Training Log Archive: AliC

The first true daylight leg of the Harvester Relay at Penhale Sands, 9k.

Alright, so Penhale Sands is very demanding on contour feature recognition skills. I would say that this course made it very evident that I need better contour-feature recognitions skills! From the very beginning, I couldn't run at the speed that I've gotten used to running in races and still have any clue where I was. So I made some errors right from the start, but luckily those were ones I relocated quickly (< 2 minutes!) from. (My general approach to relocating was climbing a hill and figuring things out from the top where I could see a lot. If I had been on a night leg I would have been totally screwed!)

About 2/3 of the way through, I had a distinct plan for getting from 11 to 12, and things went massively awry. I got hopelessly confused, and couldn't make sense of where I might possibly be even when I looked around for quite awhile. Ended up going back in the direction I came from until things made sesnse again....

Anyways, it wasn't super horrible, just wasn't the relay leg I would have liked to run for my team! I think if I hadn't been on a relay, I would have spent lots more time and not really raced it- I could learn so much from training there!

Event: Harvester Relays
 

Around campground.

Sprint course around the Penhale Sands Complex- complete with trailers, a waterpark, minigolf, tentsites, sand dunes and such... pretty cool actually.

A fine but not amazing run. Lost time mostly on two controls I think- one because I chose the less safe route and then had to look at my map a lot more and change route a bit to make sure I was where I thought I was, and then the second was just an identical-feauture error. Wrong set of buildings.

Warm up and down.

Since I'm no longer really training for anything specifically on the track, I decided to do steeplechase intervals. Why? Less boring. Plus it could be useful for hurdling over trees in the woods... =)

I did two times 800 steeplechase- short rest - 300 w/o hurdles.

I was getting better at keeping momentum over the hurdles, but just felt draggy generally. Too many days of hard stuff in a row! So I didn't do the third set as I wanted, instead just did a 400 steeplechase and a 400 w/o hurdles.

C • Harvesters 1

Summer Series at Wittenham Clumps, 7th overall.

Good training. I found far too many nettles though! Was particularily happy with my 3rd leg, when people had thinned out at bit, so I was more orienteering on my own. I even caught someone, but then he had a better route choice to the final control and gained on me again. 2nd loop, was totally distracted- by nettles, by running near Kat, and was just plain messy for three or so controls. Oh, and afterwards, I realized for the woods bits I had completely ignored the contours, since there was so much else to go on. Not good- that's what screwed up my route choice to the final control!

Legs a bit tired from the hard hills yesterday, but not tight, just fatigued.

To South Parks and a bit around, planning how I wanted my intervals to go up the hill.

Tough stuff!! A combination of my and Joe's plans for the hills session.

First we did 3 minutes up, 1 min down, 1 min back up. The 3 minutes up was quick 5k pace, the 1 min down maintained 5k pace, but was obviously easier, being down hill. The final minute was 3k pace or faster. I made sure to run over the top of the hill each time- something my ski coach always said was never to finish intervals just at the top of the hill, because that trains you to let up there in races too- always make sure to carry up and over the top.

So we did that twice, then moved onto Joe's pyramids- 15s, 30s, 45s, 1min, 45s, 30s, 15s. All uphill, all returning back to the same tree to start. Really good work. Definitely done at the end!

In between the intervals (mostly jogging back down hill), and cool down back home.

Just a Jog. Warm-up before circuits.

OUOC Circuits in Jesus squash courts, as the grass was still soaked from two days of nasty weather. Did 45 seconds of exercise- 15 seconds off, as our winter circuits sessions did. Good stuff.

OUCCC vs OUAC 'Football' match- I could only stay for the first 35 minutes though, as friends were having a good-bye dinner for me...