Training Log Archive: Kat

Event: DFOK Regional Westerham Chart
 

The start was 1 km away from the parking lot and the way there started with a steep uphill. I didn't see anybody else heading to the start, so I missed the point where the taped route turned and continued on running down the trail. Kept doubting whether or not I was going the right way, eventually turned around and managed to get to the start right when my name was being called.

EVENT: DFOK Regional Event
COURSE: W21L, 7.46 km, 145 m climb, 20 controls
WOODS: Westerham Chart. Lots of trails surrounding impenetratable green, lots of fields, a few small lakes. My favorite areas were the white woods marked off by vegetation boundaries - the coniferous areas. There were lots of things catching at my legs today. At one point some rusty metal piece of fence got really tangled in my shoelaces and it took me about 30 seconds to undo it. Then, there were masses of bramble branches which tugged at my legs and tripped me. Not fun to run through those, but luckily most of the running I did today was on trails.

RESULTS: This is the cleanest course I've ever run. But since this was a lengthy orange course glorified by "W21L", that doesn't come as a surprise.

Since I've been out sick the entire week, I felt really weak and tired. Not only did I walk up the hills, I would also stop sometimes to walk on flat ground. But at least I finished the course and managed to jog for most of it. Towards the middle of the course, there were a couple of other females who looked like they might be doing the same course I was. One of them was neither fast nor accurate, so she wasn't that interesting, but the other one I instantly liked. She was short, young, and speedy. I saw her at #9 and then we went to #10 together, she in front (since I wasn't trying to run fast) and taking a slightly different route choice. We saw the control at the same time, I allowed her to punch it first. Then she took off for #11. I went straighter than she did by about 20 meters and hit it first. Then I nailed #12 and didn't see her again until the route to #14. This control was in the tricky bit. I saw the control first after some searching. I'm sure she must have been keeping an eye out for what I was doing so she probably punched it soon after. But I didn't see her again on the rest of the course, which was too bad. I like head to head racing. It makes me concentrate more and run faster.

It felt nice, actually, to not feel *fast* today, but rather to feel accurate and to get controls before other people did. Now I know how all those old British men feel about me...

I made a few small mistakes, but they are so small compared to the usual disasters that happen to me that I won't even bother mentioning them. Suffice to say my time could have been 2-3 minutes faster.

If I had been totally healthy today, I figure I probably could have done about 53 minutes for this course, which is what Emma did. It was just so technically easy that I couldn't possibly screw it up, even when running fast. I was getting bored out there!

A summary of my races this term:

NWO District Event, West Woods, 6.97 km, 165 m climb, 15 controls, 8:08/km

Army Event, Greenham Woods, 6.0 km, 14 controls, 9:11/km

BKO National Event at Cold Ash, 9.04km, 200 m climb, 23 controls, 12:28/km

WIM Regional Event, New Forest, 7.0 km, 135 m climb, 16 controls, 9:32/km

HH Regional Event, Egypt Woods and Burnham Beeches, 8.6 km, 170 m climb, 19 controls, 8:30/km

Varsity Match, Leith Hill, 5.63 km, 175 m climb, 20 controls, 12:11/km

DFOK Regional Event, Westerham, 7.46 km, 145 m climb, 20 controls, 8:39/km

I am definitely recovering. The various pains and aches are going away and I have my voice back. I am feeling really weak though, after several days of not eating much. I spent about an hour walking around town today because I wanted to buy clementines. The nice sunny weather cheered me up, but I felt absolutely exhausted when I got home.

I definitely have some type of flu rather than a simple cold. I've been doing my best to fight it, but the last three days have been hell. Hopefully I should be well enough by next week to go out for some easy runs.

C • Hope you get well soon! 1

I was feeling a bit sick yesterday morning and it only got worse as the day progressed. Now I just feel like total crap. Fever, chills, really sore throat, and headache. Absolutely no training possible. I'm taking several days off, the entire week if I have to. Next week will be incredibly busy and I need to be relatively healthy by then.

Since I can't do anything physical, I will instead try to do some map-reading each day. I drew my routes for the Trossachs map on routegadget last night and will do the 5th routegadget exercise sometime today.

Running around University Parks and meadows. I meant to go out for an easy run, around 45 minutes long, but didn't feel great as I was running. Then, as I was jogging easily down a paved ramp, I felt a sharp pain in my left knee all of a sudden. So I began to walk. I tried running again a few times, but the knee pain came back. I've never felt this type of pain before. I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm sick and therefore feel sore all over. My shoulders hurt too and I've certainly not been doing anything recently to cause this.

Since I always try to look for the positives, I'll say that at least now I know to take it easy this week (whereas this morning, I wasn't sure). Also, I almost finished reading through the entire IOF control descriptions manual during my run/walk. The examples at the end are cute.

C • Have you heard from Boris in S... 3