Training Log Archive: Psuba

HR Control run.
Back in the cold! First run back from the 26-30 deg heat and high humidity, quite a shock to get out there in -1.

Legs are quite stiff after travels etc. so chose to actually run a slow HR control session and concentrate on running technique. Will need to pick up distance over the next weeks to do proper winter training, but back from vacation this was a good start.

Hotel gym session as a warm-up.
"usual" treadmill session so
1 km 5min/km 0% elev
1 km 5 min/km 3% elev
1 km 5 min/km 6% elev
1 km 5 min/km 3% elev
0.5 km 5min/km 0% elev
0.5 km 3:30min/km 0% elev (Ok this was a bit shorter as I ran out of steam..)
1 km 145BPM 0% elev cool down

Hotel gym strength training, core etc.

Epic run up to Tab Kak Hang Nak national park forest hill top.
On vacation, but saw this as an option to do something different to relaxation. It is a free train, about 4km mostly steep uphill so I thought I'll see how far I can go!

It was starting to rain as I set off so very slippery in places especially coming back down. There were very steep sections I could not run :( and had to stop quite a few times to take pictures. The scenery from the top is amazing, you end up on a big rock and the view opens up over the Krabi plain with all the sharp cliffs. Clouds below and above.

Going back I collected M and we walked back from that point so no GPS for the whole section as there was no point recording that as a run.

HR control treadmill session in Siem Reap hotel gym.

I think I have added 4%-8%-4% gradient sections.

Gym warmup with HR control

Core and leg strength session in hotel gym

Chatty run with A in Singapore - his tempo

Back to A' flat

To East Coast

Singapore East Coast Parkrun.

Early enough but high heat and humidity so I was wondering how my body would react.
It was OK for the first 2 km but then the heat, sun, humidity got me and I slowed down significantly. Fun to do this on vacation in a completely different place though!

Casual run mostly chatting with A under his guide in Singapore.
A few strides in the middle but mostly very relaxed (for me - he was stressed at times and apparently got a PB for this route, well done)

Event: SE Night Champs
 

SE Night Championships, Alice Holt., course 1

Not a very good area for Orienteering. From the map, it looks like the planner made the best use of the area, but unfortunately, there was no getting around the limitations of the area.

Map very suspect in places, especially the mapping of the vegetation. This tripped me up in quite a few places. That said, I have made quite a mess of a few controls without it as well, so overall a very poor run from a navigational perspective.

There was a lot of things going on underfoot, mud and water in open places, some furrows, brashings in theoretically open wood, and thorny undergrowth in places (again, sometimes in the supposedly white forest?). I have managed to bang my shin against something quite hard going from 7 to 8 which may have messed up my head so much that I messed up that route completely afterwards.

Yet despite all this, maybe I am a masochist because I quite enjoyed being out there! The only thing I can think of is that a.) I was physically quite within myself so I was able to actually cope with all the challenges and b.) despite quite a few mistakes, most of the legs I actually managed well, and even with the mistakes, I had a decent strategy to recover most of the time.

Time lost:
#2 - Still trusted the map too much on vegetation at this point and it had no resemblance to reality. Messed about for about 1:30 more at least than I should have. I should really have started pace counting or had a different strategy for the route, going out to the path as soon as I saw that the vegetation doesn't match. I was caught up by my 1 min men here.
No problem to #3 and my 1 min men disappeared to the left, didn't see him until after I finished despite my subsequent huge mistakes...

#4- ran fairly well on bearing until the penultimate road where I switched tactic (why?) to be sure and was turning right so I could hit the junction E of the control. I did get there so no navigational issue but about 40s slower than I should have been if I was more confident.

#5 - Decided to cut the last corner just S of #5 as it was mapped white forest - mistake. Stuck in undergrowth for longer than it would have been to run around - maybe later runners enjoyed some elephant track here but not me. I also then wasn't fully sure how far I was on the track, the map shown a distinct veg boundary for the control so I expected to see from the shape of it where I was, but it wasn't so clear - maybe because it was night (but I suspect the map). Ther WAS a bench on the track which should have helped - if it was on the map... Probably about 50s wasted altogether. Caught up a young guy here on my course, so a good check for the next few controls as I kept running ahead for a change.

