Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Night-o in Uznach.
For some reason I wasn't expecting so many hills in a Swiss night-o? silly me! Pretty basic course on paper and a bit out of date map, but good fun! the snow had packed down the blackberries nicely, so Lukas' advice to use the tracks wasn't needed 100% of the time (but was still the best tactic 80% of the time).
Felt fast when the going was open, but lost a fair bit of time on a couple of controls in thicker/vaguer stuff. Had a guy in an orange shirt catch me up ~#2 and #3 and couldn't shake him. He was the same pace on track and stronger in terrain, but was a little messier in the circle, so I kept up.

Got beaten by 10mins by the winner on this course. somehow...they must have known the area? surely?!

C • Night-O Tuggen 4

First attempt. Won't put down distance...let's just say not far ;)
Spent a reasonable amount of time on my bum, a lot of time giggling uncontrollably and more time having fun.

Was getting the hang of it at the end. Maybe. A little. Unco.

From st luc on the road and select runnable trails.

Elbow still a bit screwed from last week. Made L side planks impossible

Hike from St Luc up to Weisshorn Hotel with Laure. Sweet but steep tracks up, with hard packed snow where the skiers had been. But if you stepped 5cm offline...suddenly knee deep, which happened a fair few times :)
Coffee at the hotel before a gentle 5km run down to the ski field. Caught the cable car down to save the knees.

Went with Raquel and Tiago to join the portalegre mountain running group run. Kinda like the o-gang, but 16 people on the long run, not sure we've topped that ever?

The trails were awesome, and I was so lucky to join; some places you can visit alone and find a map and explore, but here, the tracks we were on were tiny, impossible to spot the end of, and when found, often looked like they were private.

Proabably 60% of the run was tiny single tracks, sometimes descending or ascending slopes steep enough to have ropes for aid (but not needed unless super muddy i'd guess). Other parts were through narrow stream valleys or rock hopping. I guess the ultimate aim was to summit the main peak, but we took a very round about, and very fun way, to get there.

After 2-3 big/tough training weeks though, it was really tough physically and I was in struggle town from about 20mins in. It was worth hanging in for the trails and scenery, but in honesty I was ready to turn back toward the cars after about an hour...unfortunately I had no idea where or how to return, only R+T spoke english, R didn't know the route, and T was way off infront somewhere...

After 1.50 we tried to regroup (I was at the back of the front pack), but we'd somehow lost the 2nd group - and couldn't find them despite returning to the highest summit to look! This is where the o-gang wins on organisation; despite our often recited motto "50% is a pass" (i.e. you can lose 50% of the group and it's still ok), we've never actually lost or left anyone behind. I don't think.

I was a bit tired and grumpy toward the end. but there was honey and nut cake at the finish, and the sun finally came out from behind the haze, so all good in the end.

Headed out to the coast to get a taste of Portuguese sand dunes. Ran on a map adjacent to the town where WMOC sprint final was in 08...I seem to remember mum having issues with the open dunes in that race. Well, today I had issues in the forested dunes!
The map, we figured afterwards, was about 10-13 years old. Which explains why the terrain was much, much more green than the map implied! Not spikey, and not impassable, but hard work and with visibility of 2-3 m which made contour work hard! But really, i'm just making excuses for the fact that I completely and utterly lost contact around #23...and never regained it until I wsa 60% of the way back to the car...
Before then I was going alright, although very slowly (both physically and with my map interpretation).

For all the complaints and excuses it was a nice session. And sunny and warm :)

oh, and i took a map without tracks. maybe they would have helped...
http://ogang.org/doma/show_map.php?user=lizziei&ma...