Warm up & strides 18:25 [2]
ahr:149 max:178 slept:8.5 shoes: Shiny silver integrators
Warm up and strides before the SHIs. Struggling to focus on anything other than how much I hated the British Champs. Not really a good start.
Orienteering race 1:21:05 [5] ***** 9.2 km (8:49 / km) +280m 7:39 / km
ahr:183 max:197 spiked:6/13c slept:8.5 shoes: Shiny silver integrators
Oh dear oh dear. I'm a bit worried that the phrase "unmitigated disaster" seems to be cropping up far too often in relation to my racing at the moment. Today was a supremely bad race, in that I lost 11 and half minutes BEFORE the first control. Oh yes. I looked at the leg which was over 2km long across vague slghtly sloped moorland, with all the big features being negative ones you couldn't see from a distance, identified it was going to be really difficult, and then promptly just ran. I definitely knew where I was at the 1km mark, and after that I think I drifted south and spent a long time wandering around trying to relocate. I got so panicky I couldn't even read the bigger features, anf eventually went for the run uphill option, where I finally stood still for a couple of minutes, worked out if I was where I thought I was then there would be a pond just over...oh my god there's a pond thank goodness. I was then so happy I rushed from the pond, missed the control, and went back to it to do a more accurate an slow bearing and got the control, just as Karen appeared on the crest of the hill, having started 12 minutes later.
Sooo...
1) Prepare beforehand. A proper look at the map identifying the big shapes would have rescued me a lot earlier.
2) Confidence - when I relocated I was only 150m from the control, I wish going right, I just didn't believe it.
3) Slow down and pick the detail to assuage confidence lack, don't just run blindly
4) Take a sodding rest from orienteering - most of that was just laziness.
I then spiked 2 which was good, and 3 was fine, though I really slowed down before the control as I couldn't quite make it fit and so wanted to read everything - I lost about 40 seconds to Karen here.
5-6 Took the route choice I thought was best but got snarled up in deep heather again, which was again mapped as no different to the runnable short grass we'd been on two minutes earlier. I think this is my biggest bug bear with Welsh moorland areas, as it does significantly affect your route choice - would have gone much directly down and across the valley had I known how nasty the heather was going across. Lost two mins to Pip here, shoudl probably have been more like one.
6-7 - did a "half and half" route choice and so didn't confidently hit the control, faffed in the circle.
8-9 - felt tired up the hill to 8 and so took the round option - this was the wrong one I think, still pretty tough running. Messed the leg at the very end, distracted.
9-10 - dead pleased with this, stopped at 9 as saw it was a really difficult leg, planned something I would pass every 150m and then set off and totally nailed it. I can do it!
10-11 - only to fluff an easy control by faffing too far up the hill, thought the road was closer than it was.
11-12 - really given up by then, played visit every re entrant before the correct one.
Finished really fed up, and convinced that actually an O break (excluding the Oxford Street race, which will obviously be aceness on legs) is what I really need. Number 10 proves I can do it, but that I'm slipping into bad lazy habits that I need to get away from for a wee while.