Training Log Archive: slowphil

Hard work around the Lydney in the Forest of Dean. Snow on the ground, covering the deep mud, often thick brambles and occasionally some rocks, with some very deep depressions to avoid running into(!).

A few minor mistakes, quickly corrected, early on. A very long leg in the middle, for which I uncharacteristically stood still and thought about my route (twice, probably for about 20 secs each time - I didn't wear the Garmin in case that wasn't allowed today). Keen to see where people went on that leg on Routegadget when it comes up. Distracted by suddenly finding myself leading a pack of (quicker M50ishs) a couple of controls later, I lost confidence in my route and relocated (and then missed) to lose five minutes. Then OK again until a final deep depression in the brambles, which I overshot by ten feet and then only found again about five minutes later. Nearly didn't bother running up the muddy hill to the final control, but kept it going just in case the Championship standard was still achievable. Looks like I may have just squeaked inside, but I couldn't have any complaints if the final results show me outside. Would help make the eight hours out of the house to compete worthwhile!

Having seen the spilts, a trend is emerging. Was less than 3 mins down at halfway, but finished almost 20 mins down. Looking also at Portugal, where the two middle races were better overal performances than the two long distances, it does appear as though i'm slowing down and/or making mistakes towards the end of the longer races. May be concentration, but probably also stamina/basic fitness. One thought to explore is that I tend to start plodding in the second half of longer races, whereas I find it easier to stay aggressive in the forest right through in the middle races. It's also possible that I start too quickly on the longer races (after all, I have a habit of doing that on the road), but I'm not sure I'm ready to buy that one just yet. Guess I'll need to keep going with the training then...

warm up

Event: Southern Champs
 

Good stretching after 3 1/2 hours of "a good walk spoiled"

Just seen the climb for the M40 course on Sunday. Don't think I'll be doing much more work before that...

Conscious effort not to push things every day - just a few gentle stretches today.

Enjoyable middle race to finish the event. Roughly 6.5mins/km again, like Sunday's middle race (whilst the two longer races were both more like 8.5mins/km). No real navigational mistakes, just one or two hesitations, though perhaps when I get chance to look at the splits I may not have been quite as direct as I could have been on two of the (few) longer legs. [Yes - I took too indirect a route to each of 10 and 11 and lost 45 secs or so on each as a result].

Nice way to finish the event, especially since the early start time and short course meant that we could have lunch at the restaurant at Taylor's Port cellars in Oporto, and a nice walk around the city to sober up before
driving to the airport :)

Looks as though I finished 6th in the event overall, having placed 17th, 7th, 11th and 11th. Not sure if some of the faster runners didn't stay for all four races, though I think the first three was the same pretty much every day. Was lots of fun, in reasonably technical areas, and, even if the weather was more akin to the JK than to, say, the O-ringen, it was well worth the trip.

Warm up after bus ride to the arena.