Training Log Archive: simmo

Final day of S6D. If I thought yesterday's No 6 at 26 minutes was bad, well ain't seen nothing yet. After spiking 1 (2nd on the split) it took me 46 long, long minute to find 2, 450m away, on a knoll next to a boulder cluster. I was taking it steady and concentrating really hard and convinced that I had got to the circle but no boulder cluster and a million knolls. Found a cliff on a clearing that I thought put me very emphatically 50m from the control, so tried again, still nothing. Lots of people coming through the area, but I could not identify any feature except that cliff but it obviously was not the one I thought it was. Retraced my steps part of the way back to 1, found a clearing I thought I'd passed with a hill and marsh next to it, so tried yet again, but still kept coming back to that damned cliff. Finally decided to back right out to the watercourse that was near the start and/or 1. After what seemed like ages I came to the watercourse and wandered along it finally coming back to no.1. Started again, walking all the way and carefully identifying contour and vegetation features (though they were all a bit vague), and was able to walk into the control. Tired and knee hurting by this stage, and it was also starting to rain, but managed to find 3 to 10 easily eaxcept for a 2 min mistake at 9.

Was top 10 on all of these splits except 9, and should have been just 3-4 minutes behind the winner. (Splits on AP are for the course, not just for M65S, includes W50S and looks like there a couple of 'guns' in that class)

To sum up S6D - didn't like the terrain much on any of the 6 days, and orienteered like a hack on all but day 2.

C • Cliff on a clearing 3

S6D - Day 6 Glen Affric - C19 - Splits

Day 5 of S6D, another day, another disaster. Very tough terrain today, across the valley from where the WOC Long was being held, and where we will run tomorrow. Steep area with poor runnability - boggy, bracken, brashings and/or logging remains, often all at the same time. There were also areas with huge windblown trees - a maze of gigantic root mounds but with the 20m trunks and branches still there. Finally several deep ravines had to be crossed. Took it steady following elephant tracks uphill to 1 and 2, then took a wide track option on a long leg to 3. 4 was in green, and turned out to be a problem even with a safe attack point - lost a couple of minutes there. 4-5 a wide option to a rough open areas looked a good bet, but this turned out to be a clearfelled area with lots of brashings, stumps and boggy bits to negotiate, followed by two ravines with head high bracken. Many elephant tracks, but which ones to follow? However it seems I was still in 5th place at 5, with 2/3 of the course done and dusted. Then came 6, a depression in green, worst bingo since a similar one at Tyrol 2010. 26 minutes later I stumbled on it but the race was gone, my knee was hurting and Imay have given up had the last 3 controls not been in virtually a straight line from 6 to the finish.

S6D - Day 5 Glen Affric - C19 - Splits

Day 4 of S6D. After watching the tv coverage of the WOC Relay I was looking forward to this, but after taking an hour to travel 3km from the main road to the car park I was inevitably going to be late for the start again. Had not heard announcements about a punching start, so just hoping, but it was ok when I got there. Think I was still stressed though.

Once again hadn't a clue where I was at the start triangle, compass was showing 40-50 degrees off where the features on the ground seemed to indicate, but thought I should trust the compass. Went slowly, and realised I was a bit left and had to cross a green stripe area to correct. Coming out of 1 I briefly thought about a long path/road route - now wish I hadn't rejected it. Followed a bearing which was obviously wrong as I came to a field and realised I had reached the oob area due South of 1, when I should have been 500m West by then. Spiked the control from there, but lost 3 mins. Got fastest split to 3, then set off to 4. Crossed a road and matched up contours for a while, but then nothing matched. Wandered and stopped several times before eventually finding a ridge between two tracks and realising I had once again 'thought ahead' - there were two roads that needed to be crossed, not one! So I was 500m North of the control with a large hill to cross, then some tricky marsh/thicket/knoll nav to the control. By this time I'd lost 8 mins, then dropped another 2 when I missed the control and went past 100m.

4-5 was another disaster, a short leg across what looked like good detail but turned out to be vague and really needed a safe strategy. Wandered around in a combination of thick forest interspersed with green strip open rubbish until I stumbled on a track 200m from the control - 9 mins more down the gurgler. 6 was ok, basically a wide track run, for 7 I should have used the same strategy even though it looked a lot longer - straight was another 3 mins lost due to having to hunt around in green even though I checked all the features off carefully for the whole leg, I still ended up 100m right and though I was left of the control.

8 was just reasonable though I faffed around for a few seconds because a boulder just before the control was not visible from above. 9 was another catastrophe - looked short (150m) and simple but couldn't match the contours and went way, way past before relocating - 4 mins blown. Got fastest split to 10, and 2nd fastest to 12. Very disappointed, clearly 30 mins lost to some basic errors, lack of concentration and bad bearings. Winner was 32, so definitely a lost opportunity. I know I can beat all these guys on the right day, two more chances to show it.

