Training Log Archive: Psuba

To start

The JK, day 3, long distance M40, Holmbush and St. Leonard's.

Could not get off early from home so over an hour late for my start, wasn't really concentrated either. The plan was to pick mostly routes on paths and safeguard my feet to avoid getting an injury a week before the London Marathon, and to keep a relatively easy pace both to allow stressing my still-not-recovered body to combat the flu (i.e. not to fall back), and not to put too much effort into my legs as per the training plan I really should have only done an easy run today.

Overall I managed it fairly well, although there were lots of mistakes I have made (see further down) that I really am not happy about and should iron them out in the future. I think in terms of overall performance this was similar to last years, but given where I am with my training it should be considered an improvement. Certainly not feeling like I am out of my depth physically or navigationally anymore despite the errors, and also recognising that this wasn't the challenge of the Lake District...

Looking at Splitsbrowser it is quite obvious that I have slowed down after the map exchange. I think I have lost a bit of drive there, and whilst the character of the forest changed quite a bit, and I have made mistakes on the first few controls overall I just think I became a bit more hesitant, just enough to lose my advantage to about 4-5 people on whom I was up until that point. I generally think that my attitude of just being careful did not, of course, help the competitiveness - well I take this for now with the bigger goal in mind, but I need to rectify this in the future when I get back to Orienteering racing proper.

Control by control:
1 - took a very conservative route around on the paths and didn't go all out either, surprisingly not a bad split!
2 - Very tentative across the broken ground, more navigationally and not because of my feet, but still surprised how much I lost here as I wasn't making huge mistakes.
3 - I don't think I took the optimum route, contoured round to the level road then up across to the path (not sure why it was mapped white, there was quite a dense forest there initially), finally I ran up too early for the clearing losing about 40s. I may have been faster running straighter, further down, using the path on the E, but did not see it at the time. Lots of hesitations in running this route as well.
4 - Ran the path all the way and then dropped down for the control, no problems here
5 - Used the elephant tracks in the first part climbing then zig-zagged the roads, no problem here.
6 - Chose to run around on the roads as originally planned except for the last part climbing up to the tree from the junction, where I was careful with the fallen branches etc losing some time.
7 - Once again chose to avoid cutting across the forest and just used the roads and paths. Not really sure about mapping of some of these forests as white or even rough open - they definitely impeded my running more than ISOM would suggest! My splits running around vs people I suspect cutting across would suggest this also.
8 - The first leg of a few in sequence where I dropped more time relative to people with similar speed than before. I simplified this leg but ultimately meant I chose a much slower route than I should have. Didn't see the path cutting across more or less level so decided to drop fully down to the road, run that and then climb the reentrant. This worked navigationally but I lost quite a bit of time with this route.
9 - Quite tentitive across the terrain here especially towards the last part, both navigating fallen branches and rough underfoot (again - mapped all white????), even though I was in control navigationally but took a hell of a lot of time to got through.
10 - Fairly simple but again tentative climbing through the branches etc, not wanting to twist an ankle crashing through them.
11 - simple running, gunned this and accordingly got a split in the single digits, shows I am mostly losing time to the boys immediately in front of me by my navigation and not running capability
12 - timed out cross-over, took advantage of the timed out section to take a gel even though it was slightly early (and I was going to suffer towards the end because of it! At least I am learning how my body reacts to nutrition fairly well now thanks to the marathon training.)
13 - Hesitant across the bush-maze and a slight error in the circle but nothing huge (15s), unlike...
14 - Carelessly misread the map and did not read thr control description meaning I was looking for the control on the wrong side of the bushes before realising and running back around. 30s
15 - Stupid combined with a bit of map criticism - I was heading straight towards the control, even crossed the fences before seeing the bush ahead I thought I was in the wrong place, not seeing it mapped. In hindsight, there was a tiny speck of green on the map but I missed it and convinced myself I veered N, so went S and lost quite a bit of time before I corrected myself. Annoying, 40s.
16 - Very tentative going across the bush maze, lots of checking my map, in the end, no mistake but took much longer than I should have.
17 - Was OK until I crossed the road, the marshal being there messed with my head and I thought I was further NW than I was, ended up correcting when I should not have, Then I ran a bit on the path I should not have and had to go through branches etc to get to 17, which was well used but I had no one around to guide me into it. Probably the most mess I could make of a control without totally losing map contact... lots of smaller mistakes with fairly quick corrections but adding up to be costly.
18 - The first log route choice leg, and I probably wasn't choosing the most optimal route. It wasn't catastrophic but slightly longer than it should have been, also was quite tentative in places. I messed up the entry in the circle as well so had to fight my way back through the bushes further losing time (1:10).
19 - Wasn't a bad route but messed up the middle part so it was longer than it should have been. No problem with the entry this time.
20 - Probably just very slightly off course in the end but a fairly good compass leg
21 - Another long one, and nessed up the initial part of the leg, I dropped down to cross the stream and use the path but realised just in time that it was a forbidden route. I contoured around the lake then but I could have been a lot faster if I initially went that way via paths. Also messed up the last bit of the leg where I crossed the stream too early instead of taking the level path before doing so.
22 - Seen the control going to 18 earlier and strategically memorised it so this was a fairly straight forward leg.
23 - It was getting simpe from here so I decided to up the pace a bit
24 - ... and still managed a slight mess-up by not checking the control descriptions, so ran around the bushes the longer way
25 - nothing to navigate here, told Rob L off for fixing the haystacks that helped the runners across the field boundary instead of taking pictures of me :)

JK Trail-O

Surprisingly 4th in the Elite course, even more surprising that with a bit more self confidence and being more careful I could have won, as I was only 1 wrong answer behind the 1st! I really thought one answer should have been Zero but did not have the guts to mark it as such (it was), and I was not checking whether I could see the other end of a hill to see where the middle of it was and used compass bearing only (imprecise).

