Training Log Archive: ndobbs

To Herttoniemi, early o'clock.

Tampere Games
Middle Distance RG (a bit of distortion on this map, good but old).

Spiked the first, so a little complacent racing to the second, and misconstrued the map... two pictures of what was going on on the leg, and the overlap didn't match. Lost well over a minute here. So leaving 3, Miika H caught me 4 minutes already(!), ran with him for the next 6 controls, I would occasionally try overtaking or whatever but it tended not to work... at 9 I made a 30s mistake and he was gone. Lost maybe two minutes from there to the end, did some nice orienteering along the way, but not exclusively.

Not happy with performance, but fantastic terrain. 1st place was 37, 3rd was 40... top, top guys were running huippuliiga

Got a lift into town after, found a bed in a hostel, ate Indian, wandered town for a bit, went to bed for three hours, went out and bought food, chatted some in the kitchen, and bed again. Didn't sleep well. I'm not sure was it the excessive sun. But running lots also affects my nose, is it the dehydration, or allergic reaction is worse.

C • Nice! 3

Back to WOC 2001 tomorrow!

C • And nice! 3

Slowly home, via the supermarket. Cycling is fun.

Splits from yesterday http://www.kokkens.fi/kilpailut/2013/prisma/vali.h...

WRE points are up. 813. Damn. I guess that's what happens when it's (a runners' course for Finns) in Finland. Ross M, to compare, got 1001 pts, while he was averaging 1150 in NZL... it certainly felt like I ran as well or better than the NOC middle a few years ago in Finland, where 11 mins down on the best finn got me over a thousand. Hohum.

to work, recovering(?)

Said hi to a tikli or two on the way in.

Judging by paces, there might be 5-600m on asphalt towards the end.

And did my first search and replace all with vi in a long long time, altitiude tags being the object. Not convinced home is as high as it claims...

http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/20130509prismaH/

A good race, but still last. Hot. And I might have taken a few straighter lines if I were stronger.

Results: http://www.kokkens.fi/kilpailut/2013/prisma/tulos....

C • but the question is 7

PrismaRastit, Lohja
Huippaliga... so I came last, by a ways... but not a bad run at all. Though it is terrain where it is impossible to get lost more than 100m. Still, nearly clean is nearly clean.
Boström won in 31:04. I'd like to be a bit closer, but I had IOC in my legs still, and need to do more physical training. Today felt like the highest my heart rate had been in a while, though that could be to do with the heat too.

Got the first few controls cleanly, they weren't exactly hard, and Severin caught me leaving 4... behind him to 5, easy enough, and I took a righter route to 6 as he pulled away, keeping it simple. TuMe guy passed me to 7, and I hesitated going to 8 (needed to veer right a little to go out on the broad spur), so he was gone. Then on my own again for a while... 9 I lost 15s maybe, not far enough right, but the giant cliff shouted that at me. 10 was easy, straighter may have been faster, maybe... 11... getting tired... next couple of controls were still ok, but then I was suffering, esp for the uphill through the green (felled area with saplings)... overtaken by another couple of guys at the last woods control...

Terrain like this I am starting to feel confident in. At least with courses like this. Now I need to run smoother, plan ahead, be in real control. And get fitter. Much fitter.

New run to work. No shortage of birdwatchers. Mostly grit, some grass, very little asphalt.

Two funny comments from Sunday: At the river crossing, I took half a cup of water first time round, and on the way back about the same. Pat says, "Take another cup or two, there's a fair amount to go yet", or some such. I didn't, and didn't need it. I think osmosis was enough.
Then after finishing, I'm changing into a dry top when Boyzone goes, look at that, or some such, and I check how fat my belly is, then how pink it is, confused... then Shane points out the bloody nipple.

IOC Relay
1st leg. rg

Ger B and a few others flew out of the start, I pushed but they still got 50+m on me by the 1st control. For some reason they all slowed down when they hit the steep hill halfway to 2, so by 3 I wasn't too far back... all easy peasy mentally, coasting along behind, checking the codes... back up and over the hill again, used the big uphill-facing crag to make the next control safe, again at the back of the pack (well, I don't know who or what was behind, but there were at least 5 in front)... Conor made a move, then stopped to scratch his head, so we were all in a string for the loop, gaffles were minor... and up the hill once more... I tried to take a straighter line, sort of succeeded and caught back up a few metres as the downhill began in earnest. I had a shorter gaffle than Conor so ended up in second, then leading, then had to climb back up one contour as Shane to took the lead, all to 11(?)... then Conor got 12 cleanly as we others got distracted by surplus marsh and didn't pay enough attention to direction...
... so Conor and Shane then in the lead, myself and Josh chasing down... the last downhill control I decided to sprint as I needed to make up 50m, then we had an across-the-slope, not too tricky, except one contour was hard to see at the marsh edge, and I had to go right and up at the end of the leg to spike the control... and the finish sprint began, with three controls left :) I was in the lead, punched the next one, Shane tried to trip me but ended up doing himself more harm... could hear people hot on my heels as I got the next one, and the next one... and overtaken by Josh on the run-in... good performance by him. Conor and Shane were right behind, not sure what then... fun times.

Nice to see Conor winning the Middle (there ought to be a trophy!), and Marcus in great shape winning the long (Ged was the only one even slightly close on running speed), Ged medalling in the Middle. ColmM impressed too, and was maybe unlucky not to figure higher in the results. Ruairi had a very steady long, slower and better than me.

And the juniors... Robert Pim, R&R Long, etc :)

And in case I didn't say it already, fantastic terrain!!!

Great fun squelching.

Silver!!

QR, without the controls marked. And routegadget, where macs don't get animated.

1 - easy enough, to the big marsh, navigated into the control using the boulders mostly, not nec the smartest but it worked

2 - scary looking, used the index contour shapes to get as far as the pond, then kept going, reasonably confident the control would be where it was, sort of.

Actually, looking at the map again, few of the controls were properly centred on the feature. And I don't think it's a coincidence that they are centred off in the direction the control was... so 2 was boulder w side, and circle was centred west of boulder. Not good.

3 - To the crossing point was trivial. Then... I wanted to understand the rock, as it was hard to read the contours, but didn't. And the contours confused me too. Esp as the depression had a pond in it, which thoroughly confused me. Oops. Came back to chek out the other side of the knoll once I'd realised what was up.

4 - easy with the stream and the hill to tell you where to turn up, though turning up 50m earlier might have saved 5-10s

5 - though it was going to be a hill, not a depression, so lost a few seconds in hesitation

6 - whizzing across the mountain, in slow motion.

7 - easy

8 - hesitant, playing it safe

9 - fun

10 - FUN

11 - could see it from 10

12 - 4m boulder, not 2m. Also, here's another place the circle needed centering.

13 - shouldn't have been so far right

14 - grand

15, 16, easy enough.

17 scary, regained contact thanks to the depression just above

18 up up up

19 went left of hilltop to be safe, but still got confused coming down, hesitant.

20 played it safe, slow, no risk

21 the re-entrant halfway there was immediately visible, so ran for it, continued on, lone boulder on hill ws obvious, no idea what the control itself was going to be

22 wheeeee

23 boulder among boulders, lost a few secs

24 reading map carefully until I crossed a spur and all became clear. Easier than expected.

25 used the big re-entrant and the smaller spurs, easy enough

26 focus neil, focus... nearly lost it here... was expecting to arrive in the upper part of the marsh, not the lower, and didn't realise...

27 flaking it

finish - trying to flake it

C • Wonderful! 11

1 - Splits