Training Log Archive: Mark3

Won :)

Course harder than last year since rather than being all downhill after "Hell Steps", it looped back up to add an additional hill. So really pleased with 3 mins faster than last year.

Nice to be at the front, with no danger of getting lost for the first 9k as course was the same - slightly tentative near the end. Some guy was took the lead for 30s or so near the start up the first hill, but I got away on the downhill.

Ran up the first half of the steps but couldn't manage the rest and had to walk - total 40m of climb in about 150m so not too overly bad I guess but hard at the 8km point.

Congrats to my non-running workmates who I've turned into hardcore runners; from nothing to parkrun to a hilly, offroad 10k is quite a big achievement I think!

Moving house tomorrow so not sure if I'll be able to make running club training; but entered 5k B+W handicap Aztec West (Pomphrey replacement) test run on Tuesday.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/56713800...

C • cake race on wednesday 1

To follow - something about how rcro is much better than me at mazes...need to see the maps for full report I think.

Finally broke 18mins for 5km!

Happy.

Pretty flat course but a bit gravelly underfoot rather than smooth tarmac; probably slows it down a bit. Good conditions though.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/56434084...

http://www.bittonroadrunners.co.uk/results/default...

C • Well done 3

Torrential rain nearly put me off - but this is the race last year where I was in 2nd place maybe 15s down and then got lost and ended up 3rd; very annoying when there were trophies for the top two! I was determined not to get lost this year.

Got lost fairly near the start...luckily this time everyone else did too - there was a missing arrow which meant got to the top of a hill onto a road with no signs - went all the way down the hill again gradually accumulating other runners (at least a 30s lead lost)...then a woman said that she thought if we went back up she knew how we could get back to the course...so all the way back up to the top (sigh) [an extra 1km in total and 50m climb] - luckily guessed to turn right on the road and found a marshal.

Took about another 3k to get past the 3(ish) people out of the whole field that had gone to the top and not come back down again; they'd guessed right first time.

No further issues - signage was ok from then on and didn't make the same mistake as last year :) [they added an extra arrow just for me!].

Happy to come back in first place and get a nice trophy; felt like I was running pretty well even in very wet/muddy conditions; the inov8 xtalon 190s were great as well.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/56168706...
http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/35703152... [last year for comparison]

Good running and orienteering [pretty much] finally!

Tentative to 1 and 2; getting into the map. Then 3-9 all fine.

Slight mistake on 10 as I cut a corner too early so minced across some unnecessary limestone pavement, but relocated fast. Path route to 11 and 12 worked well.

Very tentative to 13; came right down on the path to the S and then N again, minimised possibility of mistake but wasn't fast. But I think this was the right decision; found it fine.

Little mistake on 15; came right back up path near 11 then contoured round. Another control in the (ludicrously pale) open area put me off as I went for a look, even while thinking 'this clearly isn't in a reentrant'. Maybe 2 mins.

Looped all the way round to 16 taking the easy route in from the N; worked well. Went to 17 via 18, thus ensuring I won the split to 18 :) not entirely on purpose but not entirely by accident either.

Good route to 19 contouring.

20, good job the tower was there as I was going to be way too far N, but saved it.

21 was my only annoying stupid mistake - came off the path one indistinct path too early and was therefore way too far S - and took ages to relocate. Very bad. Easy mistake to make but should have lost 30s not 3.5 mins.

22 - lost about 14 mins here but since it was subsequently declared to be in the wrong place; not bothered. With hindsight it might have been better to follow the wall to the N crossing point. But this leg and the subsequent 2 have been removed from the results so won't dwell on them (last ones were all fine anyway).

Best result of the week position-wise (except the urban), 17th and 20 minutes down compared to 30 minutes down on most other days. Doesn't sound that great maybe, but obviously the standard on M21L in an event without a separate elite class is very high. It's the first time I've done 21L at a multi-day event, so quite happy to finish in the top half overall (19th/58 in theory, although it's out of about 40 if you only include those that attempted most of the days).

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/56025075...

Probably the day I enjoyed the most - was determined not to lose concentration here as I knew it would be even hard to relocate than Swindale.

1 fine, slight mistake on 2 in marsh too far S, but relocated on the move so just had an extra hill to go up and over; might have cost a minute but didn't really mind as relocation was so good. 3 fine.

Mistake on 4 - not sure what happened yet as haven't quickrouted; Garmin is telling me I was almost on top of the control but missed it. Looks like I was ever-so-slightly too low, but not good enough. Didn't really have an AP, should have used the walled thing which was how I eventually found it. Thought the stream junction would be enough but it was wet everywhere so hard to tell what was stream and what was marsh. Annoying 4 mins lost.

Really good 5-11, no problems.

Not great RC to 12, was looking out for the wet ditch and told myself I must have missed it and the thing in front of me was the stream (actually it was the ditch and I should have known as they are at diff angles); ended up far too low down at the top of a cliff and relocated off a fence that's off the edge of the map (first time for everything!). Once I'd worked out where I was it was easy. Maybe another 4 mins gone.

Caught Joe up here which was really good psychologically as he'd started 10 mins before me.

Then tried to look like the good orienteer to 14 but wasn't 100% sure where we were; came round bottom of crags much lower than I thought. Slowed down a bit so Joe would catch me up and lead me to the control (Thanks Joe!). Took a better route contouring round to 15 and got away a bit.

Then come the mistakes as tiredness sets in. 16, was at the level of the rocks when crossed the path which was far too high and should have picked up on that but didn't. So looking way too high for 16. Worked it out eventually but Joe had caught up again. 3mins gone.

17- way too high again; Joe followed me for a bit but realised pretty soon I had no idea where I was and went to find the control on his own. I persevered for a bit in the wrong place before realising. In my defence the rocks continue for much longer up the reentrant than on the map! But should have used other information. Another 4 mins gone.

