Training Log Archive: roar

Shamrock O-Ringen Day 3 - Crohane Lake Map.

Starting 6s ahead of Nick Barrable, he was going to catch me early. My plan was to run my race cleanly and then we had a shot of catching Dave I felt.

Stayed in front to 1, and most of the way to 2, but he dived into the control in front of me.
3: Was a little high, and then got pushed higher by the re-entrants. Knew my distance from the big forest to the right. Caught myself on the high rocky one and then went down into the control. ahead.
4: right by the big rock and then in the valley. noted that i needed to climb a little into it. behind.
5: easy control but barrable was sloppy. ahead.
6: from yesterday I knew I had a bit on nick on the downhills so I kept it controlled here and read ahead here. Saw 8 as an opportunity to get away and get into the forest ahead an hopefully get out of sight. ahead.
7: climbing legs not feeling good. Got passed but he missed again and I was just behind going in.
8: sat in behind for the first bit, but then he hesitated and looked to go down the cliff. I went then on a much better line. Took the control well and had about a 50m gap now.
9: problem was had to do this and 10 before the forest and he could see me. Kept pushing across the marsh and kept my gap.
10: Didn't get the optimum line through the re-entrant and lost a few seconds.
11: Took the wrong route choice, which allowed him to catch me again. Was thinking of the fastest time and thought the forest could be slow (because of a sign at the start that said it was). Around was horrible. Really really rough, and Nick could see me and ran back onto me. Picked my way into the control and go it well. ahead.
12: out to the hill in the open and then to the cliff. ahead.
13: back to the hill, along the edge of the clearing. into the forest "WTF? this forest is so nice, dammit". ahead.
14: stayed in the forest as long as I could then cut through, past the boulder fields and into the clearing of 14. Barrable seemed to be just sitting in behind me now. Felt I wasn't going that fast here.
15: Straight. picked off clearings, but got confiused right near the end. Found one of the tiny clearings when I had been expecting my control. Stopped turned around and backtracked, was followed pretty seriously. Copped what was happening once I found some light. 1min dropped. ahead.
16: straight. earlier had been going to go around but the forest seemed good. Made a lovely hole in the trees for Nick behind me. The re-entrant led me in, and I saw the boulder with a control on it. ahead.
17: stayed out of the clearings to the left. popped in to the control and a surprised nick who thought he had another clearing to go. ahead.
18: straight. was slightly wrong about my angle off the last clearing and went to the single boulder. 10s lost and behind now.
19: Nick took an awful line out of the control (on purpose?) and I was back in front in 10m. Needed a good downhill, and this wasn't it. Coming into the control johnny and cillin were spectating right on my running line and they had to scatter to not get trampled. ahead.
20: Suffered with the tiny amount of climb but kept ahead, past the bug rock and into the control. ahead.
21:... Out to the most beautiful clearing. Up the ride was passed on the small climb, where I was suffering. Nick cut in, I went in after him, saw what looked like a clearing through some thick green forest (the clearing was actually the green). Ran around my perceived green. "Where's he gone?" finally got to the bottom of the green and saw the assembly on the end of the road. Hoped he had messed it up too under this green and into the control. Heard some noises off to the right and could only hope it was him. behind.
22: what had I done. Straight, gained 20s back on barrable, but it was lost, heard them clapping him in. behind.

Pretty pissed off with myself about 21 (still am on Thursday!). Felt I could have taken him if I had got that right. Also would have beaten Marcus, and not been 8 seconds behind him.

We had passed Dave somewhere and Niklas Serrander DNFs so I moved up to 6th overall. In theory good, but remove my 4 min mistake on Saturday and 22 today and I was very close to Conor overall (Yeah ok he had mistakes too). Need to keep those stupidities to a minimum. Orienteering was so good today, except when it really mattered.

Course 1 - Splits

Shamrock O-Ringen Day 2 - Crohane Mountain Map.

