Training Log Archive: Andrew

Orienteering Race, Irish Relay Champs. 3ROC team, Colm, myself and Ger finished in a respectable 3rd place.

Very straightforward orienteering. Made a few mistakes totalling maybe a minute.

Orienteering Race, Irish Classic, Magilligan.

Finished 2nd. Very satisfied. Pushed hard the whole way. Made one nasty mistake of 1min - just due to pure tiredness. Otherwise there were only a few 10-30sec errors. Map-reading requirements were challenging enough in some places, very easy in others.

Finished 1:47 behind Nick, and well done to him!

http://www.ifklidingo.com/doma/map_images/126.jpg

Warm up with some sprints and light running exercises

Irish Sprint Orienteering Championships, University of Ulster, Coleraine. The fact that I do not train sprints enough become glaringly clear during this race. Sprints really are quite different from the more traditional events, and require slightly different forms of map-reading skills. So I botched up and hesitated far too often.

My own mistakes cost me about 35sec on 10 (my big mistake), 5-10sec on 3,6,7,12, and 21. At 21 I ran through a gap in the fence, barely noticeable on the map, and wondered if I should diqualify myself upon finishing. I spent a little bit of time trying to work it out, couldn't do it quickly and then sort of ran mostly hard into the finish from there, but not very hard, thinking I'd botched the race completely would be far down the list and possibly disqualified.

Despite the fact that sprints are not my forté, I really enjoyed this one. It was well-planned, and really fun. Some of the controls were really tricky. There were plenty of traps too. To get better for next time, I should try to reduce hesitations by improving map-reading while running at speed. Also, getting used to the symbols and colours to help catch small, but important details needs to be practised - I missed, for example that there was a lighter green at 5 and 25, both times wasting many valuable seconds. Another little lesson learned is that one should never give up!

I finished 1:09 behind Nick.

http://www.ifklidingo.com/doma/map_images/125.jpg

Post-race course analysis jogging around the course with Shane and Neil.

Putting out controls, Södra Djurgården.

Our corridor from Stockholm to Dublin is almost ready... should be perfect on the 20th, when we are to fly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eyjafjallaj%C3%B...

C • to be sure to be sure 2