#7- wasted about 30s cutting across the white (khm) forest between two tracks as there was a section quite green I had to fight through.

#8 - One of two huge mistakes of the night. Trusted the map (shouldn't have) and ran on bearing through white, until I hit my shin on something hard and that messed me up a bit. Hit what in hindsight was the first track in between controls, but this wasn't clear to me at that point, I expected white forest to continue here. I should have turend left but turned right thinking I was already on the next path (partially due to vegetation mapping inaccuracies and unmapped water channels that I crossed). The map didn't make sense from this point and after faffing about for 3 minutes I decided to bail out to the main track and regroup from there. That helped but I wasted altogether about 4 minutes.

#12 - Did not see the first water channel and so jumped into the forest attacking the control too late. Used the indistinck track - well in fact it was mapped as such but fealt more like light green forest fighting through the brashings! Not sure I would have mapped those as tracks. This meant passing about 15m by the control first, hitting the big track before I could put myself right and realising the way things were mapped and going back for the control. Hit it after losing about 2:30 here and lead about 4 guys into the control... including some good M21s with good speed with whom I tried to stick to the next control. Big mistake as...

#13 - ... I followed these guys without being very sure about my attack point so ended up hunting for this control with about 7-8 other people. This area was mapped very poorly, the vegetation had nothing to do with what was on the map which was a problem as I was trying to locate the control by using the mapped veg boundary. In the end, I think I originally passed the control by about 2m, not having seen it I relocated a few times before finally finding it after wasting 6:10!

#14 - being very safe on paths which was probably wise - lost time relative to going straight but again the map wasn't very accurate so this was I hit the control spot on at least.

#15 - probably suboptimal being safe with the path choice so hunted a bit for the control. Probably should have gone out all the way to the road instead of hunting in the woods but couldn't have made a huge difference at this point.

#16 - fought through lots of brashings and undergrowth here - looks like it was a bit of a lottery as others leaving #15 earlier than me went straight through and were there much faster than me trying to use the mapped track to avoid the undergrowth :(

#18 - Seriously, this as white forest??? Interestingly, I was holding direction fairly well through the most difficult bit but then veered off as I got to the whiter forest and had to bounce back from the path junction, losing about 1:20.

Paul caught me up here and I wasn't sure whether to stick to my plan of just navigating myself and not pay attention to others navigation or try and keep up with him. Decided to try and see how far I could go with him but still navigate - this lasted for half a control but made me pick up the pace a bit and confirm that I could actually manage my races faster! He disappeared after #19 but I caught him up at #20 and he had to overtake me again to #21 on the path (well we both knew he is a much faster runner).

So altogether lost about 17:30 but various navigation/map issues which is frankly just too much - at least I learnt a great deal which is not bad for a training session.

C • Vegetation 3

Event: SOC Wessex Night League Event
 

Wessex Night League, Eastney (Portsmouth)

Very bad traffic so got there late, not time for warmup or mental prep (again...), they were kind enough to let me start though.

Legs now quite tired after the whole week of continuous racing, and I struggled with running speed as it would have been possible to make use of the streets to do it faster.

4th/25 http://race-results.info/2017/20171109wess/?page=c...

Made a few errors - about 1:40 misreading the map a few places (better map than yesterday, although the vegetation aspects could have been better losing be a few seconds in places). The biggest problem though was that control 162 was misplaced - I got to the right place and tried attacking it from a few angles to see if I was in the wrong place. I wasn't, but the control was somewhere else. I spent 2 minutes looking before I decided to bail - and as by this time I was worried about not making it back in time, I here made the decision to not go for 159. In fact, the control was on another stone in direct line towards 159, so those who got it were probably coming from 159... so in fact this lost me a few places in the race :( Not sure why they did not either erase 162 from everyone's result OR credit me (and others who were in the right place), it does not make for a fair result this way... but as this isn't a key race I am not making a fuss (other than this note...)

I never saw 152 on the map so never even thought of going there, although would not have had the time, I suspect the only way for me to get it would have been if I wasn't making those mistakes & 162 was in the right place.

