Training Log Archive: slow-twitch

West Bay (Rotoiti). Chasing start. Most of the map was like navigating through a maze (of green), only with occasional bashing through the walls allowed. Went pretty well which I needed as the last couple of days had knocked my confidence a bit. Got over my 1st control issues - at least as far as getting to the circle, where I met 3 who started before me (and enjoyed hearing "we must be in the right place, here's Nic") although the flag was still a little elusive. A couple of other controls that I lost a bit in the circle through a bit of carelessness, but the only mistake of significance was over 4 minutes (and a lot of unnecessary bush bashing) with poor execution of what should have been a safe route choice into 6. A longish leg on a rough bearing to catch the long clearing to the south of the control - I'm sure I was aiming off to the right to make sure I caught it but still must have drifted far enough left to just miss it. Thankfully the next clearing south was so much bigger again it didn't take me long to realise it couldn't possibly be the one that I wanted, still had to bash back to where I was supposed to be though!

Teetotal. Long, physical long, and mostly open which on a scorcher of a day was not great. Pretty messy all the way around (so I can't put it all down to fatigue). Was more switched on at the start, but still not enough for a very testing 1st control - 9 minutes lost there, even eventually relocating off the fenced off pond was only so useful as it was a bit of a lucky guess how far along the fence I was. Other mistakes were probably all a matter of not holding my line well enough getting through the green patches. Still trying to decide if the 'little' hill loop at the end of the course was worthwhile - I did enjoy the technical challenge of control 20, but whether it was worth over half the climb on the course to do...? And somewhere between there and the finish (I think the steep downhill 21-22, and not long after the 2 hour mark ticked over which might have more to it) I basically lost interest and was very slow and very much on autopilot through those last few controls. At least I finished which was more than almost half the field.

Tunnicliff. Middle, but on the longer side (as M40 was on the elite women's course for this weekend, when we're usually about 1 course down) and terrain and heat made for a pretty physical battle. Dropped a minute on 1 just not at all focussed, then over 3 minutes on the long leg 3 drifting further left than I intended early in the leg, but did get a perfect spike at the end. After that pretty happy about how it went, even spiking the 1 control that all the discussion afterwards was about - so it seems it was in the right place relative to the features I used to attack it, but admittedly it did take longer than I expected to get down the stream to those attackpoints.

Short warm up, no real interest in warming down, better do some decent stretching when I get home

Waterfront 5k in super hot conditions. Started at a good pace but couldn't keep that up for that distance in the heat. So a bit of a slow time in the end but at least managed to get through without any walking which probably became the only realistic goal from about 3k

Typical recovery run on an atypical day - hoping to stretch some of yesterday's efforts (the intervals in particular) out of the legs. Hulls Creek and return. A bit slower than last time, thus proving that orienteering (and therefore orienteers) is tougher than road running. Good day to not be trying anything more, very muggy whenever out of the breeze. And I NEED SLEEP!