Training Log Archive: Kat

Today I walked out of college at 8:10 AM. I felt like I was the only one awake throughout the whole place. It was so quiet! I was picked up by Luke and Tom on St.Giles and we drove for 2 hours down south, almost to the south coast, to an orienteering meet. I decided to do the green course, since it looked like the right length. Here are my splits:

1 - 3:51
2 - 3:54
3 - 2:30
4 - 1:48
5 - 5:52
6 - 2:10
7 - e-punch didn't work
8 - 8:48 (total time between 6 and 8)
9 - 26:59 ARGH!!
10 - 4:57
11 - 3:03
Finish - 1:03

The map was mostly flat, with relative shades of green all over the place. Also, even the white forest areas were usually quite bad to run thorugh because there were nettles, brambles, spiky plants, and all types of other bad stuff. My ankles (which were unprotected because my tights are a bit too short) are totally scratched up. Luckily, the map had plenty of big trails all over the place. In fact, the map looks like a type of grid with trails going in all directions and green in between. Going to number 5, I tried cutting through some forest to a trail and sadly regretted it. It was quite painful and slow.

I made very few mistakes on this course. In fact, besides running straight past control 1, messing up 9, and going into the woods instead of sticking to the trails going to 5, I think I had a pretty clean run. What's more, it was a very fast run. Since most of it was on trails, I was going at an awesome tempo and totally spiked some controls....

And then came number 9, which was a control on the east side of some clearing. I started heading in the right direction and I was in fact within 50 meters of it, when I went the wrong way. Why? i am still not sure. I don't think I had the map flipped, I think I had my brain flipped. So I went in the wrong direction, kept going for a while, then saw another orienteer head into the woods and it looked sort of light there, so I thought maybe he was going to the same control. So i followed him through the nettles, only to find the wrong control. Then I ran forward some more along a trail, trying to figure out where I was. Since the trails were gridlike and the map itself had little distinct features, I couldn't figure out exactly where I was. Finally, some orienteer asked me if I was lost, I said "yes," and he showed me where I was. From there, I found my way to the control. Then I started to go in the wrong direction to 10 too. I don't know how this happens. It's the same type of stuff that happens when I add 2 and 3 to get 6...Luckily i caught myself before I went too far in the wrong direction.

Looking at my other splits, it looks like it should have only taken me 2-3 minutes to get to control #9 instead of 27. If I hadn't blundered that, I would have had one of the best times on green.

I noticed that there were a lot of 40-50 year olds running, some kids, but not a lot of people ages 20-30. There were over 40 people doing green and most were middle-aged. And the fastest times on brown (the hardest course) were also by older men. Where are the young people?

C • ? 6

I decided to skip swimming (morning) practice today. Instead I got a head start on some math. I wasn't completely lazy today, though. I did the Camera Challenge with a group of other Merton freshers. We had to take pictures of certain funny things such as a six-person pyramid near a big library, one of us behind the counter at McDonalds, as many tourists with cameras as possible, and the shortest skirt. The tallest guy in our group, Marcus, managed to put on my purple miniskirt, and fuzzy pink slippers, as well as his own sub fusc attire (white shirt, tie, and black jacket). The picture we took of him in the Front Quad was just perfect. All in all, a fun day.

Today I did reps/intervals with Ben and Chris, from the Oxford orienteering club. We met at a South Parks gate, did a warm-up loop, and then did the following set three times:

90 sec run uphill, 90 sec easy jog downhill
60 sec run uphill, 60 sec easy jog downhill
30 sec run uphill, 90 sec easy jog downhill

The park was very nice. There was green grass everywhere a clusters of trees and bushes every so often. The uphill was, for the most part, gently sloping, but right in the middle was a section that had a greater incline and that was always the toughest part of the uphills. For the entire set, the order was Chris, followed by me, followed by Ben. On the last 30-second run, we all sprinted like crazy and I actually kept up with Chris for about 15-20 seconds. I felt quite good =)

The 41:49 includes time spent running to the park, warming up there, doing intervals/reps, jogging back to the gate, and then running home. I felt there was no reason to take splits since we were going by time and not distance.

Short jog to the pool. The pool is about a 15 minute walk or so away,so I certainly don't have to run there, but it is boring to walk there myself. Also, in the mornings and evenings when I go to swim, it's usually dark and chilly so I'd rather spend less time commuting.

