Training Log Archive: Bruce

Event: Victorian Championships
 

Victorian Championships - Middle Distance: Butterfly Gully.
1st place, by 7 seconds from Blair. We were level with 300m to go, but I pushed the last 4 controls quite hard and came home a fraction faster.
For a middle distance race, there were several easy legs that just required fast running, such as leg 1, which was virtually 800m down a track. I recognised this early and ran hard, gaining 30 seconds on Blair.
Later I noticed that the last half was all up hill. I took the middle section a bit easier, and then ran the hills quite well towards the end.
The most interesting leg was 13-14. I went left to the track. Jim and Blair went straight. Splits were almost equal.

I think this was my 3rd Victorian Middle Distance Championship in M21E, including 2007 and 2004

Route Gadget

4 x1000m at the tan - 3/4 pace.
I tried to hold back, but I still seemed to be running ok at a strong but relaxed pace. About 3:36 up the hill and 3:24 down the hill.
My training partners went on to do 8 reps, but that was never my intention today.

4 x Cactus loop
Felt fairly strong up the hills compared to recent runs. A little bit sore from yesterday's session.
Easing down for the weekend now.

Long intervals at the tan: ~ 1500 1500 1000 with 3 mins rest
I have been injury free for a few days now, so I decided it was time to push myself a bit harder. The session was basically the tan course in 3 sectors.
The first sector was uphill to the top corner - 5m09s. I certainly noticed the higher tempo than my recent training and suffered a bit on the hill.
2nd sector finished at Government House Drive - 4m51s. Getting into a nice rhytm and leg speed increasing.
3rd sector - Government House Drive to finish - 3m16s. Flowing better as the session went on.
Starting to feel like a runner again, instead of a jogger.

A good training session, involving 10 reps up the grassy hills above the Pillars of Wisdom. I actually felt like I was running properly today, compared to the hobble that I have been doing for a couple of months now.

Cantara OY
3rd place behind Simon 52 and Blair 58.
A good run until a disaster at the third last control. I had run solo and had made it around 17 controls in complex dunes with little mistakes.
At around 15 I started relaxing and running to the circle without any fine navigation. At 15 I lost 1 minute by not reading the control circle properly. There were almost 4 gullies in the circle and I just ran to the biggest one as it was yellow on the map and I thought I would have seen it. However, it was green on the ground and I didn't know where to look when I couldn't see the control.
A similar thing happened at 18, but it took me much longer to recover. From my attack point on the earthbank, I had about 70m through yellow to the control. However after 20m I struck unmapped green and got totally confused. I stood on a knoll for a while and eventually figured out that I had to push on further through the new unmapped green to reach the control. I lost about 4 minutes here.
The area is still fantastic for orienteering, but it would need a remap of vegetation to be used for a serious championship event, unless some of the areas towards the end of the course were avoided.

C • To call yourself an Australian orienteer 1