Training Log Archive: Golfer

Traveled by train to Budapest arriving at our accommodation at 1:00pm. Met Susanne and Lachlan at the station (they were on the same train) and they kindly lent us their Hungary Lonely Planet book as they were on their way out of Hungary.

Calf got a good workout carrying heavy baggage and was came through surprisingly well.

WMOC Long Final but no running for me due to calf injury. Probably a good thing as the temp hit 34 celcius today! Deb ran the A final in W50 and although a little disappointed with 31st place, she can be pretty pleased with what she has achieved this week.

Enforced rest day due to injury but probably wouldn't have done too much anyway given the 32 degree heat.

What a difference a day makes! As good a run as I could have hoped for, bearing in mind I needed to make up 12 places to make the A final. I made up 10 places which was not quite enough but didn't really deserve it on yesterday's effort. Downside is I pulled a calf muscle 50 metres from the finish line and will really struggle to make the final in 2 days time.

Started well with a slight hesitation on the way to #1 when I came across what looked like a creek but was in fact a very deep ditch. Once I worked it out I got 1 and 2 easily. Apart from being very slow up the long climb through 3 and 4 and again over the hill to 6, made no real errors until I got a little low on 8. Also slightly overran 13 but combined time loss was probably only 30 seconds. Clean and fast through to 16 then hit the downhill to 17 where we dropped more than 20 contours in less than 500 metres!! Punched 18 at the top of the finish chute then about halfway along the calf just "popped" and I had to hobble across the line. Had a similar injury in Denmark in 2006 and wasn't able to run for about 2 weeks so doubtful I can do more than walk the B final on Friday. Just have to wait and see. Garmin distance today was 7.7km.

Caught a guy wearing a Tasmanian O shirt at around #8 but I'm sure he wasn't from Tassie as he was on my course and there is no one from there running M50! We sort of ran together through to 13 when I got ahead of him. Had hoped to seek him out at the finish but had to go straight to the first aid tent to get ice on my leg so will probably never know!

Deb had a mixed day with a number of smallish mistakes but still qualified well for the A final on Friday. Best to make the errors today I guess!

Not too sure about all the other Aussie results but I know Blair, Suzanne and Jenny, Jimbo, Liggo, MaryMac, Anne Ingwersen and LInda Rapkins are all in the A finals. GrantM had a very rare (of late) bad day and looks like he has missed out which is a shame as he has had a great year.

C • great run today 5

Walk/run to the start and then walked the warmup map.

Run to the start and a bit of time on the little warm-up map. Cool down afterwards was a bracing cold shower and a cold beer!

A race that was going so well unraveled badly at #12. After a small miss at #1 I had a clean run (perhaps a little slow) through to 11. Left on the right line for 12 but somehow managed to get confused (initially without knowing it) in the tracks and gullies. Seems I ended up doing a 180 and headed north back towards the drinks station near 11 (didn't recognise it as I approached from a different side). Went past but tracks were not matching so stopped and realised my map was pointing the wrong way so went back south to the drinks stop but still didn't twig where I was! Kept going south and finally relocated off another drinks stop and headed off towards 12. Just to be sure I stuffed the control totally, I then missed it to the right and had to double back!

All up this cost me in the order of 14 minutes on comparing with GrantM, who had the same course today. To make matters worse, I was actually ahead of him by about 1 minute at 11, although he had made a couple of uncustomary errors earlier. Finished in 28th and need to be top 16 to make the A final so that looks a lost cause. Garmin distance was 9.35km.

Deb had another very good run, placing 8th in her heat and is on track to qualify for the A final will a steady run tomorrow.

C • Frustrating ... 2

Walking and running on WMOC Training map 2. Spent about 30 minutes walking with Deb, Colin and Robyn before Deb and I run a short loop in the north west of the map. Pretty interesting terrain with many and varied depressions and pits plus some thickish ground cover in many places. This map is adjacent to the Long Final map so will be interesting to see how closely this terrain matches that for the final.

Ran a loop on the long Model map. Very different to the Training map earlier today with little ground cover making for open and fast running. Similar in terms of depressions and pits however. Had some trouble with a couple of controls but it was difficult to concentrate with so many people out in the forest.

C • Following ... 1

A steady run with no major errors, just a few hesitations and possibly one poor route choice. Time was very slow but was expecting to be well off the pace. Happy with the result even though I was in the bottom 10 in a field of 80 as I at least read the map and navigated well. Much happier than in 2 previous attempts at WMOC Sprint A finals although position in the field much the same as 2008 and 2009. Garmin distance was 3.1km.

Deb had a poor run by her standards with a major error on #2 and was very disappointed after such a good qualifier.

C • Mum... 2

Run to the start.