Training Log Archive: Dooby

Not a warm-day out there, that's for sure. Put a base layer on under the o-top. Arms were cold jogging to the start, lucky there was a hill to speed up the warming up process.

Hambleden
JK 2013 Middle

Again the plan was to run hard and to orienteer accurately today.

Started off with a handy enough number 1, slightly left of it though. Then was a bit unsure to 2, hit it alright though. 3 was easy using the distinct green as an AP. Then downhill before the first big climb to 4, had passed my 2min man at this stage. Did my best on the hill, then a couple of short legs to 5 and 6, slightly left of the pit for 6. Then downhill to 7. Nearly got caught by 7, thought i'd have to climb more but realised where I was based on the green bushes. As I punched 7 so did Hellsac who'd started a good few minutes in front of me.

He lead the way to 8, uphill, which he ran hard, so I stayed with him. 9 was a short leg, before turning downhill again towards 10. Hellsac in the lead at this point. I got 10 ahead of him and stayed in front for the remaining controls. 12 was ok, control was buried, but didn't really understand the vegetation until I hit the white 12 was in. Lost a few seconds on 16, stopped short, higher than the control, should have spotted it. Route to 17 was poor. Then bad direction to 18 lost me at least 30 seconds, knew i'd gone wrong early in the leg but didn't correct myself enough.

Then the last climb to 19 before downhill to 20 and the run in.

Allan beat me by 15 seconds so not impressed by that, if i'd got 16-18 anyway better i'd have been in front of him. Happy to be unhappy complaining about seconds rather than minutes. Was a straightforward course though.

Results
Routegadget

A downhill lap of the assembly field with Boyzone, Hellsac and Gerard going over our splits from the race. Body was feeling tired and knees were sore. Bought some tablets later to help with the pain!

Day 2, Course 01 - Splits

Event: JK 2013
 

Warm up for the JK 2013 Sprint. No garmin today since it's a WRE and no point wearing it just for warming up/down. Jogged over to the warm up map, ran around it a couple of time, then ran back and changed my shoes. A bit more jogging to the toilets and back, then legged it up to enquiries to get a few backup cards for the emit, and then the pre-start was pretty much next to where I was leaving my bags, handy. Legs felt alright warming up so that's always a good start.

Whiteknights
JK 2013 Sprint

Plan for this race was to run hard.

Bit hesitant to number 1 and finding a route to 2. More hesitation to 4 and to 5 and 6. Next few controls through the spectator and onto 11 all ok. Small bit of hesitation leaving 11 for 12, going under the underpass that was illustrated in the bulletin. Then lost some time in the circle figuring out where the control was. On Routegadget I put left as my route to 14 but i'm not 100% sure on that! Bit more hesitation on route to 15. And the rest was fine.

Not sure if my routes were optimum, definitely not on a few of them, but many options were either left or right. My plan of running hard was achieved and didn't make any major mistakes.

Best of the Irish today so very pleased with that. Got a few WRE points (904) aswell, and to come 17th in a big Sprint is something unusual for me, the way things are going and the way i'm thinking maybe it won't be so unusual in the future. Bit of an improvement from 60th last year!!!

Results
Routegadget
WRE Points

Warm down with Boyzone, Hellsac, and Roar after the sprint race. Ran over to the model map and back again.

Day 1, Course 01 - Splits

Right knee a small bit sore today, think i'll text the physio for an appointment next week.

Travelling to England for the JK this evening, cold over there, same as here.

I'm definitely doing 3 races, relay is a maybe as i've currently no team, but will probably look for one once there. Sprint tomorrow is a WRE and based on my intentions this year I won't be holding back. And since it's a Middle distance on Saturday I plan on attacking that. Even though Sunday is also a WRE I think that my lack of long runs will probably count against me but we'll see how things go. Will approach it as more of a race to finish without blowing up like last year. Just had a look at the course distance for Sunday and it has re-inforced my intention to just survive, 17.9km and 38 controls, the positive thing is there's only 410 climb, 100m more than for the middle distance!

Went looking at some maps this morning regarding where I went running last night. The wood is called "Pouldnaderka Wood". So 'Poll' is the Irish word for a hole, but not sure what 'na derka' means. Based on Irish names it's probably 'Hole of the ???'. The hole/depression is also on the historical maps, but only 1 is shown, and the mapped symbol is around 30m across.

3 laps of the outside plus 1 inside before intervals tonight. Chilly out. John Barrett back today and Rob & family there as usual. Had to do a bit of catching up on the 1st lap due to being last out of the changing rooms.

400s

The lads were doing 8 of them but my plan was to only do half of whatever session they were doing, just to keep the body in check. So that meant only 4 for me:-)

73
72
74
72

With 200m/c1min recovery between each one. Ran on Johns shoulder for the 1st one, leaving him behind with around 75 to go. On the 2nd I went from the 200 mark. The 3rd 400 was alright and on the last one I lead from the start.

Bit of a breeze on the home straight so that meant the 2 finishing here felt a bit harder and the other 2 had a tailwind to finish. Legs felt ok moving at speed so happy with how they are feeling overall, could do without the pains in my knees though.

Same warm-down as warm-up but starting with the lap of the inside! On my own. Right knee is a bit sore still but once warmed up it's ignorable.

Forest near Muckross School

Ran up the road and then across a footbridge, into a field, through a barbed wire fence and into a forest i'd never been in before.

Found a path and followed it for a lap, then cut in onto a small path at the start of the 2nd lap and followed it, making a few decisions at some turns, definitely a possibility to discover more paths to make the forest more interesting, too small for a decent run.

The southern part of the forest has a hill and leaving the circular path on the 2nd lap brought me up this hill. Next thing there was a massive depression, probably 20m deep and 50-75m across, and not much further on there was another one but slightly smaller. The paths around here are used my MTBers.

Nice easy run as planned. Legs felt better than expected. Right knee has been sore and left calf a bit tight since Sunday, but no trouble from them running. Probably feeling better afterwards.

Feeling tired today. Haven't had a chance to add my training for the weekend yet so i'm going to be interested to see what that adds up to. There should be a few hours there with putting out controls and taking them in along with the race on Saturday.

This week is going be be easy but it's not going to be long until Friday, the start of the JK weekend.

Monday - Turbo Trainer (Recovery)
Tuesday - Running (very short)
Wednesday - Running (Intervals - but only plan on doing half a session)
Thursday - Rest, travelling
Friday - Orienteering (JK Sprint)
Saturday - Orienteering (JK Middle)
Sunday - Orienteering (JK Long)

Avg Cadence = 86rpm

Easy recovery spin. Watched the last episode of Moone Boy and thought I needed a bit more pedalling so started watching 'Behind the Scenes'. Got me to 46mins which was surprising. Body is a bit on the tired side.

Now i've to go extracate a painful thorn from the side of my baby toe. Think it was there yesterday but sort of ignored it as i'd controls to collect.

C • Turbo trainers 7

Mucrkross

Controls out for the yellow and orange course before the event. Nice and early so there'd be no pressure. Sill got a bit tight on time getting registration set-up.

Muckross

Collected the 4 controls on the western side of the river.

Muckross

Collecting controls after the event today. Got a few in the middle, then got the ones on the hill from the car, and then a short loop around the northern controls.

Legs are tired.

But happy with how the event went.