Training Log Archive: Ollie

Event: Compass Sport Cup Final
 

Men's Open (Brown) course, at Fineshade Woods near Peterborough. Small navigational errors to the first five controls, and also messed up the last few controls. Still, pleased with the time. Winning time was a highly impressive sub-50. Not too cool a day, and very dry - all the water features on the map had dried out. Actual distance run was 11.8km.

To Fulham, via Whitechapel, the City and the Embankment.

Via Hyde Park Corner and Angel.

Event: Cambridge City Race
 

Running Men's Open at the first Cambridge City Race. Actual distance run was 9.55km.

I plodded around a bit, I only made a few small mistakes, and took a couple of poor route choices, but nothing that ever cost me more than 30 seconds - although there were 29 controls, so these small mistakes added up. GG won in 3340. I finished 25th of 77 runners. I didn't think my time was that bad, but loads ahead of me, including a big group at around 41 minutes. Probably could have done with a bit more sleep, as I never felt particularly strong.

Really enjoyed the course, which included full access to three colleges (Pembroke, Downing and Jesus) and a spectacular run through the famous gate at St John's College. Also on the course was the Cambridge Union. The highlight was certainly Jesus College - large, with many quads (or courts, as they say in Cambridge) - and quite technical, with the small paths around the out-of-bounds grassy areas requiring careful map-reading.

It was cool and overcast, but dry. A sizeable amount of the course was on gravel paths rather than roads, so my legs aren't aching too badly now - just as well, with the CompassSport Cup Final race tomorrow.

I am The Machine.

Via Islington and Hackney Central.

Via stop-off at Farringdon.

SLOW Street-O in Chelsea and Battersea. The River Thames bisected the map, with a choice of three bridges to cross it, and Battersea Park formed the map's south-east quadrant. The start/finish was in the north-east corner.

Concentrated on picking off the control-rich Chelsea, before crossing the river and sweeping southwards. I started to run out of time as I entered Battersea Park, so wasn't able to get many controls in this part of the map, before needed to dash back across Chelsea Bridge, to the start.

Got stuck waiting for traffic to clear in Sloane Square, near the start, and more importantly when recrossing the Embankment right at the end - both times, I wasted a minute. Got a 4-point penalty for being 12s back, so finished with 656 points - fourth place. I would have been third equal, with an extra 3 points for the series scores, if I hadn't been held up! Ed scored 730, narrowly beating Matthias on 710.

My route (anticlockwise):


Technical note: There is no significance in the spacing between the black dots - these are just an artifact of the method I've used to create this image, and correspond to OpenStreetMap nodes passed on the way. I wanted to use my GPS track, but there are too many large errors early on due to weak reception, so I recreated the track using BikeRouteToaster, uploaded in to OSM and then used OJW's Static Map API to create the image.

From Chelsea, via The Mall. Bike now fixed up with new gear cable and handlebar tape - woo!