Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Long distance day of the Costa Calida event - adding Spain to my list of countries competed in. Arriving at the event (finally getting to see the scenery after breaking out of the fog) it looked like it was going to be physical, an impression not dispelled by a set of winning times which suggested that the setters thought Olav Lundanes was going to do 7 min/km (they were right). It was indeed physical; the ground and the formations in many places reminded me of the steep bits of some of the Burra/Worlds End terrain, although the vegetation is very different, with low shrubs making it hard work to run through even when level.

I feared the worst when I struggled with a modest hill on the way to #2 (which I then compounded by doing more climb than I needed to when going past the control, a one-minuter which was my last mistake of the day of any size). At this stage it was already apparent that the advertised 5% climb bore about as much resemblance to reality as a Donald Trump tweetstorm. I did gradually get into it, getting a bit stronger as it went on (although still not running much of the steeper hills); the splits suggest that I didn't handle the very steep descent into #4 well, but at least I hit the control. Had a good stretch from 8 to 11 - perhaps the most South Australian bit of the terrain - with three top-six splits and thought I might have a chance of getting under 70, but I'd underestimated the gnarliness of a couple of the late control placements.

I knew others would be finding it tough too, but still placed higher than I expected, 6th in a field of 50-odd. There's a chasing start tomorrow, with the times sufficiently closely bunched on both sides that anything between 2nd and 13th is well within the bounds of decent-run plausibility. I'll be particularly pleased if I manage to stay in front of the bunch of six 1.20 apart between 1.30 and 3.00 behind me.

Spanish orienteering seem to follow a similar approach to their young to that of the ancient Spartans. The winning times in M12 and W12 were 54 and 46 respectively, and there were finishers in times beyond three hours in both classes.

(In my early orienteering days you still sometimes got the odd young junior course which was shorter than the adults but almost as technically hard; M12A on day 1 at Easter 1982, 4.3km with controls which I'd consider bingo controls if I got them on a course now, was probably the last major example).

Not quite sure what the organisers were thinking when they scheduled a late afternoon sprint after a tough physical long - unsurprisingly elite no-shows were in ample supply (it doesn't count towards the final result). I was in two minds myself but liked the idea of a Mediterranean old town sprint, and felt better than I expected. Nice enough course but didn't really get into rabbit-warren territory in the way that it sometimes can in that part of the world, and got blown away for speed, about three minutes off the lead.

C • Orienteering junkie :) 1