Training Log Archive: Forest Demon

Warm up before the relay. Running with Mark and Richard against the SHI teams and the elites.

Once again a bit of a dodgy number 1, found the other two gaffles before my own control. Pissing about too far into the dunes, had forgotten how tiny the contours were, so looking for a larger hill than it actually was.
Got to 2 fine, caught up with Charlie and back past Oleg who'd overtaken at 1.
3 was easy enough, just run at the giant hill.
Same story for 4, and 5 just run down the ridge. Ahead of both Charlie and Oleg here.
Round the side of the marsh and hill to 6, slightly overshot it, but called back by Charlie (top bloke)
More running at large hills to 7.
Unexpectedly saw Peter here, had caught him up. Oleg came past, as did Charlie, across the marsh. Should have stuck right, on the drier stuff, but splashed out to the left losing some time to Charlie who stuck right.
Big long one to 9, Oleg and Peter getting further and further away, Charlie better up the hill. Lost him somehow as we got toward the dunes it was in, more running towards large hills.
10 easy enough, then straight line compass to 11.
Round the big depressions to 12, Nick and Ralph came storming by.
Took advantage of them ahead by not thinking much to 13, just compass to check direction, and then keeping an eye on the knoll they'd left. Oleg and Peter really screwed this one up, ended up ahead of them again.
Oleg came past on the path to 14, before some running towards more big hills, Peter nowhere to be seen.
Oleg et al no longer visible to 15, so just ran on compass the whole way, dropped into it fine.
Round by the marsh to 16, some elite woman was just in front.
Seemed like we had the same controls in the last section, though they weren't too complicated. Plenty of big features and paths to go off.
She was holding me back on the sprint finish though, so we parted ways.

Ended up beating the England 3 team, pretty funny stuff.

To start

Will work out proper distance and climb eventually. No GPS or HR since it was a WRE.

Bit of an epic. Not sure Balmoral lived up to all the hype, but it was pretty nice, what you'd expect from a decent Scottish area.

Picked up the map, straight into a long leg to 1. Chose to go South up the indistinct path, past the cairn then across to the marsh and over the bouldery open. Attacked off the higher of two boulders, but convinced myself I was too far East, because the vegetation looked wrong. Was actually just above the control, but went West and rebounded off the other boulder.
2 was easy enough, just straight lined it over the hill
3 fine, compass off the fence corner, and spotted it from fairly far off
4, up the slight spur of the hill to just below the open, then contour round
Caught by my 2 minute man just after, before he stormed up the hill to 5, though he later retired (pussy).
Down the spur over the crags to 6, caught back up to yon man who messed it up.
Ignored him as he went wrong to 7, got it fine
He charged off up the hill to 8, decided I'd rather go round under the crags. Don't think it was a bad route, though he was faster and vanished into the distance.
Drop down to the path, through the gate and straight North to 9.
Bit daft to 10, crossed the first marsh and path, then kept going over the second marsh through the green, not entirely sure what I was thinking. Obviously on the wrong side of the green, had to go round it.
Already saw 11 coming out of 2, so I knew roughly what the area around it was like. Slight hesitation directly below the boulder it was on - could see the boulder, but not the control.
12 fine, up the path to the reentrant then straight up to it.
13 decided to go South on the path, North looked a bit vague for my liking.
14, 15, 16, 17 all fine, not really any major route choice to be had
Had been finding the hills quite slow going, picked the path route to 18, didn't fancy a plod up the hill. Should have committed to the route more, and gone through the light green after the rocky open near 2, rather than the path.
19 alright, came too low through the green, should have just tactically followed Kirsten who had the same control
20 easy, before slow trudge up the hill to 21. Bit mean to take us all the way down to just go back up again.
Absolutely no idea how long I'd been out, how far I'd gone, or how far I had left before the map exchange, so didn't know what to expect - glad to see a control pick on the hill.
22, 23. 24, 25 all fine, and nothing exciting with routes.
Caught Richard on the way to 26, and celebrated by fucking up 27 by dropping far too low while getting confused by the vegetation boundary.
Rest of the course fine, 3rd fastest sprint finish. Could probably have beaten both Hubmanns on the sprint if I'd pushed harder, but I'll settle for beating Daniel.

Overall, a good course technically, but I didn't run nearly hard enough, as demonstrated by 19 seconds for "190m" Should probably have gone off harder, and then see how I felt for the rest, rather than being conservative with pacing. Over 2 hours didn't really feel hard, without gels or jelly babies. Think it would have been a lot easier to get the pacing right with my watch, so I could see HR and distance done. Obviously the watch won't always be there, but Nixon said judging pacing in long races was a pretty hard thing to do.

Tiny jog.

Travelling up to Deeside for Race the Castles 2nd weekend.

3x Reach through exercises
10x Press ups
6x Inch worm to hip drop (essentially upwards dog)
4x5 Pull ups
2x 6+6 Single leg bridge, foot by knee
2x 6+6 Single leg bridge, heel by shin

2x 6+6 Seated box jumps (Single leg landing)
3x Countermovement jump, in between box jumps (21.6, 22.3, 23.8)

4x5 Deadlifts (40 warmup, 50, 55, 57.5, 60kg) Feel like this could (and should) be heavier
4x5 Bench press (40, 45, 47.5, 47.5kg)

2x 6+6 Bulgarian squat
2x10 Press ups
3x30s each Plank, R side plank, L side plank (no rest)

To George Square with a big bag of controls.

Turns out it's pretty hard to run with a massive bag of pvc pipes. Who knew?

Cba running round with a bag to collect in controls, it was a total pain in the arse. Took the bike instead, slightly less of a pain in the arse.

Some bastards nicked two of the controls. Luckily only one was gone during courses, second one must have been after. Everyone appeared to enjoy them, at least.

To George Square with the wind in my face the whole time. Really tough up the hills.

Checking FwtN control sites. Lots of starting and stopping to mark down new sites, and felt super tired - not enough sleep. Real effort to get the legs moving.

Back from George Square, with the wind at my back, and all the hills in the right direction.

In circuits gym:

5 minutes of spinning

Jogging with agility ladder -
2x 1 in each
2x 2 in each
2+2 Lateral high knees
2x Ickey Shuffle
2x Reverse Ickey Shuffle

3x Reach through exercises
10x Press ups
20x Crunches
20x Pullups

20x Seated box jumps
10+10 Seated box jumps (single leg landing)

20+20 Single leg bridge, foot by knee
6x Single leg bridge, swap legs while raised
10+10 Single leg bridge, heel by shin
4x6 Split jumps


Down to performance gym to get swole:

3x8 overhead squat (20, 22.5, 25kg - need to go heavier, was up to 30 before)

4x5 back squat (40 warm-up, 60, 70, 80, 85kg)

1 rep max based on 85kg for 5 is apparently 95kg... not far from three figures.

To the meadows

5 intervals, starting every 6 minutes

1- 1.25km: 00:04:30
2- 1.25km: 00:04:27
3- 1km: 00:03:31
4- 1km: 00:03:33
5- 1km: 00:03:29

Feeling tired and heavy in the legs. Bit windy too

Back home from the meadows.

To central area from home for the recovery run.

C • Good to see you back 2

Recovery run with EUOC, chatting to Calum the whole time. Calves super tight from the weekend.

Absolutely pissing down all the way home. Wet and wild.