18 - too high for this one as well! Another minute.

So in total 17 mins lost with half of that in the last 3 controls - really shows what losing concentration can do at the end. Must learn from this.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/55939311...

Thought this would be my best result and I was right.

Technically easy; some interesting mapping (contour omission on some of the map but not all, uncrossable fence omission everywhere) but nice to have a good fast run. Slightly questionable route choice to 10 (all the way to the W rather than E), lost a bit of time working out the steps making sure I could get through the car park, and couldn't get the gate open at 23 (I was trying to open the fence).

Otherwise pretty perfect.

Only 4 mins behind Nick Barrable - I will take that! 30s behind Ben M and 1 min 30 behind Geoff. I hope this event is going to find its way to the ranking list.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/55891342...

http://lakeland-orienteering.org.uk/uploads/cobalt...

C • ranking list 3

Best day so far in terms of mistakes; no biggies just many small ones.

Made same mistake on 1 as made yesterday; first bit of marsh was open and was tricked into thinking all marsh was open, whereas some was treed. Realised pretty fast but was then too far N for control; faffed a bit as not sure what to relocate on. More cautious to 2-5 and mainly ok.

Came in one path too early on 6 - overtook Richard which was good, but didn't know where I was which was bad; bit lucky to control. Then messed up 7; thought spur was hill, was way to the W and not far enough N, should have realised really but hard to follow compass in thick trees. 8 and 9 fine, caught Richard again and then went to wrong stream junction on 10; relocated pretty fast and told Richard where we were to save him the climb up the hill.

11 and 12 fine; 13 went round the thicker trees and then was a bit confused by the stream - retrospectively straight would've been fine here. 14 fine and nice run round path to 15; then was a little high above reentrant to hit control but again relocated fairly quickly. 16 easy then not a great route to 17 - should have come straight back up the hill; was really tough terrain to go straight line to the path.

Fine with some more path choices until 24 where confused by bridge; thought map was wrong here at the time but actually there are 2 bridges, so ok actually. Fine from here on.

Maybe 7-8 minutes of mistakes? But 8 x 1m errors feels much better than 1 x 8 min error.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/55776197...

Some good legs but again sabotaged myself on a couple.

Aim was to stay in contact all the time and not go too fast-this actually worked pretty well on most. 1-3 fine.

Mistake on 4 because I didn't notice that some of the marsh was in trees and some was in open - assumed all open and so never reached my attack point. Only realised this afterwards. +1.5mins.

5-12 fine, and pretty pleased as lots of people had problems but I was really clean.

13 (unlucky for some) was unlucky for me. Looked like a simple contouring leg; didn't really have an AP since assumed I'd see the crag. Unfortunately the mapper didn't spend as much time on the part of the map and the veg mapping was a bit dodgy...this is clearly an excuse. Looking at quickroute it doesn't like I went far enough - should have used the SW as an AP really but didn't even consider this at the time. Tried to relocate off lots of different thing - including the previous control - then stopped in almost the right place just slightly too high and pretty much gave up; since I'd tried all the APs in the region didn't really know what to do - and then I found it. +7.5mins.

Lesson - always have an attack point! And having one belowa crag is probably a good idea because they're easier to spot from below.

Rest of course fine (which is why 13 was so frustrating) other than slight miss on 18 not being where I crossed the ride (1min)- should have come up to the top of the hill and attacked from there rather than guessing position. Happy with ride route to 21 as some fast CUOCer caught me on 19 and we together (with him in front, but I was in touch with the map) to 21, then he went straight and we reached 22 at the same time.

Overall then +10mins, so could've been 43 - this sounds about right; Geoff E was 39 and had a pretty clean run.

Aim is to be very careful tomorrow and concentrate on having clear attack points for all the controls...but this is pretty much always the aim!

Please to be ahead of Joe G as he beat me yesterday - we compared splits and I was quicker on >75% of the legs; but he didn't make any mistakes anywhere near as big as mine so it was very close.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/55706716...

This was supposed to be one of my better days - but unfortunately marred by a massive mistake :(

1 fine. 2 a little blip as I tried to go via 20, but actually found a different control which I though should be 20 (slightly higher up slope) - confused at this point but found piece of wall which restored confidence.

Confused by the "Total Warrier" "runners" on 3 - assumed they would be on the path but they were actually going through the marsh just before the control; was ok once I'd worked that out. Maybe +1:30.

4 - bad bad bad. Successfully implemented the vast majority of the 1k leg and knew exactly where I was with only 250m to go. Then...for some reason ignored the fact I needed to gain about 5 contours; instead found a different control and then had no idea what was going on. Failed to relocate quickly - decided to climb to hill to what I hoped might be the cairn but was actually 300m away from it; eventually worked out where I was and then it was trivial. Just no idea why I missed the climb...I was convinced at the time that I had come up to the right level? Arrgh. +10m at least.

5 and 6 fine.

Missed path between 6 and 7 so thought ditch was path - thought it seemed a bit far at the time. Relocated via 8: +3m.

9-21 all fine, well executed controls - maybe 30s lost at 11 in the circle but pretty happy with these.

So 15m lost overall - not good enough. Maybe 4 was trying to rely on the marshes too much on a crazily wet day? Don't know.

rcro started 4 mins before, and failed to catch him. First sighting at 17; seemed to be much closer at 18 but he was quicker through the marsh so gap opened up again. Followed him to 20 but was a bit tentative when he vanished and I wasn't quite sure which crag he'd gone to.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/55613135...

C • total warrior 7

Mostly along the railway path, but hillier than expected! Weird sections along raised decking through the trees. Fun.

Really good weather for running; light rain and not as humid as it has been for ages.

2nd place - still can't win one!

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/55501459...