Training Log Archive: Alibongo

Event: British Relays
 

BOC Relays at Culbin - even more orienteering heaven as the sun was shining - it doesn't get better than this...

Last leg of Women's Short. Fared better than yesterday at finding the controls, only lost time on three controls but the time lost for each was around two or three minutes each - far too long! I'm still not confident using my compass for rough bearings and find myself stopping often on longer legs to ensure I'm going in the right direction, also keep veering to the right. I never really bothered using my compass much before - strange but true... I could probably do with some practise bearings in training as soon as possible.

Event: British Long Champs
 

BOC Orienteering Heaven in Culbin - fantastic! Brilliant course - it was a tough one. Made mistakes at 10 of the controls and lost around 11 minutes in total. This is pretty much unheard of for me and I can only put this down to a combination of a few simple things. Now that I'm running faster I'll have to get my navigation up to speed - an imbalance perhaps? I was also distracted by others - Beccy caught me up twice as did lots of fast but often lost W20E's. Also, I wasn't used to using the Emit brikke and every time I had to turn round the kite to fit the brikke into the control I was disorientated and sure I lost time on extremely poor control flow - although now I have the solution thanks to Rosco (can't believe I hadn't worked that out). Overall I was disappointed with my performance but was pleased with my position - much better than I had predicted. Can't wait to run at Culbin again.

Warm up dash to the start of the training. Getting to Tentsmuir was a bit of a struggle - probably wasn't meant to have gone in the first place, didn't make it home easily either...

1. Left work at 4.07 and got home at 5.15 having sat in a traffic jam due to the M8 closure/accident (usual journey plus pick up 40 mins).

2. Left home at 5.30 and attempted to navigate using a Multimap map showing the location (using the grid reference), but I failed to ask how to get from the main road to the tracks shown on the map... so I went on a magical mystery tour...

3. Finally arrived at 7.10 and ran as fast as I could to the meeting point in the forest just in time to collect some controls, held the collected controls in my left hand with my compass and my bearing sent me off at 90 degrees wrong...

4. The 1st restaurant (in Dundee) stopped serving when we arrived at 8.30, had to find another - they took ages to serve so we didn't eat until 10.

5. I agreed to give Jamie a lift and as we were too busy chatting, I headed off towards Aberdeen, (Gary phoned to point this out - thanks) after we had turned at the next rab.

6. Dropped Jamie off at Stirling services and noticed that the slip road back onto the M9 was closed for re-surfacing - diversion via J10 Stirling!

A bad day? I'd say so!

Control collecting - good practise for BOC. Good to be in similar terrain.

Roller coaster warm down through gorgeous sand dune forest - sometimes little bits of lovely make up for the bad days...

Cut the grass until the widget came off the mower and left a 3m2 patch uncut. Raked up leaves and some moss came with it. Must have been some good in this activity as the muscles in my sides were sore the next day.