Training Log Archive: IanW

Wander around the warm-up map, lots of rock! Then jog down to assembly and back up to the start.

British Middle Distance Champs, Cademan & Thringstone.

An area you wouldn't associate with Leicestershire, covered in rock features - good practice for Fontainebleau! Mind wasn't really up for the challenge today, poor start then would get a few good controls before making another error. The area was a bit 'scrappy' and difficult to find a rhythm, never really got any control flow going, something that's quite important to do in a race like this. Hardly ever felt I hit race speed either, and when I did the inevitable would generally happen.

It wasn't just me making the mistakes though - I'd be surprised if anyone had a clean run. My 2-minute man (Andy Dalgleish) had sight of me at #3 but I stayed just ahead 'til #9, traded the lead 'til #16 as we both missed on occasion, and then he ran away, to be next seen just off #25 looking very confused. Lost time at #1, 2, 3, 10, 14, 17, 21, 26 & 27, and there were many hesitations, poor exit directions and non-optimal micro route-choices, plus a couple of times just ran past the control having not checked exactly what feature it was on.

Found the course a bit sprint-like in places, but as it wasn't a sprint I didn't go in with that mindset. So on a number of occasions I found crags blocking progress on the straight line; on others there was the need to read the descriptions well in advance in some cases to make sure you were on the correct side of the relevant feature.

There were a couple of bits in the east of the area (High Sharpley) where the rock details didn't feel right relative to the contours - #10 was much higher than I expected and there seemed to be some big unmapped rock features on the way to #12.

Perhaps a mistake to wear the new shoes, felt them rubbing a bit and have ended up with blisters on both heels. I don't think it made a great deal of difference to the navigation though...

GPS distance: 7.4km

Event: British Elite Sprint & Middle Champs
 

Quite a bit of warm-up before heats and finals, and some jogging in between. Some stretching chucked in too. Not enough warm down though...

Also played 'spot the mistake' on the warm-up map - there were a few, fortunately the courses didn't go through those bits though.

British Elite Sprints - Nottingham Uni - Heat D.

A bit more complex than I was expecting, with the vegetation creating quite a few route-choice problems, along with the usual array of buildings and the occasional uncrossable feature.

Felt a fairly solid run at the time, a bit of mental hesitation on the way to the first couple as tried to get into the map proper at speed. Only major error was 15" or so lost as I hadn't spotted the long uncrossable wall in front of the building on the way to #17; apparently some runners jumped down this... Probably lost a few seconds to #6 and #22 by going to the south rather than north of the building in both cases, and there was a bit of hesitation to #16. Read descriptions early for 18 and 19 to sort exactly where the flag was and get the route right. Control flow was OK, dropped a bit after the spectator leg up the hill though.

Easily into the 'B' final again this year, with about 90 seconds grace; over 2.5 mins down on the last A qualifier though.

GPS distance - 3.75km

Sprint Champs B Final.

After spectating the 'A' finals I got to run the same course, cheekily relabelled as the 'B' course. The spectating gave a few clues as to the course, with quite a few one way or t'other route choice legs in the offing.

Again pretty solid to start with, a few seconds lost on hesitation/route to #3 and wrong way around building to #7. No sign of Andy Powell - my minute man and former long-term resident of the uni who has quite a significant local knowledge.

A long leg took the course into a series of tricky route-choice decisions, trying to work out where all the uncrossable features were. Saw a route into #9 which was the slightly longer one, paused briefly to check hadn't missed anything to #10 but still went for the route that was 25% longer (10-15" lost). #11 didn't look anything like I expected and paused a little here to check it was correct, and it was third time lucky as took the passage that formed the best route to #9 and #10 to #12...

Dog-legging back out of the spectator control saw Andy and reckoned we were still about a minute apart, fine through the next two then screwed up big time with exit from #15. Aim was to cut through the white forest near the fence, but exit direction was crap and things on the ground didn't look as I'd expected. Dived into what I thought could be 'white' forest which contained a load of bramble, didn't see a fence so back-tracked and went round as I probably should have done in the first place... Hesitant for the rest of the leg (lost 30"+) and slow to the next as had lost a bit of confidence in the veg mapping, just about picked the gap.

Managed to stay ahead of Andy to the finish, where I was surprised to see some had screwed up even more badly than me and I'd taken a few scalps - mainly from the Bristol area...

The error near the end cost around 7 or 8 places and a sub-20 minute time... ended up 40th on the B final, so an improvement of one place on last year. Seems like to be vaguely competitive on this I need to knock at least 30"/km off my running speed...

Really enjoyable event, good area, good atmosphere, well-planned courses and some seriously quick times from the top guys.

GPS distance - 4.2km

From the lab over to Brill, a little thrown by the closure of the normal route which meant had to go via Horton-cum-Studley and tackle the short incline there.

Summer Series at Brill. Quads feeling a little stiff/sore after the cycle, always forget how hilly the area is, many short sharp slopes. Didn't feel like I had much speed even during the first loop, probably still recovering from Sunday.

Some good head-to-head battles with Jon, Matt, Roger T and Scott and Joe for a bit round the courses, generally quite clean, few little wobbles here and there - quite a few controls (27 I think) this year and some scrub clearance mixed it up a bit. Probably went a bit too hard, competitive nature in these head-to-heads often gets the better of me.

GPS distance - 5.65km

and back home. First part was fine (downhill) but the combination of tired legs and a pretty vicious headwind meant the ride often felt a real effort, on the inclines and especially the final hill through Barton. Helped by the stops made - one as Ali's back tyre punctured, another at the lab to pick up stuff I'd left there.

Back light died again, and the spare batteries I had were useless. Cycle helmet fell apart too and is now held together with insulation tape...

Good things to have in food cupboard - cous cous - very quick dinner!

Felt surprisingly OK given yesterday's exertion, though certain muscles felt quite tight

So some stretching after the session - really need to sort out my flexibility imbalance...