S6D - Day 4 Darnaway - C19 - Splits

Scottish 6 Days, middle distance day in M65S. After a look at the map posted in the arena I thought this could be my day, but was not to be. Start symbol was a bridge, but no bridge on the map and no flag there, so wasn't sure where I was (afterwards I could see a very thin blue line on the map, which was most definitely not ISOM standard). Anyway, my bearing led me to the SE end of a low spur, when the control was on the NE side of a hill higher up the spur - 45 secs lost straight away. 2 and 3 were ok, 4 looked straightforward but I made a hash of it by going up to the wrong saddle 100m NW of the correct one - another 45 secs. The next two legs were disasters; 4-5 looked easy, although the longest leg on the course - follow a path for half the leg, but the path was very badly mapped and instead of following a ridge it led me into a deep depression quite a bit further East from the direction I wanted. Eventually corrected but to do so involved steep climbing - 45-60 secs more. 5-6 was a total disaster - 5 minutes on a 150m leg which looked easy. Somehow missed my gully ending up in the next one which also had a control. 7 and 8 were ok, then another large blue to 9, losing at least a minute. Then finally messed up the last leg in the forest, another 150m leg and my fault entirely as I didn't really look at the map. There were lots of people in the area and I just assumed they would all be going to the same control. Winner took 22 minutes, don't think I could have done that, but I should have been under 25.

Afterwards we watched the WOC relay, impressive wins by Denmark and Switzerland, not so good by AUS. I'd have to question the team compositions and running order especially as the race appears crucial to our qualification opportunities at the next WOC. At least the area, which I assume is where we will be running tomorrow looks great, and I'm looking forward to a better run.

S6D - Day 3 Darnaway - C19 - Splits

A rest day from the 6 days, but there was a sprint race on the WOC sprint map in Forres. Had a fairly clean run and was in 5th place in Men Ultravet (65+) when I Ieft, but with some 'names' still to come in.

Missed a couple of better route choices, and made one 30-40 sec error going past a control. Would like to have run a bit faster too. Leader when I Ieft was 14:59, so almost 3 mins on me, but he is GB's best M65 sprinter, a couple of years younger and a WMOC medallist.

Results are out now, confirming 5th, but a couple of top guys including PG didn't turn up. I started a little bit slowly making sure around the first 3 short, tricky legs, then the splits show I was 2nd at 6, 7, 8 and 9, 10 was where I made the mistake, then I guess I was getting tired and got passed by fast finishers. The winner won just about every split.

Been looking out for PG at all the events but yet to spot him.

S6D - Forres Sprint - 4 - Splits

Day 2 of Scottish 6 Days M65S. Much better today and finished 2nd, 1:40 down but could have found 2-3 minutes. The map and area were better too, still very wet and boggy, but the contours inparticular were easy to understand. The course was in two halves, start to 6 in open glaciated terrain with many knolls, cliffs and marshes, while after 6 we entered a very dark mature pine forest, part of a deer park.

Went to wrong knoll at 1 - 20-30 secs, 2 was a long leg which I did well until the last 50m, another 30 secs, 4-9 went ok, 10 I went too far left and lost maybe a minute. Could have been a bit more confident going into a few others too.

Organisation not so good - parking area was 2km from the arena, but traffic queued up a further 2km further out, and the organisers had to allow a punch start for the hundreds of people who - like us - got to the start late through no fault of our own.

Splits available now & confirms above, except 1 was more like 45 secs, 2 1 min, 10 1 min, and also 12 which was a knoll off a track where I could have gone in earlier but got put off by high bracken, 30 secs. The winner was more consistent, his worst split was 8th, mine was 30th.

NB Don't regret my decision to run Short - the Long courses for the first two days have been much longer (5.5 km) and twice as tough.

S6D - Day 2 Strathfarrar - C19 - Splits

Day 1 of Scottish 6 Days, M65S. Knew that the area would be boggy, so should have gone straight across the dark green marsh to 1, but tried to go around and got confused by contours - 4 mins lost straight away. OK to 2, but then did an 'ahead of myself' error at 3, losing 7-8 mins. Lots more bog to a road before 4, which was in a weird archery forest with a myriad of tracks and targets next to life-size deer, boar and other game animal models - got totally lost again for another 5-6 mins. Lost another minute at 5 which was meant to be on a clearing about 30x40 but was actually about 3 x 4m. After that I went pretty well. Was 18 mins behind the leader when I left, and no results available yet.

Watched the Sprint final on BBC - good run by Hanny to come 5th.

S6D - Day 1 Achagour - C19 - Splits

Event: WOC 2015 & Scottish 6 days
 

To Bos Amsterdam, around various paths there. Stopped for coffee on the way, then stopped at the goat farm in the woods to buy some cheese. Then back into town for lunch, a bit of shopping and a wander around. A longer ride with fewer stops.

Into town and back, with walk around a part of Amsterdam we hadn't seen previously. Found a very good lunch spot called Droog, upstairs in a store with very hipster-like gifts.

Later we took the tram into town for a wander around the Van Gogh Museum, followed by dinner - risotto for me, duck for PP - at a nearby pleasant cafe called George WPA.