Wasn't too bothered about this race before the start. Felt I had done everything I needed yesterday... Went out to have fun on a hopefully nice course. Plan was to start easy and pick it up, as always in recent long distances.
1: was a little left but was getting into the map, so many more mapped features than yesterday! Saw the re-entrant with the stream before the control and in from there.
2: Was already feeling tired on the hill but tried to just keep plodding up it. Saw Colm in the upper marsh and shouted at him, "What are you doing up here?". Somehow he heard "you're too low"! Easy control up the re-entrant and in.
3: More climbing out of 2, but then really easy, could see the gap between the two hills.
4: Stayed right to try and avoid some of the re-entrants, was a bit higher than planned but the legs seemed to be getting into this running thing. Easy control from above then.
5: Compass, read some features, see two marshy re-entrants and in over the ridge.
6-7: saw the feature from the previous control.
8: Hadn't really planned this before as the running was so tough, reading the map was difficult. Decided on staying high, again stayed a bit higher than intended but it turns out that afforded me slightly better running. Running up the re-entrant I found a piece of runnable ground! It was grassy and only slightly uphill. It was great! The entry to the control was going to be tricky so I slowed right down and picked off all the features and came down from above it to make the feature as big as possible. Saw Nick Barrable down the hill here and he found the control because he saw me go into it.
9: Had to go down, but hadn't actually decided what I was to do. Was a bit wavy at the start but the rest of the leg was fine.
10: Saw I needed to be careful I went down the right spur. Once I did that it was fine, had a little hesitation half-way down.
11: Could see the hill I needed to get up, just a matter of getting there.
12: Got to run a little along this relatively flat piece. Again it was pretty clear where I had to go. Barrable caught back up to me here and got to the control just in front of me.
13: Very easy control. Barrable was running a bit faster than me on the hills so he got a gap here, but I knew I'd get him back on 14.
14: Compass, knew once I was right of the line I'd see all the marshy features, I did and then it was easy enough into the control, now ahead of Nick again.
15: Higher crossing point and through the god awful marsh. Worst runnability of the day, really suffering. Caught Hugh Power here but no Barrable to be seen until I left the control I saw him behind me.
16: Downhill, past the crags and down the re-entrant.
17: Went to the crossing point, then just up over the ridge.
18: Was tired here and couldn't make myself climb so I went around, but then Barrable got into the control just ahead of me.
19: Trying to pass him out, but no dice.
Finish: Really boggy.

6th, so now in 7th overall! Classic Ruairi form, with a terrible middle and a decent classic putting me in a good position. Was set up for the chasing start now, Dave ~5mins ahead, Barrable 6sec behind. If I had looked at the results at all yesterday I might have tried harder to get away from him today!

Happy though, a lot better than yesterday!

1 - Splits

Event: Shamrock O Ringen 2013
 

Jog to the start with Colm O'Halloran

Shamrock Day 1 - Black Lakes

Started fine, through the crags and straight lined to 1.
2 was when it started to go funny, there was lots more hills on the ground than i could see on the map. I went around them but I stil had a ways to go before the control.
3-5: uneventful
6: Ran across the marsh, wobbled my way down a serious crag. Got confused which part of the lake I was at and then was avoiding climb. Easy control in the end.
7: foolishly stayed low for this. Up would have been better
8: bad direction of of control. Realised eventually and corrected, then went fine.
9: started fine. Looked up said I need to head for that hill in the distance. Got to the only hill I could see, only it was not on the map. Saw where I was then went to the control.
10: Ran down the re-entrant, over the spur. Thoughts were then "Oh I'm in a re-entrant with a hill, that has ferns on it! Only one place I can be!" I wasn't there, but everything I did assumed I was. didn't find it. Came back up and saw Conor running around the the non-existant hill I had trouble with on 9. Tried again from my ferny hill, this time flukily saw it. ~4 mins gone
11-13: easy
14: Lots more on the ground than the map again and I couldn't follow my compass apparently.
15-Finish Just trying to make my legs keep moving.

18th, so not a good start to the weekend. Over 10 mins down on Darren, not good. Wasn't too motivated for the rest of the competition at this stage.

Map

Jogging back with Gina

1 - Splits

Event: Pre-Shamrock Sprint-O, Ross Castle + Island
 

Shamrock warm up event in Ross Island. It was set up so two people could start together, which me and Conor did. We agreed to not look at our maps for the first 200 m, which shows how much we cared.

It would take a very long time to describe everything that happened in this race, but suffice to say that it was a complete travesty. Everything went wrong (big mistakes, wrong order of controls etc.) On top of that the map was really dodgy and some of the legs were terribly pointless.

The forest looked nice though.

Map

Event: FVO-Wed Evening Events - Polmaise
 

Was a bit late, so an up tempo jog to DVC, where it turned out there was no one anyway. Just me for the session so I had to come up with something on the fly that I was happy to do. Then continued my warmup while I thought about that.

6x 400m 60s rest
A relatively easy session, but I'm fine with that considering the Shamrock and I was by myself, so I was happy I did one at all.
Started the first one at the wrong pole so it was too long.
93 88 87 86 84 85

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