Training Log Archive: mintore

Event: White Rose
 

30 min Night-O at Pry Rigg

Even with some successful runs at Eagle Creek, running in the dark is not really my forte. Especially with only a headlamp and no hand light. This was a new experience; we arrived early to the onset of some fresh rain, returning from the Minster and walls of York. Aidan and I ran this separately, his first solo night-O. The hundred or so runners made it to the start, we got maps (no looking yet), instructions and then waited 5 more minutes in the now significant rain for the 15 second preview, then we were off. Aidan and I both thought the preview was pretty worthless, it was about the amount of time required to find the start triangle and randomly pick a direction to go. That we picked identically for about 3 controls and then he disappeared into the haze. I made good time for about 5 controls and then had problems trying twice to find a control on a hillside; probably about 6 minutes was spent very poorly. Ran off the hillside missing the ditch at the bottom which put me on my face in the nettles, headlamp off to the side. Pulled it back together and got a couple of solid controls but dropped one that I should have gotten in my haste to get back. Had some head to my face contact with a late M14 heading to the finish; he was very apologetic both that evening and the day after at the start. This was my first night-O in unpleasant conditions, but it was not too bad after all. Aidan 16C (4th for the junior males); me,13 C.

Middle distance race, 4.0 km/205 m

This was quite a challenging run, technically harder than most of the runs at S6D in my opinion. Gilling Woods has terrain that is very rich in features, streams, marsh, lots of different vegetation and some really awesome pits. (We half moved apartments this morning so I will need to give some run details tomorrow when I have the map in hand). Mistakes were made on a couple of controls and route choices could have been better. Beyond the navigation, I needed to get back into the spirit of running more aggressively (14th of 19 finishers; abt 24 starts in M45L).

added notes:


3-4 - missed a smaller stream, drawn by the greater ease of a fairly cruddy ride; distance and speed were both 40% of what they might have been
The final 50 m to C4 was hard to sort out; the control was a narrow marsh 10m from a clearing but there were several other intermittent streams on the hillside to confuse with it and there was some vegetation that could be imagined to be a rough clearing
11-12 - did not key into how far down and around the edge of the dark green the was required so the leg was very inefficient

1.6 km, 70 m

First event of the White Rose weekend, the castle sprint.

Drove up, out of the car at dusk, impending rain so I set up the tent quickly while Aidan and Brenda ran and then hustled down to the course. It was mostly a straightforward sprint except for a confusing set of walls. Light was awful in the woods, so I had some faster legs and some slow ones where I was just guessing where to go. Ended up right in the middle of the finishers.

Off to meet Aidan...

and just a little loop around the Broad, partially together.

Off to summer camp....

...then run toward Bowthorpe with A.

Weekly grocery shop.