening to the map and assessing risk well. However, stuffed #1 somehow, despite having what I thought was a secure route. Attackpoint of small gully didn't show itself well and had lost touch with distance because running faster than am used to. Nothing distinct with contours to facilitate immediate relocation so headed further down slope until got to a point of better contour definition and then came up to control from the bottom. What a horrible panicky feeling, not getting the first control cleanly, ugh! Cost three mins. Was able to put it out of my head fairly well for rest of course and make own decisions without influence but did poor execution of what was supposed to be a safe plan at #15 (last control in forest). Went deliberately to L of line to be sure to get upper part of correct gully and follow it down, but gully so flat in upper part that nothing to steer me in. Could see track, so headed back in to forest but still couldn't get a fix on where the gully was so back to track again and judged angle to gully from distance to field at end of track. Cost 1 min on a quite short leg. In hindsight would have been better just to do the leg slower, straight on compass, rather than trying to find a safer way to do the leg.

Sooo, 17th, one minute behind qualifying. A better result than I expected, given the three mins on 1st control and therefore not really upset over not qualifying as feel I didn't deserve to with such mistake. But more annoyed with self for losing time on down hill legs as am aware these are most dangerous places to lose time and in both cases I thought I had suitable plans but they turned out to fail. Wonder if am actually faster than accustomed to and am misjudging distances, as usually I would be confident to rely on my feel for distance to back up a vague physical feature such as a hard to see flat gully head. Hmmm! Physically, was happy with race, legs felt good. Uphill finish a killer, at end chest felt ready to burst open!

Down to the park and along to the assembly area for Day 1 of Swiss5 (on the the uni where we ran yesterday). Chatted a bit to Aussies, then back to hostel. Their courses looked even more plain than ours.

Warm up in Quarantine incl run throughs, plus running approx 1k enroute to start during pre start, plus 7 mins of laps around the warmdown area after finishing.

WOC Sprint Qual at uni campus in Lausanne, starting next to the swiss cheese building near main road. Heat A, fairly basic nav & not particularly technical route choices, mostly just one side of building vs other. Failed to see pass through option at #6 so lost a few secs, also opposite route a fraction shorter going to #11, maybe 5-8 secs each. Small hesitations at #3 and 12, otherwise running hard the whole way. Quite happy with 20th and surprised to be only 16 seconds off qualifying. Following team announcement in May had been very worried about being put in the sprint and finishing at the bottom so had swapped all intervals to 3k pace for last six weeks and focussed on changing approach to navigation in sprints. Feel I have improved already but think I ought to continue working on it to see how much better I can do.

Ran down to sprint model map, walked around controls, then stopped for drills on a slope near the water.

Middle qual model area, adjacent Mt Bally. Ran up to the map via the road, around several controls and then studied the veg mappping a bit.

bit of warm up plus some jogging to get to the next interval each time

4 x short intervals of 3-4 controls each, as a group with 1 min starts, Simon, Vanessa, Tom, Sus.

on way to start, up the hill

Composite course on training map, taking three legs hard and one leg recovery. Tried to compare common legs of today with when ran here two weeks ago but maybe was tireder then.

Doing the course on the map, to practice plan & bang technique looked at each leg for a few seconds until picked the route, then put the map away while running the leg. Some legs hard to pick, still didn't get them right after looking for 20 seconds! Afterwards went and tested out some routes by double running them. Concluded that flights of stairs are probably worth up to 5 seconds each up hill, maybe 2-3 downhill. Was a cleverly set course, every leg had a puzzle on it.

DE, 7 Nationaler race, at Hofstetten. 3k something walk to start with 300m climb and 14 minute pre-start. Rainy overnight so forest quite slippery. Some v steep hillside legs! Missed a couple of minutes overshooting #4 and another wandering around checking out lots of unmapped mounds at #12 before getting the one with control. Veg mapping didn't always make sense to me and course physically rather full on but actually enjoyed race in the end.

Wendy met Vanessa & me at event, then back to hostel for packs, then to Dizy via tour de France for a couple of hours.

Flatter bit of way to start, then walked with Dick O.

Short run incl drills, in the park near the hostel in Basel. Park on a slope, quite a useful place for running.

after running

Long 'sprint' on the French/German/Swiss border, starting across the river on the French side. Ran approx 23 mins hard, then easier for last few controls. Planned legs well, just one silly route because I didn't want to wait for traffic so ran a different way to what was logical. Quite warm this afternoon.

Little run with Vanessa as warmdown, in same park as this morning. Very nice evening, lots of people in park.

after running

travel Kosice to Basel, Munich airport radar having a spaz and causing flight issues.

On Bankov, adjacent to Kosice. Lovely public forest close to town - couldn't believe the lack of rubbish. Just little bits of running putting tapes out and watching the kids doing the realy mass start legs. The ditches area was chaotic, even I couldn't do it while running.

A bit running around a getting stuck in the green on the open grazed JJ map at the hilltop and then 30 mins shadowing Lilian on the Torzo map just a fraction lower down where the forest starts. I have to come back here...the wild (weed?) flowers were amazing on the top map (as was the fact that I somehow remembered how to get on to the map from the village after seven years). Loved the sheep herd and herder with dog also. I LOVE orienteering in Europe!!

C • Sounds lovely!! 1

On Zeleny Dvor, north of Kosice. Superly runnable beech/elm forest with small contour detail (possibly overmapped) on one large slope. Put out 300m track interval tapes, then ran around a bit shadowing Amy, then pulled in some tapes. So much fun fun FUN in these forests! Ankle finally not so sore running.

really have been slack this week

On the northern of our Roznava maps. Putting out tapes for route choice ex and pulling some in after. This map not so quick, 7-8 min kms maybe. Had my fill of wild strawbs:)

Drive Budapest to Kosice