Training Log Archive: O-ing

Event: Sprint Series #1 - Sydney University
 

Narrabeen with Cath, Lily and Aoife. One very dangerous section: the bridge over Narrabeen Lagoon on Pittwater Road - it should have a railing.

Sydney University. Doing the 5=Days a few days ago clearly helped get my running legs back, although there was very little zip. No errors to speak of but a few hesitations and changes of mind. These were mostly from number 4 to 11 and it shows up in the heartrate which dropped fairly smoothly from 155 coming in to 3 to 145 just before 11. Happy with the effort and time.

EDIT - entered leg comments now (cm on the splits page). 5 mistakes costing a total of 35 seconds. Speed was well down on last August when I was test running the BFS - I was hitting 3:30 as a top speed then, whereas today I was only just hitting 4 minute kms.

Sprint - Splits

No Big Feet today so stuck with NSCC. Managed to get to the top of Akuna East (10:15) while they were still waiting. A splinter group (5) dropped me with 1km to go on McCarrs Ck hill (8:16), but I kept them in sight until the showgrounds. Had to act as a guide to new arrival from Perth, Andy of South Perth Rouleurs, who recognised my Riders Choice outfit.

2013 Review
Training - quite similar to last year with a bit less cycling (3,269km) and a bit more run+O (422km). However both were well down from my modest goal numbers (5,000km bike and 500km run+O).
Injuries - one main one, which is still ongoing - something happened to my right foot in August and it is still sore walking. So I've stuck to the bike and orienteering since - virtually no running training. The good news was very few colds this year.
Competition: 4 second places to Geoff Lawford (Easter, Aus Champs Sprint, Middle and Relay). Should have won the middle losing over a minute on the spectator 5m cliff and coming in 10 seconds down.
That left just one championship win - NSW Sprint. Others were affected by injury (NSW Long - DNS, Middle - 3rd), or illness (ACT Long - 2nd, Middle - 3rd).
State League was better - 8 wins from 11 starts and overall 1st. Also contributed to BigFoot's win in the MetroLeague.
I had just one outing in M21, but A not E because of the compulsory ASADA 2 hour video tutorial. Same course, of course, but ran poorly in any case (ACT Sprint, 1st M21A, coming off illness).
Rankings - none this year because M21A doesn't count apparently. Timewise would have been good enough for 520 points, 128th place behind Boltboi (125th), but ahead of Tooms (132nd).
However, more importantly cracked the top 100 in the Big Pink rankings at no. 96.
http://ranking.bigfootorienteers.com/display.php

C • Big Pink 8

Event: Sydney Summer Series #14 - Lindfield
 

Lindfield - Narrabeen, last 5km with Aoife and Cath. Akuna East 13:24.

Macquarie Woods, Day 5, mp.
Ok so I've been doing the Xmas 5 Days for a long time, 8 times since 1996 in fact with wins in 1996 (Men B), 2011 (Men C) and 2012 (Men D). Since 1998 its been best 4 of 5 in the ones I've been in - for Men A in 1998 they had a chasing start for that and best 4 from 5 for the others. In 1996, it was all classes chasing start.
Even in Orange in 2002 it was best 4 from 5 - on Day 2 they organised a MTBO and ironically that was at Macquarie woods, todays venue. So in 2002 I took a day off the foot O and went in the MTBO.
This year however, it "appears" it was either all days count, or best 4 from 5 as long as you didn't mispunch one of the days - don't know which I didn't see any info on this point. Well I did MP today. In fact I gave myself multiple opporunities to do it and took 2.
Firstly, as I said I was planning to maybe pack yesterday in early if it wasn't technical enough - but it was.
Secondly, I thought maybe I wouldn't start today to give the feet a rest, but they weren't any worse, so I started.
Thirdly I went to the wrong no 1, but checked the code before punching.
Fourthly I went to the wrong no 4, punched, checked the code and got the right one, phew, so far so good.
Fifthly I blew no 8 spectacularly ending up running at 90 degrees to where I wanted to go and ending up at no. 11. So yep, decided the feet had had enough, thought I had the comp wrapped up anyway, I'm not going back for 8, 9 or 10.
Sixthly, no.13 was in the wrong spot. Got to the right feature, a cliff, no control. Checked around for a while, doing a comprehensive search of the cliffs below, no - no control. Then saw Rob Rapkins arrive at the right spot, look around for a bit and then go uphill and punch a control on a boulder near a creek. Strange I thought - I had seen that flag before, but seeing as it was a long way uphill and on a different feature I had thought well there is no way that is no. 13. Went up there with Geoff Peel, Rob Vincent and Shingo, who had all also first checked the right spot and yes it was code 46. Decided to move it.
However - I didn't punch it while I was transferring it - so second MP of the day.
Seventh opportunity - I punched the wrong last control on a fence, checked the code, not mine, oh yes, mine is that one across the road on a fence, go and get it. Terry Bluett mp on that one, but not me.
So there you go, I had 3 wins and a third place, a substantial lead, but no overall place apparantly.
More irony -had I not moved the control the course could well have been voided, gifting me the overall win.

C • #13 3

C • Point Score 1

Hard 4A Day 5 - Splits