Training Log Archive: Jon X

Warmup. Ankle stiff again. A bit nervous...

British Relays, Brown Clee
M40 relay, FVO (Jon, Roger, Ben), 1st place :)

2nd place on first leg but 6mins behind Geoff Ellis in first - significant gaffling though and Geoff had the shortest possible course with least climb (probably not the best outcome for BOK!). Probably 2mins in mistakes for me, with the rest of the gap being 2mins running speed and 2mins gaffling.

Al Buckley was on leg one for SYO and was running with Geoff in the first part but dropped more than 6mins in the scrappy ditch/gully/felling woodland in the middle - I had the same one but somehow sneaked past there after three early mistakes costing maybe 90sec in total.

Roger closed right up on Ifor Powell and pulled away from Pete Tryner to give Ben a decent lead over Nick B - Ben did the job and got past Paul G on the final leg to take the win 2.5mins ahead of Nick who was coming through fast!

Very pleased to keep the trophy in FVO hands - sweet win for me/Roger/Ben too, the same FVO team that led nearly all the way two years ago only to see Nick come past for SYO in the final few controls....

Another good FVO day, a close third in Men Open and quality performance from the Women Open team, silver medals without a W21 anywhere near the team!

Event: British Orienteering Championships 2016 Long Distance
 

Warm up. Ankle and achilles grumbling but no worse. Maybe should have done a bit more running as part of warmup and got heart rate a bit higher, seemed to be a struggle to get moving off the start.

BOC Long 2016, Brown Clee
M45L, 15th place.

That didn't go too well...

Within 30sec of the start I tried to cross white forest and found myself tangled up in unmapped felling and swearing. Not a great start.
Cautious to #1 and #2 on the vague slope but got them okay, then carelessly lost touch on the way to #3 - almost saved by pacing but that only got me to within 10m of the flag. Thought I had overshot as there was a big undergrowth thicket which I thought must be one of the several patches of green beyond the flag. Wandered around helplessly as the minutes ticked by. Eventually I saw Bill from 8mins back and watched in amazement as he ducked in right behind said undergrowth thicket, and punched. Pretty sure I would never have found it if I hadn't seen him.

Race pretty much over at this stage, 8mins down already, but thought I should give it a go. Maybe should have tucked in behind Bill but instead lost him at #6 when he stopped and I ran on to a wrong control (-1mins).
Then lost time at #8 when I though I had crossed the path, started looking for the flag, decided it was in the next re-entrant along.....and then hit the path!! Not quite sure how I was 3rd on that leg - a minute down on the best split tells the real tale....
Overshot #9 (-1min again), ran up the wrong re-entrant at #12 where the ground shapes were very pronounced but I really struggled to match them to what I thought the map was telling me (-20s), then binned lots at #13 where I though the control was in some trees below a defined slope but in fact it was on a spur (-2mins).
Added a new error by missing out #15 and going straight to #16, not sure how (-2min 20s).

By #16 my split positions after #3 make comedy reading.....
8th, 2nd, 49th, 2nd, 3rd, 45th, 3rd, 2nd, 7th, 33rd, 3rd, 47th, 2nd.

From there I decided maybe it was time to take it a bit easier and save some legs for the relay, although trotting down the hill on the path to #17 didn't stop me wandering around in the circle (-1min). More felling nonsense through the next few but then some nice forest up out of #23 inspired me to run the uphill leg to #24, and I had already checked out #25 on the way to #1. Ran the last little loop quite hard to make sure I got back under 90mins but eased off on the run-in which almost let Parkino close a gap which was 17secs at the last control!

Definitely not my day today, never got to grips with the map or mapping style and even now I can't see how what was on the ground at #3 was anything like what I think the map is trying to show.

Just under 72mins by Bill for a clear win and 77mins by Frostbite for a well earned silver medal - kudos to both!

Stretching instead on the dangerous-for-achilles ones...

Post-circuits jog to test left lower calf/achilles which is still suffering after Boston.
Met Fanni after about 100m so ran with her for most of it.