Training Log Archive: O-ing

Badja. M55 Relay, Australian team. 3rd fastest time overall. OK, so back to the usual one horror mistake which denies me the fastest time. Leg 3, took off 1:30 ahead of Geoff Lawford on the gun team.
Going well until the long leg to 3 - pretty much the same as the long leg on the Sprint event that I stuffed up two days ago. Definitely should have gone the same way again - a bit longer to the fence, but a great attack point from where I overshot on Friday. As it was I decided to go straight and save the extra 400m. Careful, spotted a couple of sites from the Friday event, climbed up on to a massive bare rock. Hmm. Can't really match that with what's on the map. Lost confidence from there and started searching likely boulder clusters. Ended up losing 3:56 to Geoff on that leg (and was 3:04 slower overall).
Geoff's time on that leg was (incredibly) fast - 1:27 quicker than the next best M55, although slower than the best M20s. Without that leg I was 1:20 quicker than Geoff in the first mostly bush half, and lost 28 seconds to him over the 6 easy open legs to the finish. I find this very hard to understand, as I would have thought the opposite was more likely.
At least we finished ahead of the Kiwis.
And..... I should mention the unbelievably good blueberry muffin from "The Lott" in Cooma. Most unlike an Australian muffin.

Badja. Long Distance. M55, 5th. The exception to the rule - no mistake more than 4 minutes, but my worst result of the carnival. The only race where taking out 1 mistake would not have delivered the fastest time. How is this possible? Do I have to blow it and then accelerate? Or is it because I'm going too fast that I bugger it up?
Early (Child minding - split start, thanks Bob for organising), maybe I wasn't too well warmed up? Slow and steady on the first rocky 5 and then we hit the more open ground. Still well in touch at #7, less than 40 seconds down on second place.
Not precise enough on 8, went within 20m of the flag and stopped on the edge of the circle. Mental note - look around properly in the circle! Ran 100m to the next ridge over, no I need to go back - 2:20 lost.
Now the really open stuff - I should eat this for breakfast. But no, even Ted van G is faster and I end up losing a further 3 minutes to Paul and Geoff. Very strange.
One observation that I don't really think affected the result - but this was technically probably too easy for a Championship. It looked like it was significantly easier than the elite courses and a bit harder than some of the older Vet classes.

Event: Oceania Sprint, Aust Long & Oceania Relays
 

Badja. Sprint Distance. Appalling. Luckily I have the GPS, otherwise I would not have been able to work out what I did. OK, so at the finish it was "Oh you are mp you skipped 8". Hmm, well OK, looking at the map certainly I didn't go to 8, but I can't remember ever skipping a control, certainly never in the last 20 years. So what happened?
First up having silver medallist James Lithgow starting 1 minute behind didn't help. Losing 40 seconds by running up the wrong gully on the longish leg to #2 got James to within sight as he was climbing the correct gully past #3, and gaining - he got another 6 seconds on #3 and was now just 36 seconds behind me. This undoubtedly rattled me and I pushed a bit harder.
This resulted in absolutely caning the next 4 controls - 4 fastest splits and I gained 49 seconds on James and 23 on Paul Pacque the eventual winner. So at #7 I was the leader on the road, 30 seconds up on those two.
Ok, so I took off for 8, but like the Oceania Long, not enough control on direction and was 30 degrees off. Got to a thicket with boulder (60m away from #8) - no. 8 not there. Panic (James is coming!!). Could not work out where I was and in the confusion must have thought I was looking for #7 again. Rushed over to a likely spot and found #11. Aha, that's just down the hill from #7 go up get it - and now the big mental leap - I've got the one after #7, next one is #9 let's go. So I end up not getting #8 at all and running 300m instead of 50m.
As it transpires James stuffed #8 as well and is still behind me at #9, although I didn't see him.
My time loss is around 1:30, so I'm now 1 minute down on Paul. I'm the quickest on all of the next 8 legs to the Finish (thats 13 fastest splits out of 16 total) and pull back 47 seconds all up, for the second fastest time overall, but of course all for nothing.

Balls Head, Waverton. Happy to get the same points as Mike Burton (500). Picked the pace up a bit after cleaning out the bush section and Balls Head, so as to try and get all the far flung 30 pointers on the East Side. Nice view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House from Blues Point.

C • Looking at the view 2