Training Log Archive: IanW

Time for TioMila! - went out Saturday morning with the majority of the team from the infamous Terminal 5, where my bag was promptly lost - it took 6 hours to get to T1, then another day to be flown out to Arlanda - on the flight that then got turned around for us to come back on. Of course, the bag didn't come with it...

The actual event - an absolutely amazing experience. Walking towards the main event centre from Rosersbergs, a group of juniors ran across a bridge (constructed especially for the event) and down through the forest across our path. Setting a bit of a precedent for the rest of the event, that race was decided by a sprint finish. Then saw the 350+ women's team event, start was pretty spectacular, the lead kept on swapping throughout the race and on the final loop of the women's race, the lead 4 were within 5 seconds of each other.

Onto the men's race - ditto the start for the women, except it was at night, so 350-odd headtorches suddenly sprint off into the forest, then through the spectator control, and by the finish they're way within the expected winning time (which did seem a bit slow). Watched the first leg and the first half of Leg 2, then tried to get some sleep. Woke up a bit cold at ~4am to see it almost light, and the leading runners on Leg 6 coming in. Back to sleep, then woken up by the commentators getting really excited by the sprint finish on the men's - after 9 and a half hours of racing, the leading 3 teams were separated by less than 10 seconds. Might have been different/more interesting had the final leg been gaffled...

Our team had a few simple goals - to get round without mispunching, and to have fewer than 3 people in the mass start. Well both aims were met! Chris E had a stormer on first leg, back 13 mins down on the lead. Jon had a solid run on leg 2, as did Helen on 3 despite her headtorch failing near the end. Ian C was on long night, then Scott on Leg 5, Ali on Leg 6 had a good'un, just beating in the sprint finish and having prime view from the changeover of the spectacle. So aim 2 was going to be complete if leg 7 (John E) got round in less than 3 hours, which he did easily. They then moved the mass start forward by 30mins to 10:30, meaning Pauline on Leg 8 arrived just after they'd shut the changeover :( Otherwise it would just have been me in the mass start. Got round my shortened loop without any major screw-ups for a total team time of 14:41:55 and position 259 in the end - slightly better team tactics would have seen us very near to the 250 mark. No mispunches though :)

TioMila Leg 10 - shortened as we were in the mass start, which was moved 30 mins earlier than originally scheduled. Even had it been at the original time, I'd still not have managed to avoid it. Borrowed Chris' shoes as mine were in the lost bag...

Started off at a steady pace out of the mass start, legs didn't feel immediately great so didn't try to push the pace. Decided that the track route looked good, but then tried to save a bit of distance by cutting behind a house - one house too early. Got caught in a load of crap/brashings and managed to rejoin the track a good 60-90 secs down on where I should have been, which meant that I'd missed the main pack who had gone through - you guessed it - about a minute ahead...

Slightly poor exit from #1 on the long 3k leg to #2, the numerous big tracks through the area meant the navigation wasn't too testing. Stayed a bit too far left though, and in attempting to cut across got caught in a load of marshy/brashing nastiness - should have cut across in the block of forest beforehand. Hit the control fine after stopping briefly 100m too early on another boulder on the same line.

Caught a mini-pack coming out of #4, same route to #5 where we all missed slightly right. By now was running more smoothly and behind this lot I felt I was going slowly, so managed to get past on way to #6 as the pack took a less-than-optimal route, spiked that about 15 secs ahead of them, hit #7 pretty well then nailed #8 (3rd fastest split of the mass-starters) before going slightly too high to #9. Had picked another couple of runners up to #9, their pause to check route choices to #10 was enough to get away, catching another runner and overtaking at the drinks point. From then on the forest was empty, 30 sec miss at #11 as hit another control too far east; the rest of the course was relatively simple and was pulled in at the spectator, as expected.

To be honest, the area was one of the simpler Scandi areas I've run on. Had I not made that stupid error to #1 I think I could have kept up with the mini-pack that finished about 6 minutes up on me - time loss due to mistakes near the control were minimal for me (< 90 secs) but route-choice must have cost 3-5 mins or so. Also still felt pretty good at the finish and thought I could well have managed the final loop had I been given the opportunity to carry on - much better physically than last weekend :)


There weren't nearly as many tracks out there as I thought there might be, probably because it was pretty dry underfoot. Shame the last leg wasn't gaffled as well, would have made the main race far more interesting.

Event: Tiomila 2008
 

Wandering around and mapping parts of Brookes for the Saturday Series/Cuppers event.

Really nice evening, left the lab at reasonable time and felt I ought to get out there. Up to Shotover, via Golf course & nature reserve then Old Road, before going up through the western edge of Shotover. Couple of stops to stretch out as calf feeling a little sore.

Once up the top finally (no idea why I hadn't done this before) took the opportunity to look over the north side of the ridge to Stanton, Brill etc and the general flatness beyond. Quite impressive how far things stretched.

Back through Shotover, Brasenose Wood, Magdalen Wood and across golf course. By now the calf was really quite painful, as bad as it was on Saturday, so walked most of the way from just before the golf course.

A smattering of bluebells out in the forest - am wondering whether I've missed the best of the 'carpet' or whether that's still to come...

One long lap of the XC course at Shotover, almost at maximal effort, almost got the route perfect but cut up the final hill a path too early at the end meaning slightly shortened (100m or so).

Hoping this can act as a time trial over the coming months, and therfore an indication of (improving) fitness.

Calf wasn't too bad during this but after a bit of rest and then on the way down it didn't like me. As before, soft uneven ground is better for it, doesn't seem to hurt as much then.

Again - not intentional but didn't get timings right during the day. Managed to get quite a few other things sorted though.

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...