Training Log Archive: markg

Another tough race for the WCOC long champs. I would say that this was of similar quality technically as my run yesterday but I didn't have the strength for the rough terrain and the climb. Finished in 5th place 19min behind Patrick G!

I felt much more confident today but I knew that I would find it physically challenging and would have to try and be conservative. I got through the first 5 with only a couple of little bobbles - offline a little on #1, the flag at #2 was well hidden, and didn't read the map very well running into #5 - and caught Steven Graupner from 6min behind. I then proceeded to make one of those typical "I'm doing so well" type errors costing about 2min and losing sight of Steven. Had little bobbles again on #7 and #8 and then passed him again on the way to #9. He hung on as I led through #9, #10, and #11 but I lost him on the longer #12.

I started to lose strength climbing up into #12, and I walked significant sections of #13, losing 8min to Patrick on this one leg and only a little of that was navigation problems. I was really finding it difficult to pick my legs up to get over deadfall and I was pushing myself pretty hard just to keep moving.

I must have passed Alaric on #13 and discovered him behind me at #14. I was fairly clean through #14-17 but lost contact with the map running into #18 and lost 2min. I did the last 4 pretty nicely.

Most splits were quite comparable to Patrick, Brian (2nd) and Magnus (3rd) except for the 2 long legs crossing the 'canyon'. On these 2 legs, I lost 11min to Patrick despite no significant navigational problems!

Quite happy again with this run, technically, at least. Strength is obviously not great but that is hardly unexpected with my minimal training regime of late.

A quick jog in the morning with MrPither and warming up.

WCOC Middle race. Finished 4th about 4:30 off Brian's winning time, generally happy with this run but feel I should do better. This was tough race: very technical and difficult to maintain any pace due to the long grass hiding quite a bit of deadfall. I made 4-5 min of mistakes but I think my race suffered due to a lack of confidence with the tricky terrain (a lot of hesitations) and not really being in attacking state of mind.

First control looked scary and took it very slowly and carefully but still managed to miss slightly. I relocated quickly off a large marsh less than 100m from control but still lost about 1:30-2:00 on this leg compared to Magnus and Brian. I rolled my right ankle running into #3, not really badly, but I proceeded to do it another couple of times, and I was forced to slow down and run more carefully for legs 6-10.

I made no more mistakes until #10, where I accidentally crossed 2 marshes instead of just the 1 straight into the control; lost another 1-1:30 here. I lost more time on #13. I didn't really make a plan here, then lost confidence mid-leg and bailed to a little track. Another 1:30 error I think. Rest of the course was pretty good thought still not super quick despite trying to push a bit harder.

I found it really to hard to push myself in this race. I think the difficulty of running through the long grass and deadfall influences my brain into being conservative and taking it easier. I had a lot of short moments of walking - just didn't have that drive to keep moving ...

Event: Western Canadian Orienteering Championship 2008
 

A little pick-me-up run in the morning over to the supermarket to pick up some more infant tylenol so I'm prepared for the day ahead. Barely worth logging I suppose but I'm a bit of a stickler for complete records ...

To and from UofC to visit the chiro again; about intensity 4 on the way there as I was nearly late and 3 on the way back. Found chiro very informative and thorough today. Picked up all the same things as my physio and a few more. Left SI joint is very stiff, the right is better but not perfect. L5/S1 joint is also very stiff. Psoas not too great but particularly the right one and the right piriformis too. She did a pelvic adjustment - the left side was spectacular - a rapid series of little cracks that started at my SI and stopped halfway up my spine. A bit unnerving actually!

Middle distance course at Barrier Lake with 23 controls. I was hoping for some technique polishing and to build some confidence coming into the WCOCs but it didn't work out so nicely. Some legs I did confidently but also made a number of errors by running off-line. I just kept turning without realising it. Nicki and I ran together taking alternating controls and spent a fair bit of time standing around working out if we were in the right spot or relocating. Did the last 5 controls by myself, fluffed the first 2 of these by like 3 min and didn't have any smoothness or flow. Felt strong running in the terrain however but we never pushed it hard. Oh well, some lessons to remember this weekend.

Warm up/down for o-practise.

Most of a Mona's fartlek; I ran out of time for the 4 x 15s. Ran hard, felt fast, made myself feel a tad ill ... lower back sore and stiff to start felt better as it warmed up and was ok by the end.

Warm up, equal floats in the Mona's, and a token warm down.

Another set of physio's exercises. After doing these two days in a row, I'm pretty sure these exercises are exacerbating my baby-induced sore back. I'll probably stop doing them now until after WCOCs. I don't fancy running all weekend with a sore back.

3 x physio's exercises. Upped the reps to 15 and also did some calf drops.

Running from home to UofC to visit the chiro and back.

Easy run around with Confed Park with Ewan in the stroller and Cindy and Russ, and their children Ian and Marli. Nice day and nice in the park.

Putting out and picking up controls at Fish Creek, plus some other stuffing around with a badly placed control (not by me) and searching for other control picker-uppers who we feared were injured somewhere because they were taking longer than expected. Tried to keep a thresholdy pace up where the vegetation allowed and did a couple of bits at more of a level 5 intensity.

