Training Log Archive: Frostbite

More gentle walking, downhill from Rio Gere to Cortina, then up a cable car and down to Rio Gere again. Some nice views, a little bit of getting lost because no map. 8 miles of walking maybe.

Gentle walking lap of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. 6 miles in 4 hours. Many stops to look at stuff, take photos, drink coffee etc. Altitude 2300-2500 metres which was noticeable at first but I guess we got used to it.

Day 5, Padola Sant'Antonio. Mostly nice forest today and only one big climb right at the start. Wobbled a bit in the middle of the course with 1 min mistakes at 10 and 11 and hesitating into 12. Generally OK though and just about kept running. The last 1.5k was an easy track run followed by a couple of urban controls in the town, finishing in the main piazza. There was a bit of a steep climb on the track run where I got overtaken by a lady who must be about 7 months pregnant. I got her back in the town though. Well done me.

A bit feeble than previous days so 18th is a fair result. I'm glad there isn't a day 6.

Forgot to mention I dead legged myself on a sticking out branch. Finished ok but it is now very sore. I strapped my ankle so that was OK.

Day 4, Padola Valgrande. I had a late start which meant I got the rain, it started just when I did. Lost a minute at 2, couldn't decide which boulder was which and just hunted round a few. Lost another 45 seconds at 3 doing similar, except this time I worked out which was the right boulder before I saw the flag. I also twisted my ankle here which was painful for the rest of the course. After 2 mistakes in 3 controls, with a sore ankle and heavy rain I was feeling pretty low at this point, a feeling which persisted until #7 when I started to enjoy myself. There were a few longer legs requiring a bit of thought on the route to bring you out at the right level and I think I executed these pretty well. Then we had a few legs down a long spur with beautiful open forest and a fair bit of rock detail, before the trivial lap of the field to finish. 17th for the day. By my calculations I should be 12th or 13th overall.

Day 3, Misurina. Supposedly a middle distance but barely shorter than the previous day. The course went out and back along a big slope where it was all about accurate height judgment, then some more varied controls above the finish. I went well until the last control on the slope where I was too low and lost a minute, then a bad line on the next lost me another minute. I was wobbling at most of the controls by this stage, getting a bit tired, so was a bit cautious coming downhill to the second last and then hared off to the finish. Except it wasn't the second last and I missed out an easy control that was only just off my line. Should have been 13th for the day but now dq for the week.

Trying to be philosophical.

Previous events where I have missed a control : Welsh 6 days 2016 day 4, Scottish 6 days 2017 day 4. Some sort of pattern.

Italy 5 days, day 2, Misurina. Mostly good but never felt that I could get much speed up, because of the altitude I guess. A bit cautious but no real problems until the second last, which was in the wrong place. At least it was relative to everything on the other side of the road where everybody was approaching from. Lots of people wandering around confused by what should have been a very simple control. I wandered for maybe 1.5 minutes.

14th place, 17 minutes down on Thomas Asp. I'm reasonably happy with that. Also happy to have finished and got under cover before the thunder hailstorm that caught the later finishers. Things have now cooled down a lot, temperatures down to about 12C at Misurina after the storm.