Training Log Archive: nmulder

The flu thing continues......

Feeling better after this flu.

Started off well. No problems on the Cottesmore Park map, also managing not to step in any rivers or marsh (didn't smell too good). Felt the flu and body lethargy going up the hill to #10 where I probably wasn't even doing 6:30 pace. Map changeover at #10 to Bresia House. Nice planning through here, but then it got a bit too easy from 13-18. No other problems, but a few nice challenging last 3 controls.

Overall a horrific time, probably about 5 mins down on Michael. Hoping this flu is a once off and not a resurgence of the Lepto bug.

Body is very sore after the run, so probably not recovered. :-(

Was entered to run the Moonlight Night Trail Race at Big Red Barn, but have come down with a flu type thing. Had to watch from the sidelines for the 2ND TIME IN A ROW. Spectating is getting expensive.

Ran for ROC as 2nd leg runner behind Michele and ahead of Eugene.

Michele had a decent run, handing over to me in +/- 6th, at the back of a loose bunch. Managed to pick these teams off within the first 3 controls, moving up to 3rd. No problems on any of the controls despite some being nicely technical. Passed WITSOC for 2nd at about #7 then focused on extending the gap for Eugene. Eugene also had a good run and mantained the place. Unfortunately RACO were way too far ahead.

Bit of trouble at the end as I was DSQ'ed for 'cheating' by not punching the finish emit block before tagging Eugene in the change over (instead of the other way round). Honestly, if I'd seen the punch unit or remembered in time that we needed to punch, I would have. We appealed to the Jury and were reinstated (no flags on the control, nothing in final Bulletin or in official rules, nor any precedence as this has happened before with no blame on the competitor).

Anyway, another nice run and a very pleasing result.

SA Long Distance Champs

A complete turnaround from yesterday. Still trying to find out where my run came from, maybe more motivation from running on a tough, challenging new map.

Had a moderate start. Slow to #1 as I didn't like the map. Still getting into it to #2 and 3. Michael started 3 mins ahead, but I saw him coming into the control behind me here. This was big motivation and I promptly got a best split to #4 before he ran away from me up the hill to 5,6,7. Another fair leg to 8 (but don't know why no-one is faster?), then a struggle up to #9.

I had a good long leg, probably one of the nicest ones I've ever seen in SA. Got the route choice mostly right, but maybe should have attacked the control from below. Got a nice surpise when I saw Michael and Cobus leaving the control, and then a huge surprise when I saw Eugene (3m behind) entering the control as I was leaving. Super-motivated at this stage as 'race-on' flashed through my brain.

Ran with Cobus and Michael through 11 & 12, but then something went wrong to #13. We made a perfect parallel error, crossing a road 100m out of place on a wrong bend. (I blame Michael who was leading ;-) however I also wasn't following on the map well enough). Took about 4 mins to recover by which time I'd seen Eugene leaving the area.

I took a different route choice from the other out of 13 (back onto the road and around the rocky terrain) which allowed me to drop the other 2. Good to 14 and 15, where I caught Eugene. Ran behind him to 16 and 17, where Michael crossed the gap, then all 3 together to 18 & 19.

Tried to push hard on this long leg, as I knew I could medal. Eugene started to suffer and Michael was also weak for most of the leg, only pulling away towards the end. Was a bit lucky to have someone to guide me into 20, as once again the map didn't compute. Then okay to 21, 22, 23, where Eugene's elastic band on us finally snapped. I in turn lost sight of Michael going to 24, but he popped out of the bushes at #25. I thus attacked the control too early, loosing a bit more time before the finish.

Came in in 2nd place, just 3 mins down on Tim. Eugene lost lots of time in the last 1.3km and only finished 3.5 min after I did, so he took 3rd.

Nice to finally have a good Champs result this year.

Course 1 - Splits

Event: South African Orienteering Championships
 

Western Cape Middle Champs

Had a poor start. Fluffed the 1st short control, by not reading the description and being on the wrong side of the feature, then bad route choice to #2 by going straight through the dense undergrowth.

Michael started 2 mins behind me and apparently saw me leaving, but it was only on way to #9 that he caught, so I must have had a few fair controls. I lost sight of him to #10 and then made a big mistake, dropping too low when I intended to contour around from the right.

Left the control and heard Tim (+4) coming in behind. We took different route choices, Tim contouring more (and better) to #11, but I went straight into it whilst he was still circling. Kept him in my sights until #16 but then he pulled away.

Decent from then on, but I must still have been loosing lots of time on Michael, as I finished 9.5 minutes down and 8th position. Very bad result. Running speed is non-existant and it's showing against Michael, Tim, Brad, Brian. Even then, it never felt smooth out there. Somethings missing.

Course 1 - Splits

The warm-up training was cancelled, so went touring around the Cape instead.

Legs a bit 'ugh' after Spain, even with only 23 hours recorded. Not much speed in them, but was feeling better towards the end.

C • NO 2

Flew back home.

Me and Jane hit one of the great MTB trails in the region, riding inland from Platja along the 'Green Route', following an old railway line. Superb MTB the whole way, past the towns of Castell, Llagostera and turning around in Cassa de la Selva. Thumped it most of the way.

My map shows the trail as far as Ripoll, a good 150km inland, and I suspect it forms part of a whole coast-to-coast route that finishes on the Atlantic. More riders out there then on the Braamfontein Spruit on a weekend.

