Training Log Archive: Jon X

Event: FVO Night #8 - Fallin
 

Back home after 5 races in 4 days - what better to help recovery than an another race...

New map/area - good varied wooded and urban terrain and with a three loop gaffle from #1 to break us all up, worked well. A few times losses in the gaffles (more than I thought, 3mins plus) and a couple of momentary wrong turns in the urban - but then brain fade at the end and missed out the penultimate control!

GG the mapper ran 37, Vojtech ran 42, Jase 43 and Rosco 44. I would have been a minute longer if I had actually gone to #24.

Little bit of jogging before, bit of control collecting after. Protecting calf a little bit on the climb during control collection, day off tomorrow.

To the start. Cutting it fine. Or nicely judged as I prefer to call it.

POM day 4, Dunas de Vagos again.
M45, 9.0km 22 controls
10th place, winner Jimmy Birklin 62:28
Finished 7th overall. Can't complain as highest finish any day was 9th!


Same arena as yesterday and an overlapping area, but a kilometre shorter today - a bit of a clue re what to expect...

Lots of green today and much harder to run straight, sometimes it felt like running in the detailed vegetation of Auchingarrich overlaid on the vague flat dunes in the south half of Lossie.

Pretty tricky in places - to pick a good line both on map and on ground, to stitch those together into a good route, and sometimes also actually to find the flag in amongst all the bushes in the circle.
Sometimes there was a choice to go round big blocks of fight - but often it was better to bash through it. Hard to know from the map of course, which makes picking the best route a bit more random than it should be....

Felt tougher than any other day, even allowing for being more tired with little zip in my legs. Didn't miss much, a few hesitations in the circle and ran through some green on one short leg thinking I was running down the white strip. Pretty sure I didn't always pick the best route but that was probably true for everyone today. Certainly no major time loss anywhere.

Similar result to the other days (winner + just over 10%) and dropped one place overall.

Enjoyed the different challenge today though, and the event as a whole - well staged, nice forests, good competition, sunshine, fine food and wine. Maybe an FVO trip one year soon??

Also very glad of course to get round all the days successfully - could feel where fitness is lacking (and a hilly area would have found me out far more) and calf is still some way from 100%, but with a lot of training and a bit of luck, could be a lot fitter in six weeks for JK. Which would be good...

Warmup of 2k to the start. Calf aching a little this morning but not too tight, seemed okay warming up.

POM day 3, Dunas de Vagos.
H45 9.9km, 18 controls.
9th place (of 86), winner 56:15

Flatter and much greener/bushier than the first two days, running largely straight still best but close attention required to keep in the best running and not tangle with the green.

Ran mostly pretty well, two errors:
1-2: poor direction initially, crossed track left of where I thought, had to retreat from some dark green and rethink where I was! (-1min)
11-12: longest leg on the course, did the first half as planned but got off line just at the key point where care was needed to bypass a big block of fight. Got stuck, had to backtrack, didn't know where I was, ended up doing a big chunk of extra distance and climb in sorting it out. (-1min 30s ffs)
Other than that maybe two 5-10sec hesitations (change of mind on route leaving #8, in the circle at #11), plus on 16-17 came perilously close to getting caught in the same block of green again as on the long leg....

Still improving however, 9th today (2min gap ahead to 8th) and now 6th overall. Can feel the lack of fitness though, short of speed over the ground. And can also feel the extra kilos....

The rain thoughtfully cleared up and it was getting sunny by the time I had to go to the start. Jogged there and tried to loosen up a bit, all that running yesterday was a bit more than I have been used to lately!

POM day 2, middle distance. Dunas de Mira again.
H45, 5.7km 23 controls.
12th place (of 99), winner 33:02

Went for it a lot more today, definitely more than the 90% intensity originally planned.
Dropped time at
2-3 where route and execution both poor, ran too far to the left (-30s)
6-7, compass poor and slow to correct when realised, too far left again (-30s)
14-15, should have stuck to original route but when hit second track decided to use that to cross green ridge, too much extra distance (-15s)
#16, saw spur ahead and crossed it, it was re one on far side of flag and I was low, needed to run up it (-15s)
#22, penultimate control, looked simple and I thought there would be crowds of people there so switched off and stopped navigating properly. Inevitable consequences. (-30secs)

Felt like I had done better than yesterday (and 3mins up on RRR and Nick today) so a bit disappointed to be only improved to 12th vs 15th yesterday (although brain fade at 22 cost me at least 9th and maybe 7th).
But close inspection of results shows 4 of the 11 ahead did not run yesterday, and another would have won yesterday but missed a control out, so prob does make for a better result.
Up to 8th overall too....

No warmdown. Forgot!

Jog to start and then a bit of stretching and even some gentle drills....

POM day one, Dunas de Mira.
M45, 9.6km. 15th place (of 91).
Winner 57:38, second 59:55.

Pretty much according to plan, ran reasonably hard but not full out, cautious on climbs and not attacking them.

Red line 9.6km and ran 10.7km, did a little bit of weaving round green and round the foot of a couple of ridges.
Apart from that lost a few bits of time. All very avoidable.
30s at #9 (knoll smaller than expected, overran it),
50s at #14 (not enough care, thought re-entrant was right round the back of the hill too not offset to the west. Ran right above it and had to relocate and come back. Not sure why I thought that as pretty sure I even took an extra look at the map as I climbed the ridge...)
30s at #16 (went to right place but didn't see flag, went off to check another thicket instead of checking I was in right place).

Calf seemed to survive okay with just the occasional twinge of protest. Phew.

20s behind RashRoute and 20s ahead of Nick....

No reaction from the race earlier so decided to do the night sprint. Despite the wind and heavy rain....

Took care to get a decent warm up in. Despite the wind and heavy rain.....

POM night sprint, Praia de Mira
"Vet Men 2" (M45 and M50), 7th place.
Winner Quentin in 13:59.

Similar approach to earlier in the day, running at a decent intensity but not full out.
Not a great start when I picked the straightish route up and over the hill with the church on. Twice I met an unexpected high wall and diverted round the end of them (both mapped as light grey crossable, hadn't seen either on map). Then the pale yellow was steep loose sand which I wasn't expecting. No splits yet but probably all the hesitation cost 20-30s. Felt worse at the time but in retrospect the alternative routes not necessarily better.
Pretty decent after that, it was pretty tricky in places but mostly managed to flow nicely and avoid pushing too hard where there were sections of easier running.

Hesitant at what looked like a private dead end with high wall doing 8-9 (another light grey crossable one), hesitant leaving #11 where the narrow way through was bushy and not as straight as expected. Didn't spot the passageway north of #13 as a possible entry/exit route but not too much in it. Probably only 20s in total between those things.
Very cautious on the slippery wooden bridges too!

Generally happy with result and performance. Would have been nice to find just a few seconds though as Jimmy Birklin (gold medallist in first ever WOC sprint, in 2001) was only 6secs ahead.....

Event: Portugal O Meeting
 

Long day of travel. At least it is a direct flight to Edinburgh on the way back.
Looking forward to getting into the forest.
Aim 1 - complete first day unscathed
Aim 2 - complete all days unscathed
Aim 3 - run steady (maybe 85% intensity) on day 1 and keep the nav nice and controlled.
Aim 4 - if calf okay then slowly increase running intensity, but not at expense of the navigation!
Aim 5 - do not get distracted from aims 1-4 if Nick L or RashRouteRicky are beating me.....

Thought a token effort pre POM was probably wise....