Today's workout seemed less intense than Wednesday's. This is partly because the first time was a shock to the system after not swimming for so long and partly because this workout was actually less stressful. We did:

300 choice
200 IM drill
6x50 choice with 15 sec rest in between
4 x {150 free, 100 back, 75 (25 fly, 25 back, 25 breast), 50 fly, 30 seconds rest}
(After the first one, I did 100 free instead of 150 and 25fly/25 back instead of the 50 fly)

2 x 400 pull with paddles

(I think I only did about 650-700 meters of pull. I absolutely hate it. I feel handicapped when I can't use my legs. Add to that oversized paddles attached to my arms and I felt like the Titanic.)

2 x {3x15-meter sprints from the diving block, 1x25 meter sprint for time}, first time free, second time choice

(The first time we had to do free, and my timed 25 was 15.8. The second time, we had to do choice, and my timed 25 fly was 17.09.)

100 warmdown (back/free)

Total: 3400 meters (I did 3100)

Today I did something I've never done before, which was to have two training sessions so close together. After my run, I had about half an hour at home to drink some tea and read a bit about real analysis before I had to go off to swim practice. I was afraid I wouldn't have any energy left for swimming, but it actually went quite well. In the future, however, I hope to go to swimming in the morning (7-9 am) and go running in the afternoon/evening 5:30-6:30.

Today I went for a run with Ben, Ian, and John (all members of the Oxford orienteering club). First we started out in the center of Oxford, then ran west till we got to a footpath, and then followed that for a while and made a type of circle back to town. It was really an intensity 2 run, but since I was talking for most of it, my breathing wasn't normal like it usually would be, so I decided to rate it a 3.

They asked me how I got into orienteering and I told them my boyfriend got me into it. They asked me his name and I said, "Boris." Then Ian said, "Ohh, from Catching Features." I think it is quite awesome that random orienteers in England can recognize American orienteering names from a game =)

We got to run through some huge open fields with cows. This made me happy.

Crunches before bed.

C • Catching Features 6

This was my first practice with the Oxford swimming team. Since it is 0th week and the term starts this Sunday, there were not that many people there. The Ox swim team certainly seems to be low key compared to what an American college swim team would be like, even in Division III. However, even though the girls (except for one or two) don't seem that impressive, there are always the guys to swim with =) So I think I will pay the 100 pounds that it takes to be a part of the swim team and to use the pool facilities.

My workout for today went something like this:

300 choice swim
3 x 50 (25 scull, 25 drill)
750 free (no breaks)
5x50 kick (free)
5x50 kick (stroke - I did dolphin kick on my back)
3x200 (25 back, 150 free, 25 back)
4x100 IM (1 drill, 1 swim)
6x75 (50 drill, 25 swim)

Total: 3,150 meters

Comments on the British:

(1) I often wondered during my high school swimming years if Brits swam on the left side of the pool just like they drove on the left side of the road. Today I discovered that indeed they do. Despite taking note of this before getting into the water, I nonetheless crashed into a girl after doing my first flipturn, because out of habit I steered immediately to the right...
(2) The British use meters instead of yards so I can't easily compare times.
(3) The British have a funny accent. Sometimes it takes me several seconds just to comprehend what they are saying.

Comments on my swimming:

(1) I rated this session a 4 because I really did have to try hard most of the time to stay second in my lane, behind Lisa, the female captain.
(2) The workout was actually a bit longer (the last set was actually 8x75 and not 6x75, for example) but only Lisa did absolutely everything and I thought I should take it relatively easy today so I wouldn't be too sore tomorrow.
(3) Today was quite intense for a first time. I have not done real swimming since November and all of a sudden I am pushing myself and doing over 3,000 meters of swimming. At least I have the common sense to force myself to do a bit less than the entire work-out so as to prevent injury and set-backs later on.

I just realized that I have not eaten a real meal today. I had some cereal and yogurt for breakast, followed by two apples and almost an entire loaf of bread throughout the day. I wonder where my energy is coming from?

C • brits 2

Crunches before bed.

More random exercises and stretching in my room right before going to bed at midnight. I am just starting to figure out where things are around here. Hopefully i will have some running or swimming to write about here before the end of the week.