Meet didn't quite go to plan. All the main organisers got there late because of some insane traffic on Crowchild and Glenmore Tr, there were several problems with the forementioned control: put out in the wrong place, no number marked on it, not synched with the other SI units, and the radio setup on it didn't work. This meant the PA system was useless (except for background music!) because there were no live splits to wow people with and we couldn't use the spectator control for intermediate splits either as we didn't record start times, mainly because I was still out putting out controls when the first starters left, because of the traffic and the controls arriving 40min late. At least people seemed to like my courses and noone got pissed off.

Stepped in a ground squirrel hole a few minutes after arriving and twisted my right ankle and then followed it up with a few little rolls later in the evening. Doesn't feel to bad at the moment, should be okay for the westerns. Rolled this ankle fairly frequently in the last few months ... should do some work on it before it gets permanently damaged ...

Had a massage downtown and had planned to catch the train home but an accident at the SAIT station put an end to that and I decided to jog home. Took it pretty easy and had several traffic light stops. Also had a pain in my abs, not like a stitch, more like abs were too tight and getting sore from it.

Warm up and down and floats between ints.

C • java jamboree 2

4 x 4/3 sesson at UofC. Concentrated on fast and easy leg turnover and keeping some bounce in my step and it seemed to work. Felt like less muscular effort for the same speed. Speed up a notch from recent efforts, similar to speed I had at the end of last season, which is amazing given current training load. Nice evening for a run: about 17 deg with a touch of a north-easterly (unfortunately this a partial headwind for about 2/3 of my loop).

3 x physio's exercises: 12 x 'kenyan' 1/2 squats, 2 x round the clock single leg squats, 12 step single leg squats.

Checking control sites for the FWOC grand prix event I'm running next Wednesday. There is lots of water down in Fish Creek. The creek, or should I say raging torrent, has consumed an area on the inside of a bend where I wanted to put a control, must be a couple of feet of water there now. Hopefully it will dry out a bit over the next few days. Some short sections of higher intensity and some climb. My legs are feeling strong at the moment.

3 x physio's exercises.

Calgary City Chase with Andrew Green. 2nd place in 2:23, 6min behind Bill and his new partner Andrea. Could have won if we had avoided one big mistake or been able to buy a hotdog for $20.

We started well finishing the rain-shortened scavenger hunt quickly, but by no means first, and bolted for the train station, jumping on a NW that came through a minute or so later. We got stuck into decyphering the clue sheet and after discovering there was a chase point at UofC decided to jump off the train there and make our way back into the city. We got 5 chase points pretty quickly between UofC and Riley Park.

Our big mistake was at the Kensington Running Room: we didn't get into the line quickly enough and the line was moving slowly anyway. Eventually decided to bail out but easily wasted 10min.

We had been doing exactly the same route as a couple of other guys, Pete and Ryan, keeping just ahead of them most of the time. They finished the Running Room chase point though and quickly so that they exited not long after us, and with an extra chase point.

We ran pretty hard to the armoury which was a little slow but we completed it without difficulty. Then we moved on to Tubby Dog on 17th Ave for an eating challenge. Pete and Ryan arrived about 30s after us.

The wait for a hotdog at Tubby Dog was 20-30min but it was a compulsory chase point and the only one that made any sense for us to do. After about 5 min, Bill and Andrea rock in with a skip-the-line pass which was pretty tough to watch. At this point we started trying to buy a hotdog. I thought $20 for a hotdog was pretty good if you weren't doing the race competitively but there were no takers.

After nearly 20min, we decided to try to do the Western Canadian High School chase point before our hotdog was cooked. We sprinted down and were able to complete it by selling a case of Nestea to a member of the public it in about 2min and then sprinted back. We were back level with Pete and Ryan!

By the time we got back to Tubby Dog our hotdog had been made and someone had stolen it!! Fortunately, they made us another immediately and we got out within about 5min, but P&R had left at least 1min earlier.

We hooned it over to Stephen's Ave and did the Blackberry photo scavenger hunt, a bit slowly due to niether Andrew or I having used a Blackberry before, and then really hooned it back to Eau Claire for our final CP: the wrestling ring. The wrestling was quick and easy but Nicki was there waiting for us and told us that Bill had finished a few minutes earlier. A great result, in all honesty, but a little disappointing to be so close.

R&P had actually crossed the finish line first but hadn't read the rules about the charity CP properly and hadn't acquired the stamp for it. They had to go out and get another CP, finally coming in 4th.

It was such a fun race; I can't believe I didn't do it until this year!

C • Hooked are you? 7

Met up with Cindy from Megan's mothers' group and ran from her place near Kensington Rd and Crowchild Tr up the south side of the Bow to Edworthy and then back on the north side with a leisurely stop at il Fagiolo Estremo for a cappucino. It was a bit windy at the end but otherwise a perfect day for it.

Warm up race, took it pretty hard.

FWOC Sprint Series #2 at Bowness Park. Boring. It's a lovely park, but not for orienteering. The only reason I could get this sort of pace is because there is barely a single impediment to running the straight line. The main race had a couple of slightly trickier controls than the warm-up but mainly I was slower because I overdid the warm-up a little.

3 x physio's exercises. Upped reps on squats to 15 and added some heel drops to combat a slightly sore left achilles.