Training Log Archive: Psuba

SARUM Galoppen, Foxbury plantation.

Given my shape I considered this a training exercise and just wanted to see how my shape holds up through a full brown course (was even tempted to just run blue but decided that would be too much chickening out).

Lovely weather at least but the area was very boggy anyway so wasn't surprised that it felt less than glorious. Mostly tough going when not taking the roads and I mostly didn't - as I ran early that meant making the elephant tracks and getting bogged down, losing a lot of time from people running later or taking routes around. That's due to not only running early and having to bash through bracken but also generally not being very good in terrain anyways, so in a strange way it was good practice, although should be doing more purposeful training in that because it clearly holds me down losing much more time to the guys in the front than running on open terrain, so lots to improve here.

If I was going to use this as a proper race then one could say I was consistently choosing the wrong routes, but this wasn't about trying to get any result.

Some fairly clear mapping issues, but they mostly didin't contribute to the few navigational mistakes, just contributed to wrong routes or slower running. Fairly sure that #11 was much further SW than mapped.
Otherwise lost time on a few bingo controls.
1:50 on #1
~ 2:20 by going through bracken to #7, it was also unclear as the map marked a veg boundary but it wasn't a clear boundary in reality so bit of faffing about near the control
~0:30 on #8 as I didn't fit the map to the terrain properly, (or was the map not quite representative???) so ran to the left of control
~0:30 bogged down towards #18 trying to get out to the track before the control as the map marked it as rough open - where I had to turn back and track the fence instead it was so horrible (I suspect this was one of the controls where the fast guys could just run around on the track for 85% of the route hence me losing 2 min to the best split)
Huge amounts going to #21 through everything - I guess the good news is I held the direction pretty well which is good, of course lost a lot of time just due to the undergrowth etc.
... which does not explain why I lost confidence in my (good) direction about 25m before reaching #23 and ended up on a loop that cost me about 15-20s
#24 is interesting as I had a good plan out of TG's book (ran to the copse which was visible then to the control site which in turn was visible from the copse) but it probably was unnecessary as the control site was real obvious and so, in turn, it took longer than just running on a bearing.
#25 chose the wrong track (longer) to run on, lost at least 0:30 just on that, maybe more. This is really an error in judgement, not like the run through/run around choices earlier where I could just train running on bearing/terrain run.
about 0:50 on #26 where I ran all the way to the trees and had to make sense of where everything is as the bracken was so high you could not run directly (or I was running too far).

Well, this gets autumn training on its way, I just hope I stay healthy and injury free now. I suspect the autumn season is gone from a competitive perspective but hopefully I can build up an OK 2018 season.

C • Not the best area or map! R... 2

Out of shape so planned to run this as a bit of fartlek. KM1 was jogging/chatting with Ian and two ladies he know. I then pushed km2 with normal Parkrun tempo. Then slowed back down but HR stayed annoyingly high. Planned to push km4 again but as it came, I felt I do not have the fitness to do so properly so just relaxed back. Sped up a bit towards the end. There was a 9 year old boy running with/near me towards the end, bloody fast for that age!!! Amazing.

HR bloody high for a deliberately slow jog back!
It is clear just how out of shape I am :(

Alternately, the new HR strap measures HR higher than the previous one did as I am getting consistently higher measurements by about 5BPM usually, even on my MAXHR. Or both. I guess - I should get back in shape and then I'll see.

All zig-zag run to Bmth pier and back.
Usual route up/down on all zig-zags there and back, but given the recent lack of training I wasn;t pushing anywhere.

This is basically my start (although I did one shorter like this) of the winter training plan where I will consciously try and improve my running technique combined with HR control i.e. it isn't about the pace, rather run whatever my zone 3 allows. I might need to adjust the zone boundaries to the new HRM though as it either measures higher or I am so out of shape that I can't push my HR below 150 even as I am jogging. The technique part is more or less trying to observe the chi running i.e. transitioning to mid or even front foot strike / higher cadence etc. Out of coincidence I was listening to a podcast from Freakonomics that was explaining the concept of purposeful training aka how to get better at anything, which explained the concept of focusing on improving a particular aspect of the activity - I thought it fit perfectly for what I was doing as I was concentrating throughout on leaning forward, keeping straight etc...

Given the lack of training recently aiming to get rid of the shin splints it was quite difficult to get through the first bit. Started to feel better from about 5k in. I was quite OK but started to feel my shin splints again from about 11k so fingers crossed that it won't come back.