Training Log Archive: Psuba

Wim Galoppen, Brown course.

I can't remember the last time I had such a horrendous run. Probably everything that could go wrong, did.

Orienteering all over the place. I think the map was quite dodgy in a lot of places, but a lot of the mistakes I can't possibly blame on the map. Compass work very hit and miss. To be honest, after missing 1 and 2 I did not have a lot of confidence in either the map and myself so maybe a lot of orienteering mistakes were just down to lack of trust and not having a consistent plan to navigate any more.

Once my blister from yesterday came to cause pain after the first few controls and going through marshes (so wet feet), running speed was gone too and became a hobble. After probably the third of the course was covered with yet more map and orienteering mistakes, it simply became a jogging/walking treasure hunt. Wasn't sure I'll actually complete the course but my pride kept me going so I was completing the course just before it all closed.

Met Annie in the middle who couldn't find one of the controls I did earlier. I just went with her to her next control as it was vaguely in the direction of mine too, just for company. In some ways that may have given me the mental strength to complete the course as did not see anyone for ages before that (having been the last starter by far).

Not even gonna list all the issues with the map and the navigational errors, but suffice to say No. 2 was definitely all wrong, tried 3 different attack points with neither getting me to the control, finally stumbling upon in unexpectedly in a vague area, taking 14 minutes...

Blister really bad by the end. Ah well, socks thrown out straight away.

Need to regroup.

Uphill to Wells charity off-road relay race
Leg 3 for "The Team", followed by leg 4 for "The Mixed Team".

The event was run in support of Prostate Cancer UK - they get all the entry fees and any proceeds from the tea / cake stalls at the finish. Naturally, this event is also organised to raise awareness of the cause and the charity.
As someone whose family this topic has closely effected, I have gladly agreed to participate when asked.

Whilst I did have about 7 minutes in between runs at the changeover point, it was just enough for me to mess up my Garmin watch and make the pre-loaded track disappear, so I had to navigate leg 4 entirely based on the map/picture provided by the organisers on their webpage (
http://www.uphilltowells.com/route.aspx)
Naturally, I have started off by overrunning a turnoff point (well, more like "turn left onto a field, paying no attention to the closed gate and open road ahead"). Luckily I was shouted at by a guy running after me.
I have duly ran back and seeing that he already knows the route, I thought I'll check his running speed to see if I can just run with him and follow his lead. Whilst it would have been nice to do that, I felt I was pushing just a bit more than comfortable.
Glancing at my watch I noted that we are running over the terrain with about a 4:15 km pace, which is only very slightly slower than my PB pace of a 5km Parkrun... which of course is run on a much easier terrain. And I do not have a hilly 7km in my legs then.
At this point I knew I wasn't going to run with him all the way, nevertheless tried to stick with him whilst I could. It lasted about 2km until I got to a particularly scenic point, where I slowed down to take some pictures.
From this point on I only caught a few glances of him ahead - and no more after the uphill at Cheddar Gorge.

Beautiful route but ended up with blisters on the arch of my right foot again so the last ~2-3km was quite painful. My iRocks and the trail socks do not seem to work well on hilly terrain in so far as blisters go. AH well at least no blisters on my toes!

A mixed terrain/trail run in the morning to again start getting used to O-terrain.
HR surprisingly low at times relative to how hard it felt. Not sure yet if this was just indicating that I could push more, or that I did not have the fuel yet in the morning to get things going.

Almost an HR control session, deliberately slow recovery jog in the evening. Once again HR surprisingly low relative to the pace - is this the result of the HR control trainings paying off? Or maybe just that I had low blood sugar?

Event: London Street-O Race #1: Wapping
 

This was supposed to be a long run, 3-5-3-5-3 km pattern, alternating HR control (sub 145) for 3km with cadence training (180SPM) of 5km.

Went OK initially but then it got VERY dark VERY fast. Low point at around 9km so had to rush back to the hotel and abandon the rest of the training.

Annoying that I haven't been able to compete a proper training session for a while, hope it starts to turn back to normal soon.

Furrow hoppers relay, Short course (ran 1st).

Did not push it, as this wasn't a crucial course.

Furrow hoppers relay, Long course (ran 2nd).

Pushed on this one as it was expected to be the critical course. Eased off in the end when I saw Dale not in yet for the changeover.

Furrow hoppers relay, Medium course (ran 3rd).

Pushed this one as well - although it was expected to be shorter than the Long one, it actually was longer due to the route to penultimate control coming all the way back to cross the stream. This meant that it turned out to be the critical course for the result (took the longest of the 4 course combinations), which I knew by the time I started off.

A 12 seconds mistake on this one as I overran a junction, and a further maybe 20s lost when I dived into the path in the woods contemplating to maybe cross the stream instead of getting to the bridge before returning to the open path, but nothing major beyond that. Wasn't as fast as I should/could have been though.

In the end we won the relay - both absolute and handicap adjusted (by 36 seconds!): http://www.wimborne-orienteers.co.uk/d7/node/112

This also means that our club won the Relay series for 2016 - nice!