Av 22.1
Mx 42.9

More snorkelling and diving for 'treasure'.

Found a 1c Euro piece in 2m of water. :-)

Hired a car and drove back into the Pyrennees. Great roads to get car sick on. Managed to get into France and then Andorra. Got back very late.

Gentle ride with Nathan and Jane north along the coast to grind the rust out of our chains.

Av 15.6

Raid Bimbache AR World Series - Team Cyanosis with Mac, Nathan & Jane.

Race started 6 hours late after some last minute readjustments by the race organisation (i.e. appointing a new race director at 24 hours notice). First 3 legs were slightly adjusted and compacted as well to create simpler logistics.

We started with a 35km run / trek north up the Catalan coast from Platja d'Aro, running a combination of roads, coastal tracks and some inland trails that cut off a few bends in the peninsulas. We ran fairly well and took most of the best route choices. First hour was incredibly hot and humid before we got hit by a good thunderstorm. Thereafter beautiful conditions. Came into transition 4th, just behind 2nd and 3rd place teams and about 20 min behind 1st (Team Buff), so we were happy.

Fairly decent transition onto bikes.

160km leg from the coast up into the Pyrennees.

The first 70km was reasonably 'flat' and we averaged over 20km/hr. This took us to the base of the mountains, where the course changed from undulating through to very steep. Storms continued on and off for the full duration of this leg and into the next day.

Managed to navigate reasonably well on the 1:25' maps, but still made a mistake or 2. However, the other teams also had problems. Started the mountain section in tied 3rd place with the eventual race winners, Absolut Raid (FRA) but they pulled away to start with. Quite a few CPs in the mountains and the positions changed quite a bit on route choices and wrong routes in the dark. We took about 20 mins of sleep at one stage. I had felt good most of the race, but was suffering with sleep deprevation, unusal for a 1st night for me and probably from me not being back to race fitness yet.

This section turned out to be longer than expected. Race guide said 11 hours, then revised to 12+ hours, whilst we were still expecting about 15-16. After 18 hours we got to the village of Mollo, with about 20-25km to go. Mac had been suffering from a patella injury through the night and it got significantly worse at day break. A decision was made to quit the race as Mac wasn't in any condition to continue. We had climbed 5000m on the bike already and we still had the final big climb of the stage to go. Following that would be mountain trekking, 30km with 4000m, followed by more mountain biking, and so on. It was essentially impossible for the team.

When we pulled out, Buff were still leading, but were about to be dsq'ed for missing a CP on the bike. Team Trangoworld were just leaving town as we arrived and they ordered breakfast for us, then left as the new race leaders and us essentially tied 2nd with the eventual 2nd place team. We sat in the restaurant and watched the next 8 teams pass.... :-(

So a dissapointing result - DNF. We really felt that this was our race, but a suprise injury really caught us off-guard. It was a beautiful race until we pulled out, stunning terrain, great nav and route, very steep climbs. We would have loved to continue unofficially, but we decided against it and rather save ourselves for another occassion, as the climb on the rest of the course was really going to destroy the racers.

Bike stats for Leg 2:

Tm 15.09.42
Dst 151.92
Av 11.5
Mx 46.4

Ran along the footpath below the sea cliffs with the team.

Race starts 6am tomorrow.

C • Hope it went well 1

Went snorkeling / swimming in the Med. Big wow.

Note: this is not a holiday. ;-)

C • Holiday 1

Ride around Plaja d'Aro with Team Cyanosis. Some beautiful cycle paths around here.

Av about 22km/hr

Arrived in Platja d'Aro, on the Costa Brava north of Barcelona. :)

Flew out to Spain via Cairo for the Raid Bimbache World Series adventure race.

Out around Jukskei Park then to Zandspruit and Chartwell.

Av 21.5 Mx 61.6

Had intended to run Kinetic night trail run, but got caught in 1.5h traffic jam. :(

Event: Gauteng Cross Country 10 - Groenkloof Nature Reserve
 

Mountain Marathon Champs at Groenkloof: 1:15'000

Still felt a bit off with the cold. Gave a hand and started late, so ran most of the course without seeing anyone else. Very distracted at the start and thankfully Eugene noticed that I was about to forget to clear my emit at the start.

I was a bit off for the first few controls. They showed that Eugene had planned a tough route over the tougher parts of the map, so I started getting more motivated. Messed up #5. Lost 4 minutes when I must have gone just passed it within a few metres and not seen it. Another small error at #8 when I dropped past too low without seeing it. Running however was going nice on the rocky terrain. Next mistake was when I missed the path through the valley between 12-13 and got caught in 3m high dense grass. Also small error at #14 due to 'new' track not being updated on the map. Had a good section then around the S and W side of the maps. I took the right route choice on the long leg, going along the W fence, but didn't see the short cut gap next to the caraban park, instead running through the main car park. Still going well until #24. Turns out that I was leading going into the area, but I then lost 8 minutes looking for the control which was a long way out of place. In the end, I finished 2nd, about 3 mins behind Brad, so a dissapointing result for one of my favourite races each year. On the positive, my running, although slow, felt strong and steady for the full distance.

Good planning, especially given the outdated map, just a big pity about that penultimate control. :-(
Also nice to see that the winning time crept into the intended winning time bracket for the first time in a long while, although superman time is probably about 1h40.

Course 1 - Splits