There were some really tricky controls out there, including an extra flag that wasn't visible from the viewing point but was from around the corner, to trick you into a different order of the flags than was the right answer, a flag on a tree that wasn't the distinct tree mapped, a flag that was on a fence pole that was not the corner of the fence but half fallen so it looked like it was, etc.

The JK, Middle Distance, M40L, Ambersham Common

Well as the HR data shows and I felt it, I could not accuse myself of not giving everything this time. Certainly after the initial few controls where I was a bit more apprehensive. Nevertheless, a disappointingly large mistake int he middle of the course and then a few smaller niggles meant it was only sufficient for a mediocre result.

1 - Ran straight across the fields. Not sure why, there was a legitimate option which many runners took on 70% path though slightly longer, and that would have suit more to my current running and also would have allowed me to plan a bit more ahead!
5 - a 15s hesitation and almost making a parallel error before fixing myself finding the reentrant.
8 - ran around the bush rather than across, knew where the control would be but not agressive enough - 5s which is probably nothing compared to running speed etc, but a waste anyway
10 - the undergrowth extended further than mapped so quite hesitant in finding the control in it, 10s
12 - was running in a curve to take the path, not sure if running direct would have been faster or not...? I need to sometime do some trial runs so I can choose in the future with more knowledge than luck
15 - the huge mistake of the day. Geoff caught me up just after 14 and I was distracted enough to make a parallel error looking for a junction that I already passed - I ended up running around a small hill that was adjacent to the one I was looking for. Took quite a while for me to figure out what happened - unlucky for him he missed the control and saw me on the other side and seems like I distracted him too. By the time we got ourselves together Roger caught us up as well, and as I was coming from the other side of the hill I watched them both leave the control about 15s ahead. I lost about 2:20 here.
16 - I decided to try and stick with Roger and Geoff as long as I could. Well that lasted one control, and only because they made a small mistake which I did not. As the exited 16 it was a steep climb and I knew I wasn't in the shape to run up that hill still recovering from the flu. Or could I have? Was it simply my mind over matter? No, probably not - looking at HR data I maxed out as I was chasing these guys to 16 so I had to take it down just a notch.
17 - small mistake as I was running across to the ditch through the green, hit the clearing first but at least this time I was prepared that that would happen so lost no time correcting. Dave C caught me up here...
18 - overshot the small hill following Dave a bit recklessly, although I suspect there was something off with the control circle/control description as the control seemed to be a bit more to the NE on the hill than I expected. Still, my fault for not paying more attention. Lost about 20s
20 - Lost sight of Dave across the crest of the hill just prior to the control although we were choosing slightly different routes - especially since I knew he is faster anyway I was going with my own choices. I never saw him again, although I expected to at least see the back of him as I came across the crest.
21 - Chose a slightly safer but maybe slower option of going out to the road and ran that for a bit before climbing to the hilltop.
22 - Probably lost a few sec on hesitation and imprecise bearing across the road, but nothing difficult navigationally from here, only the climb up.

Finish - my Garmin announced that it detected a new HR Max, so clearly I wasn't holding off.

All said and done, even without those mistakes I could not probably got under 40 minutes, that is still some way off...

Event: JK 2017 - Jan Kjellström International Festival of Orienteering
 

The JK, Day 1 Sprint, Brunel University, M40L

Not quite healed but the JK is big enough to visit, and this was a short distance anyway.

Fairly straight forward sprint, most of the dilemma was left/right choices and just keeping on top of the map. Which I was losing a bit when I had to switch sides as it was a 2 side map - memorising routes better could have gained me a few seconds, but not much more.
Lost about 20s to 13 as I lost concentration and overran the control and had to double back. Not much more in the course, the rest was simply my running speed, so could not realistically have expected to be placed higher.

2x4k at just above marathon pace, with warm up, 3 min jog in the middle, and a cool down in the end.

Managed OK considering still recovering.

Not out of the flu yet, but I think finally I am coming out from it enough to get out for an easy jog.

What a shame to miss the gorgeous weather over the weekend with the fever, coughing fits etc in bed! However I better get rid of the flu completely before next week rather than risk getting into the marathon with still having remnants of it. I will have enough to deal with there.

Anyway, after so many days out at the beginning the run felt a bit like I was in a trance, and never quite settled despite the easy pace. At least the HR wasn't that far off from what it should be at this pace. Met a group of runners on the promenade running opposite which contained a number of Parkrunners so cheered them on.

Added 5x strides at the end in the park and managed decent tempo without too much suffering so hopefully should be able to come back to the level I should have been at soon.

Coughing fits back after I finished running, though...