Training Log Archive: Boyzone

IOC Relays - Hillsborough Forest.

On arrival we were told that there would be three mass starts leg1 all together, grand. Then mass start for leg 2 10mins later, followed by leg 3 mass start a further 10 min on!! This was due to the poor weather conditions. Needless to say this was not well received by most, and certainly was less than ideal for those of us with young children without crèche facilities. Thankfully as the sun started to peep through the clouds the organisers did the right thing and the race was on - relay format restored!

It was a four horse race realistically in the open relay, with CNOC, UCDO, BOC and the mighty CORKO. Magic worked it, to run well to put us out right with CNOC as Hellsac pushed hard with him throughout leg1 and cheekily pipped him on the line to set Roar off. Leg 2 was also my leg and myself and roar headed off to one. I had the shorter gaffle to one but as a consequence had a crappier line to 2 as I fought through a world of shitty wattles. It was a tricky number 2 and was glad to come across it cleanly, I realised by this stage that the green was best avoided, though as it turns out that the map was in parts inconsistent and there was some decent running lines through the dark green. Roar got the lead at 2. I followed edge of green out of 2 towards 3 or so I thought and duly missed 3 by a good minute, Laurence got ahead at this stage for UCDO. The next few controls were good for me and I must have had the shorter gaffle at 5 and got ahead of Laurence. On my way to 7 I passed a stationary head scratching Roar. As it turns out he made a big mistake at 6. Ran clean and hard for the next lot of controls though a better route out from 10 to avoid the open marsh would have been wise after the heavy downpour of the past few days! Clean really until toward 18 where I crossed track and made contours fit where they didn't, went straight to control I had on first loop (number 10) but didn't recognise it and duly went on to make another minute or more of a mistake. Would these two minutes of mistakes come back to bite us? Was pretty sure the lads would have passed me here, I pushed hard from here to the finish without incident, unsure how we placed, as it turns out the other lads must have made some mistakes of their own and Darren set off two mins up on UCDO, three mins on CNOC and maybe 8mins on BOC - Surely too much to catch up...

Alas, Nick showed his class and butchered the course in under 31mins! Hats off to BOC! Disappointing for sure to finish 2nd but we can take some solace in the fact that it wasn't CNOC! Roll on the next relay!!

C • Cheeky 2

IOC Classic Distance - Slieve Croob.
Nice to have the Irish champs just an hour away from home so could travel just for the day. The weather for a second year was miserable, this time it was wind and driving rain meaning that although I sported thermal, o-top and full waterproof it was still cold at times during the race.

This is probably one of the more frustrating results I've had at IOC due to the fact that I was running well at a good speed, this was magnified by fact that I had caught the two lads who started in front of me by number 13
and 16. I hadn't put foot wrong by this stage apart from the literal sense when I slipped into 14 and bashed my elbow on a rock and for the next 1km couldn't straighten out my fingers on that arm's hand! Eoin was stronger over the next few controls but myself and Conor kept in contact and we were all together at 18. The lads (and a third runner) decided then to take a low line out of 18 and I decided to go high to the plateau and then contour around and try to get ahead - bad bad decision as I was running a little ragged by this stage not fully concentrating and should have tucked in with them for the final few controls which was just about a km of running and all downhill so could have finished in under 83mins going by Eoin and Conor's total time. (Lesson learnt that sometimes it ain't a bad decision to stick with the pack!) I would have passed within metres of 19 but hadn't a good plan and so wasn't looking around in the right area or looking for specific features as I contoured, the mist didn't help and my vision wasn't great either in the poorer light, either way very frustrating, Knew I had thrown away a decent run and was sloppy all the way to the finish! Alas, that's orienteering, mistakes need to be minimised! but today I have learnt a new way to minimise them in the future!

http://lvo.org.uk/ioc/results/long/m21e_splits.htm...

C • Comiserations 2

IOC Sprint - Unfortunately there was no flexibility in the start times for parents and so without someone to look after the kids only one of myself and Fionne could start on their allocated start time. Starting late, meant I didn't feel under pressure to push hard and so could save the legs a little for the classic. Just cruised around, though found I was more hesitant if anything when not going race pace! New personal record for a slowest sprint split though, as I'm clocked as taking almost 24mins to number 1!

C • The Family Sport 14

Slieve Foye - Carlingford side, rarely been on map on this side, forgot how nice it is on this side of hill, Hugh started 5 mins after on the 4km course.