Training Log Archive: Arnold

12th out of 70 is about what I deserved.
Jonny Crickmore won in 53. Sheesh.

Glover’s Wood Brown, 9.8/205

42 controls on 10k in a ~1sqkm forest, so a very, very long Middle race. Figured pre-race that ‘aiming off’ was the right tactic to avoid lots of small time losses in the diffuse light green and so it turned out. Generally that worked ok, except for a short brainfreeze in the middle leading to 2x 1’ wasted.

Physically not the best day in what was pleasant-enough-but-quite-tough terrain (runnability was 60-80% throughout.) Plus the ground was rock hard so it felt like running on concrete, which my feet didn’t love. The area was flat-ish except for one 10m sided creek which we crossed 16 times in total (I counted.)

So overall type 2 fun, but I’m just pleased to be out and it was a beautiful day in the sunshine. Claudia did Orange (unaided) and Tobi Yellow (aided). Neither very fast but they seemed to enjoy it.

Wimbledon Common MapRun, the June one this time, in my (slightly sad) aim to have the best time on all 3 of them.

A solid, clean effort even though I couldn't really remember any of the routes. But I've run on Wimbledon often enough now, so my main issue was the golfers on the direct lines.

Legs okish and even the GPS was mostly playing ball, so a good outing.

This morning I picked up 2 left-foot running socks off my clothes horse from a total choice of 6 (3 each side), which made me wonder what the probability of picking up a correct L-R pair was.

It made for an amusing half hour dusting off my probability theory (well actually counting the possible outcomes) to get to the answer - turns out it's different depending on the number of sock pairs, so needs to be expressed as a formula with n=number of pairs.

I'm sure Will knows the answer off the top of his head but to any other maths geeks I offer it as a fun way to while away idle time.

C • is it... 8

Bordon Army League, 6.6+100, 28 controls.

Very scrappy this time with 3x1' and 4x30'' mistakes - although some were caused by dodgy map, I should have been cleverer in avoiding them by eg aiming off more. I'm still not quite good enough at adjusting my orienteering style to what is needed on the day.

Ended up only 6th, 2 minutes down (and only 15'' ahead of Abi) - a learning for next time.