Training Log Archive: slowphil

Training run at ski resort - 1560m

Event: Burnham Beeches and Egypt Wood Regional Event
 

2nd/24. Ok run in very wet conditions. Drfiting off line again, especially in green areas, but kept pace up reasonably well. Had a good battle with the guy who beat me - he started a miunte behind, and caught me on the first long leg. I got away several times, so we didn't see each other all that often, but I kept making stupid little mistakes. I was running a bit quicker, but just not cleanly. I eventually found a better route to the last control, but then wavered because I saw two flags and remembered that the finish (80m away) would have two flags. Just corrected, but he came in a few seconds behind me to beat me by nearly a minute overall.

Generally pleased, despite the small errors and losing a minute plus on each of the two longer legs. A month ago, Jacob saw me at a WAOC event and, having seen my results, asked me if I was injured. I wasn't, but I just hadn't run much in the previous six months. Today he commented that I'm obviously back to speed! :)

Warming up in pouring rain on way to start. Thank goodness I was able to get a start time as soon as I arrived!

Long warm down jog back to download and then back to the car. At least the rain had stopped by then!

Hamstrings/calves/achilles and knee exercises, as ever.

Great to be able to try out a few things at the monthly SN events, especially since they're always around the corner from my golf club :)

Light blue is the longest course avaliable, unfortunately, but nevertheless provides a good opportunity to address whatever's not working at the moment. Right now for me that's keeping accurate on bearings when travelling at speed, and one very poor control (#1) demonstrated the issue - ended up losing 4 mins in the wrong block within 400m of the start kite! It got much better after that, although there were still a couple of times when I was 15 degrees out in relatively runnable forest. There was probably also a good reminder that trying to be too quick out of the start triangle can be very dangerous.

C • That's not training.... 2

Managed to finish in the City by 1230 and go by train out to the BAOC event at Blackwood, a couple of miles from Micheldever Station.

Lovely, open, fast forest. Ran 6 mins/km and yet the winner (Richard Barrett) was 10% quicker than me (and from the splits it looks though Mark Nixon did many of the legs quicker still). The best route for most legs was already marked on the map. Following it precisely was another matter - occasionally drifted off rough bearings, though rarely a problem due to high visibility in the forest. Although several controls were in depressions, there were enough features, such as conspicuous trees, to catch most drifting. One sudden decision that I'd gone wrong because the veg screen didn't match cost me almost a minute, not aiming off when coming to an earthbank line looking for a small re-entrant cost me thirty seconds, plus a couple of hesitations when I hadn't yet run quite far enough. Somehow changing back to 1:10 after 1:!5 at the weekend had me expecting to see flags before I'd got there. Eventually reassured myself when on a 100m road run that the scale really was 1:10, and figured out that I was either impatient or running a little slower than I'd hope to. Kept it going though - overtook on total time two runners, including Charles B-G, on the 230m leg from the last control to the finish :) Ended up 10th/64.

warm up jog to registration and to the start

Warm down jog back to Micheldever station.