Training Log Archive: IanW

Vaguely structured warm-up and game of It... and some post-circuits stretching.

Circuits, muscles didn't complain too much about things until near the end, felt a bit harder than usual on some exercises though...

Event: British Relays
 

British Relays, final leg for the OUOC Men's Premier team, after Chris E and Anne. Much of the area overlapped with the Scottish 6-day terrain, couldn't say I recognised much (if any) of it. The terrain was technically slightly easier for the most part, with big flat expanses between the dune ridges making the contour shapes more obvious and simpler to 'pick'.

Went out just behind a runner from Clyde, seemed like we had the same gaffle for the initial part of the course, running at very similar speed. Caught up another runner (from Harlequins) in the fast white forest and a mini-pack was forming. Bit of a track run to #7 and those two plus a Shuoc top ahead, they'd got a 100-200m lead which I cut a bit when cut off into the forest and to the control. Then it was into the green, which Anne had warned me about - stayed out in the white as much as possible (the pack disappeared off in a different direction), a bit of hesitation to ensure was going into the green where I thought I was and hit it perfectly. A 30 second miss on the next control was about as bad as it got. A little banana-route into #10, some confusion on way to #13, when thought was going to #14 was realised when light green appeared in front of me. Feeling a bit knackered from the individual, could have pushed a bit harder - had I caught properly/kept with the mini-pack would have been about 2-3 minutes faster.

A quick note on gaffling at the British Relays. Looking at the results, 4 of the top 6 teams on Men's Premier had the same gaffles throughout the entire race, including the top two teams. I'm sure this happened last year as well...

The results suggest that although there were 12 possible leg combinations with the course variations available, only 6 were used. That's a little strange to me - how much thought is needed to realise that as well as AA, BB, CC you can have AA, CC, BB as well? And why not make the effort to ensure the likely top teams definitely get different gaffling, rather than using random assignment (which is what I presume happens)?

A couple of years back, there were 9 variations and the organising/planning team managed to ensure that none of the 30 teams running Men's Premier had the same combination of gaffles. You'd need over 36 teams before you start repeating combinations. That's how things can and should be done - 6 combinations as used both last and this year is too small a number. Even BUSA had 15 combinations!!

Event: British Long Champs
 

British Elite Long - stunning forest, fantastically planned course, shocking run. Left the brain in bed, and such was the planning each and every drop in concentration meant time lost. The nature of the relief meant that although visibility in the forest was amazing, you couldn't necessarily pick out and interpret the shape of the more technical dunes a way off, as you could on the relay.

So they say you should pick up on the positives. In short, I got round and was around 10 minutes over the target time of 2 hours. And there was something vaguely enjoyable about the course, even through the physical and mental "suffering."

The negatives? Probably can all be put down to one thing - what happened prior to the run. Didn't sleep particularly well the night beforehand, had an awkward 1.30pm start - a little too far from breakfast but not quite late enough to have a full lunch - so probably not enough fuel in the tank to start with. Took some Jelly Babies out and ate most just before the hour mark, and the rest just over 90 mins in - goodness knows what it would have been like without. Didn't feel as physically good as I had been in previous weeks - I know that I'm probably as fit as I've ever been at the moment so this was slightly strange. Still, not sure whether I quite have the endurance for a race of this length yet. Need a few more longer runs plugged into the schedule...

The mental side of things was clearly a bit off from the start - couldn't really make sense of what was going on to #1 and the concentration was lacking. What followed ranged from the over-hesitant to the "why did I do that" type mistake. Didn't seem to be using the contours enough on the longer legs and (as I identified might be a problem) when I got out of the vaguer parts I often didn't know where I was entering the detail. Biggest were to 5 (3'30"), 7 (2'30"), 9 (3'), 27 (2'30"), lost 30" to 1' on 5 other controls and small hesitations to many others meant quite a few 15" losses. Most of the mistakes were on the longer legs, poor compass work then diving into the detail without reading enough of it. Total mistake time ~15 mins, + goodness knows how much hesitance...

Realised after the run that the warning signs were there:
- over-reliance on the compass but not using that enough either meaning I was drifting everywhere on the bearings
- not paying anywhere enough attention to the contours, for the majority of the first part of the course in fact. When I did, things clicked for a while. Then would switch off again.
- hitting detail wasn't expecting to hit and very stop-start to check things - far too much ground-to-map.
- no reading ahead whatsoever bar seeing "that leg looks long"
- from near the beginning, seeing hills that looked a bit bigger/steeper than normally seen in a sand dune area and thinking "do I really need to go over that?" when they were only 4-6 contours high (10-15m) and not really that steep.

So as I've discovered quite a bit over the recent year or so, if I'm not quite there physically then the mental side of things goes so much more easily - unfortunately it happened today in an area that really doesn't allow you to get away with it as some would. A real shame in a way, I'm sure had I been "awake" the whole experience would have been even better than it actually was and my first elite classic would have been thoroughly enjoyable. I'm already looking forward to running here again, and hopefully mastering it next time!


Typical Culbin view

Warm-up jog along the track to the start, and forward and back a couple of times after picking up number. Calf not feeling too bad, however after 16k round Culbin Forest it was quite tight and the attempted warm-down to try and loosen it up a little wasn't greatly effective. Some stretching before and after helped a little, as did the "massage" of sorts (i.e. prod it with thumbs) that evening.

M21E - Splits

Quick training session on Lossie. Head wasn't really with it, and couldn't work out the almost completely flat bits with lots and lots of hills and dot knolls. Hit a couple of vague legs at the beginning and end though. Unfortunately this "brain switch-off" type feeling seemed to be a good indicator of what would happen the next day...

On the way back from the technical bit near the coast got a strange tightness in right calf, probably from running pretty hard at Hyde Park. Felt worst when running along flat even surfaces, the softer uneven forest floor was better, so thought it should be OK. Had a little bit of a stretch to attempt to loosen things up.

Hyde Park Score Event - distance given is straight-line covered during the event. Decision to go back for a 10-pointer missed out earlier added too much distance in given the additional points return, and 3 second overrun meant penalties too. Couple of banana-routes wouldn't have helped with the actual distance - looks like early on I was running fairly consistently at ~4 mins/k.

Looks like a decent route, which would have picked up the lot, was 9.27k straight line. So definitely achievable if you got the right route...

Maybe not the greatest idea to go almost full out a couple of days before the British Elite Long...

Lab opening and college dinner got in the way of any attempt at training today...

Morning nature reserve run with Helen. One day I might feel awake enough for this...