Training Log Archive: Thompass

Fun race-type prologue leading to a chase start later today. Woods are absolutely rapid, but threw what felt like over a minute on 3, to be confirmed, by strafing right to get a good line over the spur but ending up too far right and down the hill overall, struggling to see the rock in the open woods and not seeing the yellow patches. Pedley started two minutes after me so felt a bit of pressure. Good nav from there, accidentally took a wider line than intended to 11 by misreading a hill for another, took a bit of effort to correct, possibly 15s, then another similar hesitation into the rock at 12, couldn't quite spot it when I came a few meters too far right, and then combined with Pedley running a touch faster than me today, he was a few seconds behind me leaving 12. I'm pretty happy with the overall effort, muscles weren't prime after yesterday's heathery adventure and without the poor attack plan at 3 it's quite a good run.

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No whopper of a mistake to let me down this time. Chase start, caught the guys who started before me by hitting 1 without much hassle and was smoothly in a Pedley/Bigby/Murray train. Was moving alright but could feel that my legs were gonna die at some point. To 5, across a big open area, couldn't see a marsh I was looking for and what I saw suggested I should stray left, did so, hit some rocks left of the line and corrected, immediately lost the train, could not see them despite only losing like 10s. 7 was a very tough leg alone, think the train got a massive benefit being together and know I lost time there trying to navigate it well. Into spectator control 9 uphill out of the marsh, was absolutely gassed and sounded by the cheers that I was 40-60 seconds behind the train now. Saw Grace but never completely closed the gap, to 14 was too far right and crags didn't make complete sense to me in the open, big bobble but caught Grace leaving the control and popped in, then razzed downhill to finish it up. Pretty pleased considering the engine failure into 9, had no real pop left for the rest.

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