Training Log Archive: Psuba

CompassSport Cup 2017 Heat, Brown course

Fairly disappointed in hindsight. Really only made 1 mistake (but that was a big one), on control 10 where the map was so off that I was entirely sure the control I saw wasn't the one I was looking for, even went and misread its control number and had to get back to it a few minutes later.

Probably too ambitious on the long leg cutting across the green not wanting to run all the way around.

But putting these aside I was significantly slower than expected relative to the other runners, even on legs where I have not made a mistake. Not fully sure about the reasons, the difference was larger than "usually expected" by recognising they are faster runners! I was actually pushing myself (or felt like I was anyway, although HR says otherwise), but the tussocky hard to run surface just wasn't favouring me. Possibly the travel the day before and the streak of 10+km runs with reasonable effort cost me as well. Really, I would have only been OK with my run if I was about 15 min faster, of which I can attribute about 7-8 minutes to mistakes but the rest is lost somewhere in running.

Vizsla Cup, Brown course.

Pretty ashamed of this "performance". This was a bit of an odd one for me in terms of where it fit in the training programme and I think that threw my whole run.
I was going to go and mentally prepared for the Megasprint Rallye (first day of the O-Marathon) which would have been a lot more technical and shorter, and completely different terrain. However, that just turned out not to fit the timing for the day (reaching my flight) so had to abandon that. At the same time, I wasn't going to have a hard run the day before the CompassSport Cup. This was well placed in reach of Budapest, but the course profile looked quite different to what I used to. With a lot of climb in it, I decided to take the running very easy and wanted to be precise.
Wel it looks like that is not how my mind works. I seem to not be able to disconnect physical intensity from mental intensity because I was all over the place, and in hindsight, I noticed that this is probably connected with the mindset where I just didn't mind spending time out there. For example, a number of times I was making a mistake, I stopped and spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly where I was instead of running to a sure catching feature to relocate.

Several mapping inconsistencies did not help but to be fair this was just adding salt to injury and really wasn't the main cause of the vast majority of the time loss.

The terrain was also something that just didn't suit me. Very physical under foot, rocky, steep in places and brashings, so I was taking a lot of care of my ankles and that all cost time when out in those areas (which was the majority of time).

Most of the mistakes were actually due to imprecise compass bearings and just aiming roughly towards the controls or attack points, and of course what can you expect in that case... this.

Up to water tower and back down, not pushing fully but determined to run all the way up including Diana steps - which I managed.

Evening run - 2 laps around Margaret Island (no time for more) with 1k/1k alternating targeting 4min/km pace and recovery, plus the warm-up and cool down jog to/from.

Steady level run (getting back to aiming at 180BPM cadence) to Margaret island, 1 lap and back. I was targeting the lap at 4:30 pace which should not be a problem, but felt much harder work than it should be. Probably still a hangover from the weekend race.