Not a big fan of the area - many doglegs and not too challenging strategy wise as well. Fair enough, I usually mess that part up, but this time the main questions was to do the course clockwise or anticlockwise, and there wasn't much in it anyway.

Good bit of training but in the end I am not sure it was worth my driving 4 hours to be honest.

Wessex Night League, Winchester ATR. 1 hour score.

http://race-results.info/2017/20171108wess/?page=c...

5th/33.

Just about got there driving from London, so no time for warmup, mental prep etc. That wasn't the problem though. Lost about 7,5 mins all added together - about 2/3rd of that due to the, to be honest, quite poor map. Yeah, 1/3rd was my mistake... so that's about it. Let's just forget about the map as this really wasn't a key race and I am still treating all these events as training.

Managed to just about collect all controls though, some good terrain running and compass bearing practice, and felt good all the way through, running fastest towards the end (that's when I chose to run through the barracks so good footing).

Event: Wessex Night League - Sarum event
 

Salisbury Night race, Wessex Night League.
1 hour score, 2nd.

Some suboptimal planning but not messed up the strategy as much as I usually do. Hesitant in a few places and messed about in the control circle a few times wasting time. Felt good running even though 3rd day in a row racing. Can speed up more from now on.

Event: November Classic and Southern Championships (UKOL)
 

November Classic, course 2 (M40L)

Great day out, but terrain as usual New Forest with lots of bogs, so got very wet very fast. Which I hate. But at least I am getting used to it.
Decent course, made about 6 mins worth of mistakes adding all together, so considering I wasn't giving 100% not a bad result (about 17 min behind winner). Felt quite OK actually especially considering the consequent days trainings. Probably be worth upping the pace after I am back from vacation in December. Lost most time (apart from where I made mistakes) on legs with uphill so as expected need to strengthen legs & do hill training more.

Navigation largely OK, recovered OK from the mistakes as well:
#3 - imprecise compass bearing, ended up right of the control with not much to go on, unfortunately an M18 starting a minute ahead did the same so I wasn't adjusting immediately. Did a bit of a roundtrip but at least did not hesitate much, all together about 2 mins
#4 - just was doing a few rounds in the green, instead of going around it which would have been faster, about 30s
#10 - hesitant attacking the control and pulled left, bounced back from the road, about 30s
#12 - misjudged the distances on the map (been a while since I ran on 1:15000), saw the vegetation that hid the control from afar, but thought it is too far - also saw an unmapped track before it - so stopped early and tried to locate it nearer. In the end convinced myself to the reality and lo and behold... 1 min
#14 - Not sure the map was 100% here, attacked from the veg boundary but ended up rounding another veg strip further N of the one which was mapped with the control. As there was no control there, I went back and found the control, but either it was more to the S of where it should have been, or there was another unmapped veg N of it. 1:30
#21 - bad choice of going more or less straight out of control, probably the worst option to get out on the track. 30s

Startled a pack of deer in between 5 and 6, there was about 5 of them jumping away around 2 m from me!

Event: Southampton City Race / November Classic and Southern Championships (UKOL)
 

Southampton City Race, Mens Vets.

As this whole stretch is part of training and not target races, I thought I'll try out the new gimbal with the GoPro on my head. Ah well, what a mistake. Too heavy, kept bouncing all over so I ended up adjusting it all the time, until it messed up my forehead so much it hurt, so I took it off an carried it from about 2/3rd of the way. What's worse, as I was 1 min late to the start I did not have time to verify the GoPro settings, so instead of taking a picture every second, it was on single shot - which means it had 1 picture at the start and then switched off. So much ado for mothing.

OK so speed was terrible, but I felt quite OK to be honest. Made a few route choice mistakes as I was distracted by the headcam (I'll blame it on it anyway) and got to the wrong side of the wall once as I wasn't paying attention to the control description sufficiently. Lovely day out, though and a decent course.

Supposed to be 4min/km mile reps, but too many dogs in the park attempting to eat me so I stopped more than I would have otherwise. Not in the best of shape for this anyway so would not have lasted the full session anyway.

4x full circuits