Training Log Archive: susan

Jog up to the start

Long Distance. Reasonable again. 2 misses - number 3 when I blindly headed in a vague direction and, surprise surprise, the control didn't jump up and hit me. Had to relocate off a handy lake, I wasn't in the zone at all. Some beautiful controls in the middle, though once again I struggled to visualise effectively in the technical stuff. Too many rocks and early on I decided to ignore the black bits on the map and focus on the brown lines.
Miss later on, number 17, it wasn't making sense so I decided to bail out and relocate on a fence, correct decision given the mess I got myself into.
What would improve it? Visualisation, smooth use of compass, attack points. And terrain running.

2 - Splits

Event: Irish Orienteering Championships
 

Jog up to the start

Middle Champs in Galway. A reasonable run except for the penultimate control, in the forest, which I executed spectacularly poorly and lost unnecessary time.
Navigation on the mountainside was ok without being great. I managed to get in the right area most of the time, but very much struggled to relate map to ground. Boulders in the way limited visibility and it was important to be sharp in the circle.
The terrain however was super and remarkably runnable underfoot (so long as you are fond of marsh).

WEE Series 2013 has started :) Head2Head with Olivia as early starters, zero warm up as we were setting up and then had to run in a hurry. I nipped in front on the approach to 1 but quickly lost the lead and had to run at my limit to keep tucked in behind. I was not a pretty runner. And then going to approx. 14 I started with horrible abdominal cramps, and in the end I just had to let Olivia go, and struggled to the finish. Why the cramps? I was properly hydrated and fuelled. Just bad timing? Pushing too hard for what I can do? No warm up? I remember now that I had a couple of episodes of this during the early days of Paddy's training runs, up and down and up those damn hills. Well I can work on the warm up, at least.

5th position I think - several of the speedy boys weren't there but still. I don't have a speed for last year at Ormeau because I was planning (and if I was competing it would have been slow on account of the knee deep water). But I suppose Orangefield is a good comparison at 6:50 per k (and best speed last year) so a tentative calculation of 6:08 is a bit of an improvement!!

Felt much better after finishing but decided against pushing it and skipped parkfit - probably the sensible choice.

Treat of M&S for dinner, feeling terribly righteous carrying my Simply Fuller Longer salady mulch to the till, though somehow a pain au chocolat leapt into the basket too. Would have been rude to return it to the shelf. It got its own back though - rubbish pain, insufficient chocolat, would have been better off with 4 jammy doughnuts for a pound.

Round n round n round the (outside of the) newly refurbished track, trying to figure out where (my hopefully new) athletics club was. Happened upon a different club who tried to get me doing intervals down on the towpath, but I didn't want the tarmac. If they had said grass, I would have said yes. Eventually found 'em, session started 30 minutes after the email I received said it would. Surprised I hadn't gone home by that stage and started on the ice cream.

Got warned the track is middling-compound so it's not like running on clouds any more, though it could be worse. Someone described it as 'like a brick'. Be careful of the shins.
I liked this, you know. A good mix of girls, I was pretty much middle of the pack and latched onto the back of one girl which was super for pacing. They were very friendly and of course I have forgotten all their names already, duh.
Time intervals of 90 90 150 150 310 310 370 370.
I was (relatively) comfortably lapping in 1 min 45, John the coach gave us splits each time we trotted past. Happy to keep the pace even though I won't lie, I was working hard by the end.
Feedback, Encouragement and Advice :)

Second date with Jillian, she is one demanding lady!