Training Log Archive: Lizzie

World Cup Middle

Such an awesome course in the sandstone of Turnov. I really wish I could hang around and train here for a while!
Had a good race today, bar one absolute nightmare of a control on #6.

After a steady start, we headed into the detail at #4. 5-6 I thought to head down and around the bottom of the detail before working my way back up through it to the control. All well and good. I exit #5 and find myself at the top of a sketchy as 2.5m cliff which I reckon I can (maybe) get down, at least, it looks like people have been down before me. I manage, but not without scaring the sh*t out of myself! Happy to be in one piece, i skirt around the bottom of the big cliff, into the reentrant and up into the detail to my control. Or not. 5mins of confusion later I bail out and realise my massive parallel error. Ugh. I head to the correct spur of rocks, immediately locate the men's control, and spend another 4mins being a confused idiot before clicking and finding my control with no further issue. Only 10mins blown on one control, no biggie!

After that I considered packing it in, but the terrain was so cool I had to keep going. I lacked motivation to try and find speed for a few controls, before we headed into the labyrinth and speed became a non-issue anyway. Wary from my early cock up, I took the safe option of running long distances around the detail, avoiding the steep slopes as much as possible, and just ducking in and out of controls. This turned out to be the best route on most legs anyway. So I managed to pull back at least a few spots by the finish.

So actually, pretty happy with the run. Obviously a 10min mistake is fatal in the result list, but I'd say it's a lot more positive than 5 x 2min mistakes. I understood the terrain and navigated well the rest of the course (bar entering one cliff early on #10...big cliffs on the ground do not translate to big cliffs on the map when there's other, bigger cliffs on the ground to compare against!)

World Cup Sprint Relay, 4th leg.

We got released from quarantine to the change over just in time for me to see Toby head out on 3rd leg, which was good, as I had some idea of how long I had for waiting/final warm up. Unfortunately though, we were a fair way back, so it was a game of seeing if or how many teams I could pull in on last leg.
Headed out by myself, around a minute back of the next teams up. The first leg was much as Tim had planned the night before, so I could run that fairly hard. Was surprised to see other teams already at #2 however. Kept myself clean through the down hill zig-zag of controls, but chose a bad route choice back over the spur to #9, dropping about 20s on the better choice I think.
From there it was a matter of gutsing it back up the hill and making the lactic legs keep moving around the last loop around the gardens. Had a momentary brain fart at the control just before the botanics, which meant I was a bit stuck behind Italy in the narrow paths, but accelerated (very relative term, it felt very sluggish!) past before the arena passage and didn't look back.

WD jog with Mary. Had to do two loops to get our cameras for the view point over Prague. There was a guy just below the lookout who had laid out a really beautiful romantic dinner set-up, no sign of the second party yet though. He looked a bit nervous!

The cold that has been threatening all week reared its head today. Classic timing. Really not sure racing was a great idea, but figured I'd be knocked out pretty fast anyway ;) Made for a nice burning throat sensation the whole way around, which matched nicely the burning leg sensation happening already!

As soon as I picked up the map on the start beep, I knew it would be all or nothing. Some short sharp park controls before gapping it through the parkland toward the sports complex, via a couple of slope controls. The flat running gave me good chances to wipe the snot from my face though, so I can't complain!
A criss-cross of controls around the tennis courts and buildings and suddenly it was the (long) finish stretch already. Ended up 13s off the lead in 9th place. Happy to make it through, but not ecstatic about having to run a 2nd race!

World Cup Knock Out QF

My first go at the actual knock out part, and at runners choice.
Happy with my selection, and was 2nd behind Anna Nahmi coming out of the forked part. However, from there it was about 1km straight running back toward the arena. Yeah, Nah. I managed to hang on in 5th place, losing time on the top 2 but not 3rd and 4th. But before the bridge into the sports complex, Julia came steaming past too, leaving me at the back. Julia and I too the left option to the next-last contro. I didn't think it was the best route, but being 6th, something had to be tried.
Sarina nastily caught her face on the fence at the penultimate control. A bit of hesitation as my initial reaction was to stop and help her in, as I was figuratively knocked out anyway. But she seemed capable of making it the 150m to the finish, so I continued. Probably not the wisest control to have so close to the end of a knock-out race? A tight control with either a cramped in-and-out, or trying to duck under a fence at speed.

Flew in, hopped in the rental car and drove straight out for a walk/jog around the middle model. Lovely forest, steep as slopes and some not insignificant sized cliffs and boulders. Saturday should be cool, although hopefully my cold will clear a bit by then and allow more than a walk!
Found a geocache under a rock, so was obliged to write in it. Obviously not a well visited one, the last date was 2014! Jo then kindly pointed out to me the massive rock carving that was right above the geocache. Woops, apparently I can find a tiny glass jar under the rock, but not the beautiful half statue carved out of the rock?? (And even less the middle model control 10m away).

Checked in to our luxurious accomm and was persuaded to go check out the sprint model with Tim. Jogged over to it, found some flags, debated the mapping of trees and arbitrary olive green, jogged home. No geocaches.

Got the full HSK dance set tonight.

Sprint training in Sarpsborg. Really nice to get out on a new sprint area, they're a rarity around here! A long session with 8.6km of sprinting planned. was quietly happy when we found construction blocking the last third of the second course, as otherwise the session was too long I think.
Really enjoyable all in all. No great speed, but at least by the 4th course me technique was feeling a bit less rusty

#1 Short parkland and buildings course, individual start.

#2 Mass start, no forking. Took a different route from the others on #2. It was a good route, but my execution was sh*t

#3 Mass start with forking. Mainly up in the parkland on the hill. Matching map to ground was a challenge at speed.

#4 Individual start in the town centre, finish through the park. The town is interesting with plenty of little alleyways, but unfortunately most of them are dead ends in courtyards. Good session.