Training Log Archive: IanW

practice session at MCS, not playing particularly well, hopefully will be better come the match on Friday...

Event: Epping Forest North District Event
 

CHIG District Event, Epping North.

Brown - 8.3k, 105m climb, 23 controls

Plan was to take it easy physically and concentrate on the navigation - essentially a technical training session. Fine through the first 5, drifted on 6 but not too bad, 10-11 was a long boring track run in which I planned the rest of the course, deliberately looking for non-track route choice alternatives. Major mistake on #13, lost about 3 mins, as didn't see indistinct path. Managed to relocate relatively quickly as was calmer and more logical than usual. Two small errors on the short legs, #19 drifted left and lost ~25 secs, #23 was slow as thought had gone far enough but hadn't. another ~20 secs. Otherwise very happy with it all.

It's interesting that when I want to have a good technical race I force myself to slow down running-wise, so not at maximum, but then it all feels so much smoother and much better flow, and I'm not breathing as heavily/feeling as knackered, yet I'm still moving at a vaguely decent speed. I've done this twice now and had pretty good races both times. I guess the next stage is to get fitter again, so it still feels like I'm not running full out - it's definitely a mental thing - I doubt whether I'm actually doing much different...

Jog to/from minibus-registration, compulsory warm up/down... And through the gorgeous terrain of Epping Forest.

Brown - Splits

Sprint-O Round 1 - Highlodge, Thetford Forest. One slight hesitation on #8 but otherwise almost clean run. Didn't feel like I could have pushed it much more physically though, to just see SGB and Alex ease away from me just showed that the base running speed is, unsurprisingly, not there...

Sprint-O Semi-Final - Highlodge, Thetford Forest.

#1 was straight into the technical, path ridden part. Slowly got there, with the pack. Then got a 300m+ lead over everyone on my variation by getting the right route to #2. Just couldn't keep the speed up though and was slowly caught by everyone. Really silly mistake at the final control (#12) cost me 2-3 mins, cutting in too early, lost 5 or so places, just beat Ed Ward in on a sprint finish.

Sprint-O - Half AlcO. Champion!! Nothing to do with my drinking ability...

Drinks were half a pint of bitter, lager, cider, cocktail. After each of the first 3 was a short (2 controls) orienteering loop. The difficulty o-wise comes with spotting what has happened to the map...

Now the obvious thing this year was that there were a load of contours added to the area, which were of course non-existent (Thetford is as flat as a pancake for the most part). The not-so-obvious thing, well it gave me a 5+ minute lead, was that the top of the map wasn't North. There was an arrow, it didn't say anything by it. It pointed South... The give-away was the fact that one side of the forest was light green, the other white. I managed to spot this in about 15 seconds, the rest went haring off into the forest to get very confused and eventually work out what was going on...

So apart from going quite slowly to the first control, which was in the middle of nowhere (supposedly on a re-entrant from the added contours) and my calf cramping up, the orienteering part was pretty easy. Didn't have to run that fast either with the nice big lead...

C • Nice one, good to hear about y... 2

From Iffley Sports Centre to North of Summertown to pick up OUOC Road Map. Horrible in the rain, first time I've done Banbury Road on the new bike, need to sort out the gears etc as nowhere near the same speed along there as with the old one. and the brakes are knackered again...