Training Log Archive: McCloy

Event: Irish Long O series 2
 

I started with the intent of going easy and just making my way around the course, this was tough navigation and I just wasn't used to it. 1 was in the forest and was straightforward. 2, 3 and 4 eased into the navigational end of things, it was very well done when I think about it. 5, well 5 was my last control. I headed up over the mountain in the right direction, for the majority of the time I knew exactly where I was. When I got towards the top of the hill I found it hard to figure exactly where I was due to what I thought was rocks missing from the map. It took me ages to find 5. I could see one man had caught up, then another. After scouring the side of the mountain with no notion where I was, we eventually stumbled upon it. Declan then came bobbing past. I said to him that I was gonna drop out, he tried pushing me on, but I had it, I was beat. I ran a bit more towards the next control, but when I was still struggling to figure where I was on a clear day, I just got really pissed off put my tail between my legs and walked back. I'm annoyed with myself that I did it and there's no excuse, I just gave up. Not the normal me, that's only my third non-finished race in 12 years of racing, the last two times have been due to the onset of hypothermia (funilly, the first time I dropped out was on Slieve Foye, in close to the same place!). So I'm a bit pissed off.

The problems were good, but not the best I don't think. For a couple of the routes it was essential that you were tall enough to reach the finish holds. One in specific was either an easy reach up for people who were tall enough, or a dyno up to two pinches.

1 was nice and balancy
2 was a formality (good for freshers)
3 was OK
4 was a good problem, I made a hash of it though
5 was another formality, it could have had a harder variant straight up
6 was OK
7 was OK for tall people, a nightmare for short people
8 was good, but again, a harder variant (no hands) was available

9 was fun, a series of jugs under a roof, then up and over for a couple of reachy holds. I didn't get why people were hell hooking the start, I just monkey bared it!

10, 11 and 12 were there to separate the top guys. Of course I did not get any of these.

10 was a dyno on to crimps. A finger buster for people who weren't used to it. I never caught it meself.

11 was overhang city. I would like to have seen this one demo'd. I doubt anyone got it.

12 was an overhanging dyno start on to a half ball sloper around a pyramid, followed by a series of slopy holds on increasing overhang. Sounds complicated, it was. The dyno was hard to stick, when you did you had little chance to swing yourself up to the next one, once you went static, it was very hard to lock off and reach. I funked it a bit at the end and pulled a figure four to get past the sloper. It worked in practice, but I couldn't get it in the end.

Had a good day out. I'm glad I went down. Some of our frsehers were doing really well, I never heard the outcome.

I just printed a copy of the 1:10,000 slieve foye map at 1:15,000. Even with proper symbol sizes and printing, I think I'm going to need the binoculars!!!

Tried to do a session on relocation. Two things made it difficult. Firstly was peoples' inability to understand that although we are standing in a field, which was easy to locate in, it was more about going through the motions so it becomes easier in intricate terrain. Olivia's idea of relocating by going to the nearest identifiable feature just doesn't cut it in a race. Second was the fact that a map used at a club race in December 2010 had magnetic north from 2002 on a map which was surveyed in 2004 and updated in 2006. Hopefully we can make all the fixes when the Dub building works are finished.