Training Log Archive: fletch

Did enough of a warm-up that everything stopped hurting, but never got faster than a shuffle, then waited for the mass start. Looking forward to it until we took off up the first hill and I was immediately dropped by the entire field.
Sloppy into the first control, identified where I was OK, but didn't trust myself and ran off to relocate on something else before returning. 2nd control I stood on top of the cliff which had the control at the bottom, but didn't see it. Repeat process from No. 1. Was way off line and very confused on the way to 3. By then, everyone was long gone and I settled in for a slow struggle around the rest of the course. Not too bad navigationally until 18, where I missed a control that I had seen previously on a course cross-over and wandered around for about 4 minutes before returning to essentially where I had been the first time again. One of the slowest runners for the day and nearly half and hour down on the leaders.
One race too many for the week. Absolutely shattered.

Just about died of shock when I turned over my first 1:15000 map in a few years. Took my time through the first couple and got them fine, but drifted off one trying to find a runnable line on the way to three, and by the time I worked it all out and came into the control from behind, Craig had punched and was on his way out. Caught up pretty quickly and alternated between tagging along with I'm, and trying to pull away a bit when we headed up hills. All I managed to do was get far enough in front agh we would be back together once I had missed the control at the end, or I would be a bit behind and have to lift further rot get back on his tail.
I got sloppy heading over the top of hill into 13, and when Craig punched and ran off down the hill without me seeing, I could make enough sense of things to figure out where the control was, but just couldn't convince myself to run up the hill to the right spot. Dropped nearly two minutes there.
Ran hard through the next couple, but somehow missed the control in the thick stuff at 15 three times, despite an attack point all of about 100m away. Another 4 minutes binned, and motivation waning badly.
Dropped another minute or more at 17 when I got the direction off the top of the hill wrong and wandered around in some unmapped rock.
Poor route to 19 and energy pretty much all gone and heading to 20, the train of seeded runners started to go through me, with on the the Danes going past and disappearing at a rate of knots.

One control later, Robbie P and Tomas came through, but they both appeared to be struggling physically as well, and I dig deep enough to keep then in sight through the last 7 controls to the end, helped by them bouncing around a little in the circle.

A bit disappointed to have run about 10 minutes slower than I should have, knowing I could have been about 8 minutes quicker by just pocketing my map and rolling Craig as closely as possible, but that wouldn't have felt terribly satisfying.

3rd West Australian behind Tomas and Craig. Beat all the Victorians (one mispunched) and nobody else had a full team, although we would have beaten ACT even if Lachy Dow was official), so Nomads won the men's NOL for the day.

East loosener, with 5 1 minute surges thrown in. Still no feeling it, but could have been worse. At least I'm not sore.

Warm up. First time ever in a pre-race quarantine. Forgot to bring a map to the event to warm up with. Legs feeling OK, but not fresh.
Laps of the quarantine area, watching 2/3 of the field completely ignore the quarantine area tapes nd do their own thing around the ovals. None of the courses went that way anyway, but it would have been funny to see them all disqualified.

Had been trying hard to ignore the fact that I felt nervous before this one, as opposed to the relaxed state of the previous two days. Didn't work.

Ran through to the start triangle, straight out towards the first control and just didn't see the wall on the map that went across the first open area. Looked totally unexpected when I got there, so I had a meltdown and took ages to work out what was wrong. Dropped 30 seconds and any chance of a good result.

Still caught my one minute man (Ben Goonan) at about 6 or 7. Was generally steady throughout to 17, although the splits would suggest I was not choosing great routes, with poor legs on 6,8,9,11,12,16. Writing this a week later without looking at a map, this doesn't mean terribly much tough, and by 16 I cab at least climbed from dead last up to 21st.

At some point running to 17 I got orally turned around and did a 180. Fairly catastrophic. When I see a map, I might be able to figure out what happened, but never picked mine up after the event. Anyways, another 1:40 down the toilet, then tried to do the same thing half way through the next leg as well.

Worst sprint race since NOL in March 2013.

M21E - Splits

OK Warm up. Legs felt tired, but not as bad as I was expecting. Hip flexors still feeling yesterday's exertions, as were glutes. Tried to do a cool down afterwards too, but it was a bit on the token side.

So close and yet so far...

Took off a little conservatively through the spur gully stuff at the start of the course, but hit everything really cleanly.
A little scrappy through a couple of the really short direction changing legs, but it seemed that lists of others were too.
Super annoyed to drop time at 16 after a long paddock run, when I failed to identify both my attack point, and the separate line of rocks that contained the control, but it seems many were worse here, as my split was still mid-pack.
Face planted on a fence that I didn't see coming out of 21, but was holding it all together pretty well through to the spectator control at 23, although feeling a little hot and bothered by this stage. Sitting in 14th.

A little scrappy in the circle at 25, got 25 OK, then had a total brain fade heading to 26. Missed the obvious route choice, didn't keep good track of my direction and distance and pulled up short, punching a wrong control. Only realised it was wrong as I ran out of it, then after hunting for 30 sec or so, decided I may have looked at the wrong description, so ran back to the control to confirm. Definitley wrong. Headless chook for a bit, before calming down enough to relocate on some rock on the creek nearby - except that I misidentified which bit of rock I was at, and ended up in the wrong spot again.

Eventually wandered my way back to 25 and ran the entire leg again. 5 minutes in the bin and a good run ruined. Finished it off by dropping another 30 seconds running to the wrong last control, but didn't really care by then. Finished in 25th.

Aust MDC, Course M21E - Splits

Event: Karrak Karnival - Oz Champs
 

Event: Karrak Karnival
 

More to do with keeping warm than actually warming up. Had no illusions of running a long race at speed, so no ru throughs or anything extreme like that...

A cold, wet day for my first bush race in a year. Had a few wobbles mid leg as I struggled to stay on bearing at times (1,3,7,12,19) most notably running off the map on the way to 7 and running about 80 metres past the mid leg road before deciding to retreat to the road and work thing out, but picked when things didn't fit well, adjusted accordingly and was smooth into just about every control.
Unsurprisingly, the legs didn't really cope with running in terrain. Felt good until the hill up to 11, the early climb to 15 was really tough and the wheels well and truly fell off from 17 to the finish.
Ended up 12th, about 15 minutes behind Simon and Shep, and about 2 behind Craig, so easily the closest I've come to the state long title.
Pretty stoked given the (lack of) preparation.
13.4km straight line, 480m climb. My distance a complete fabrication.
Fun course. Seemed to make good use of the map and had some long route choice legs.

WA Long Champs, Course M21A - Splits