Training Log Archive: MooseMorris

Event: Newcastle Night Championships
 

Not too bad for a night event. Routegadget was a little bit fiddly and I had to put add a lot of points to get my gps route to be anywhere close to where I went on the map (adding points for the controls usually does really well but for some legs where I ran on a road or path I had to put multiple points between controls). I'm not sure if it's a map, a gps, or a routegadget issue, but I'm pretty sure that what is up now is close (except for 18-19 as I stayed low next to the trail). I'm also not sure if I accidentally took the less direct northern trail from 13 to 14. I had just twisted my ankle and was paying close attention to my footing as the trail was pretty washed out.

Long - Splits

Had quite a clean but slow run. I managed to twist my right ankle 4 times and get blisters on both feet, which made the running a little more uncomfortable than I would have liked. But the navigation was much more of the spur/gully stuff that I'm used to.

Made a mistake on 4 by running too far north and misreading some of the tracks, but figured it out pretty quickly. I tried to contour around the side of the hill from 6 to 7 and in retrospect it would have been much better to go back to the road and then have a short steep climb in to the control. I'm pretty pleased with 8 to 15. I knew that 16 was going to be tough as it was in the middle of a boulder field on the side of a super steep hill, but I got lucky and there were 2 people looking for the control at the same time. 19-20 was the longest leg and I chose the low flat route instead of going over the hill. By the time I climbed the really steep hill to 20 I was completely knackered and contouring to 21 was painful with my newly formed blisters and had to look behind a couple of boulders before finding my control. The rest were pretty straightforward and I managed to keep running. All in all I'm happy with my 3rd place in my category and 8th against everyone on my course. I did manage to bring my time much closer to the faster guys times, so I can't complain. Bring on the Newy Night Champs and NOY 1!

SL2 Hard 1/2 - Splits

Event: State League 1 & 2
 

I was fairly slow both because the bush was mostly pretty thick and also because the navigation was difficult. Also, I've not experienced much boulder and rock formation navigation. So this was felt like a bit of a dive into the deep end.

Really took my time through the first 11 controls and did quite well except for #7 which was also #1. I'm not sure exaclty what happened, but I definitely didn't take the more direct route. #12 was in the middle of a boulder field and on the third run through I found it. I didn't read the control description for #13 which and so looked in the wrong gully for a minute or so. I ran to #14 really well and so with my recovered confidence went for the trickier route choice to #15. BIG MISTAKE! I tried to go across the top of the rocks and pick up a small gap which would lead me down to #15, but managed to end up 250m to the north and find a control that was not on my course. I continued to wander around instead of going back to #14 and after 7 or 8 minutes managed to follow some people to it. After that things went pretty well, but my confidence was so shattered that I went quite slowly and played 'look behind every boulder' until the last 4 or 5 controls. Ended up 3rd in my category, but 8th when you look at everyone on my course.

Conclusion: I should buy an arm control description holder and always read the description early! It was definitely a challenge doing quite different navigation to what I'm used to.

SL1 Hard 1/2 - Splits