Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Warm-up and a shuffle for a cool-down: Kat could easily keep up with me walking as I cooled down.

JK 2007 Classic Distance.
A monster of a race on two parts of the Forest of Dean, known as New Beechenhurst and The Pludds. How do the Brits come up with these names???
I decided to just run hard from the start and hope not to crash too badly later on in the race. From personal experience, I know that if I try taking it easy from the start and trying to save energy till the end, I just never manage to get into racing mode.
It went well early on, with about 1:30 lost on The Pludds, before we had a break. That's right. This race, a World Ranking Event, no less, included a road crossing for which you were allotted 2 minutes which were subtracted from the final time. This is so weird! Can you imagine a marathon race with a 2 minute break in the middle??? The rationale for this is that the runners don't rush across the road and get themselves killed, but couldn't they just have the marshals halt traffic for a few seconds when runners came?
Anyway, although I had prepared myself for this, I still lost concentration after the break and ran without a plan to the next control, losing a minute or so. It went better after that, and I only had another 1-2 minutes of errors over the next 13 controls through the spectator control, including no mistakes on one weird hill with lots and lots of contour detail on it. There were lots of people looking very lost there. After the spectator control I got very tired and forced myself to take very safe route choices, which mostly worked well, though I still blew two controls. I was happy to see and punch the last control and was all set to jog into the finish, when Jenny Johnson, the women's winner, came sprinting up behind me, forcing me to run hard to avoid being girled in the finish chute...
All in all, about 6-7 minutes of mistakes for the whole course and a pretty strong run physically.
Ended up 18th this time, about 1 min/km slower than Oli Johnson, who was by far the best on the day.
Splits: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.a...
Route gadget: http://www.jk2007.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin/reitti...

C • Sounds reasonable 4

Warm-up, cool-down.

JK 2007 Middle Distance.
A hilly, but fast middle race in the Forest of Dean. I was careful to the first control, spiked it, climbed the first hill on the way to #2 and realized that I felt great. It was just one of those races when the controls keep appearing exactly when you want them to and you feel like you are flying. I did make one real mistake, losing about 35 seconds on #6 when I got distracted by Paul Nixon, whom I had caught, and went off my bearing. After that the race went well. Looking at splits, the only places I lost time after #6 were controls on which I intentionally slowed down on the approach - controls on charcoal platforms in the middle of featureless slopes. As I ran down the finish chute, I heard the announcer say something like "And here is a respectable time by an American," which I was amused by. I actually took the lead when I finished, but that lasted about a minute until Marcus Pinker came in with a much better time. I ended up 19th, which doesn't sound too impressive, but this was kind of race I could not have run even a year ago, so I am happy.
Splits: http://www.cix.co.uk/~neper/jk2007/day2/crse1.htm

Event: JK 2007
 

Morning jog with Kat to Port Meadow and back, in Oxford.

Warm-up / cool-down

JK 2007 Sprint.
Not very eventful - a nice, fast sprint course around the University of West England campus. Not too technical, meaning you had to run hard the whole way. I made one major parallel error on an easy leg, losing about 40 seconds. Ended up 40th overall out of 200+ starters on the men's open course. Definitely felt like top speed wasn't there - a direct result of a lack of short, fast intervals and more focusing on strength and endurance this winter.
Winsplits: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.a...
Route gadget:
http://www.jk2007.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin/reitti...

C • and splits at http://www.attac... 1

Men's Open - Splits

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 4.
This training day was on the way (more-or-less) between the Lakes and Oxford, on Cannock Chase, site of JK 2005. I hanged one of the two courses Joe designed. Had some trouble, since we were told the map was a 1:10, but it clearly was not. About halfway through I convinced myself it was 1:15, and things went better. Indeed, it was.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 4.
After a break, ran a piece of the other course on a contours-only map at race pace. Had no real problems navigating, but the legs did feel a bit tired.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 3.
Jogging to the start at Big Land.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 3.
The plan for today was to take it easy on this technical area, where Joe set a course with a focus on slope orienteering, in other words being forced to pay attention to how much you've climbed or dropped on lots of the legs. I ran this without a compass and really enjoyed the terrain. Orienteered ok for the most part, though did catch myself leaving controls in the slightly wrong direction a couple of times.

Yes, there is a video of this one someplace too.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 2.
Got up for a morning jog with the OUOC ladies - Kat, Helen, and Alison Crocker, a former Dartmouth skier/rower/runner who has rediscovered orienteering at Oxford. We ended up in the middle of a flock of sheep, with the ones in front of us running away and the ones behind us trying to rejoin their comrades. It was very funny - sheep in front, runners in the middle, sheep in the back, all running in the same direction and making strange noises.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 2.
Running a short course of Graythwaite hard.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 2.
Running the same course again after a break, to see how much I could improve. The answer, obviously, is quite a bit.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 2.
Hanging some controls with Luke McNeill after lunch.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 2.
The day's last training was a Peg Relay - same thing that the Swedes call Nypjakt, or clothespin hunt. I described this exercise the last time I did it, but here it is again: Everyone is mass-started and has the same course, and at every control hang between 3-5 pieces of colorful tape. If you are one of the first three people to get to that control, you take a piece of tape and then run to an extra control, drawn on the map in a different color from the regular course. After that extra control you proceed to the next regular control, thus running somewhat more than the people who didn't get the pin. This continues all the way through the course, and the person with the most pins in the end wins.
I ended up winning this peg relay by using a bit of sneakiness: i deliberately avoided getting a tape at the first control, because the extra leg on this one involved a very steep 30m climb. Skipping this tape allowed me to get enough of a lead on the fast guys who went for it so I could collect the next three tapes, which turned out to be enough for the win. A really fun training, culminating in a mad downhill sprint against Joe Mercer and Ben Stevens in the end. I gotta learn to fly downhill like those guys!

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 1.
A beautiful day on a treeless, runnable, hilly, and detailed area called Loughrigg. Started off by hanging controls for the "long legs" course. Found a sheep skull for future use as a start triangle. Named it Dolly.

OUOC Lakes Training Camp. Day 1.
After a short break, ran a middle distance course at medium intensity (fast enough that navigation is a challenge, but slow enough so that i shouldn't have to stop at all.) Made a couple of mistakes and got tired on the hills towards the end.

After lunch, shadowing Kat on the same "long legs" course I hanged in the morning. Trying to focus on taking advantage of the visibility and improving distance judgement.
Shadowing (photo by Benjamin Grandey):