Training Log Archive: W

Orienteering-ish at Whitemud. A "Pick your own course" night, which... umm... well I probably shouldn't go into too much detail.

Nice night for a trail run though. And road run. But definitely not orienteering. Ohhhhh well.

Yesterday I had quite the headache. I assume it was the heat, but I was quite concerned I was getting sick, so I came home from the office and pounded back like 4 litres of water and lay in the basement.

By Tuesday, I was feeling a bit better, better enough to venture out in the heat and go for a nice little run. Generally I felt fine, though it truly is bloomin' hot out here. Venice hot, which, for anyone that was there, was pretty hot. Far less gelato, though.

A nice cruise-y spin on my usual loop that I've [kind of] sorely missed. I was pleasantly surprised that I had basically no run-ins with any off-leash dogs, even despite not being logo-d to the gills so that I could mouth them off if necessary. Maybe something happened since I was last about that made them all decide to follow the rules. Ha.

So, that article about the Canadian team in Scotland in the newspaper up there, I didn't actually read it until today, and was mildly bemused/eyerolled about the fact that the simply lifted most of the text from the blog. Its... 'sort of' attributed to us, in that they quoted us as having "said it", but the picture has no credit, and all of it is compounded by getting the names wrong. I'm all for any publicity is good publicity, but... yikes.

I took a full four days off after coming back from Europe, not necessarily because I was tired, but because this was the perfect time to get sick if I wasn't careful. So, I got all lazy for three whole days before getting back into it today at the shop workout. I was partly motivated by the offer of a pancake breakfast afterwards, which is apparently something we do now. (its a one time thing)

So, did an upward ladder from 30 seconds to 4:30 in 30 second increments with 3 minutes rest at 10k pace, which is actually a fairly easy workout. The 4 minute and 4:30 were probably the toughest because they were predominantly uphill, but I can't say I was really blasting and felt quite comfortable hovering between about 3:20 and 3:35. I can't say for sure because I took too many laps and my Garmin ate my workout, but the total time and distance is about right, after Graham and I did an extended cool-down. I think he's a better runner than he leads on, but that's why he's on the national team, and... I'm not.

Also, I saw Eve6 and Everclear on Friday, which reminded me how old I am. They didn't play my fave song, though.

C • 90s rock 7

Yet another nice map in another nice location. This one reminded me most of Lewes Lake in Whitehorse. Hills, depressions, and ridgelines. I felt like this really brought to light the difficulties I have when it comes to contouring around things. I find that I've been spending so much time thinking about just going straight, that in these cases where its a big hole that I could go around, I have a lot of difficulty knowing where I am once I've gone around. Have you gone farther enough around? What feature do I spot after going around? Am I still going in the same direction? I had difficulties with it today and frequently would just go straight through, but I don't really have a great solution. Add it to the list of thinks that need some thought.

I should write these things down.

Also of note, some of these depressions had amazingly manicured grass at the bottom. It was like a soccer pitch down there. Incredible.

One last session north of Aberdeen on what was unquestionably my least favorite map of this entire training camp. Don't get me wrong, very scenic, but crazy tall bracken, or rocky underfoot heather covered opened bits made for a desperately slow, mildly dangerous, highly unpleasant area. This is unfortunate because I think this map is fairly relevant.

I mean, I'm always cool with very physical courses, but I'm really not a fan of the unseen rocks under long grass situation. I encountered that in Hong Kong and found it very tough. I think I have fairly strong ankles, but it doesn't make me any less nervous, and if I trip its a really long way from where my face is to the ground and I can usually generate quite a bit of vertical velocity in that time (e.g. face-smashing).

Again, though, wonderful views.

My Garmin seems to have an emotional limit of time when it comes to orienteering workouts. This one was one of those. I took too many laps, and by 3/4 of the way through the workout it simply conked out and ate the workout. Alas.

It was a 1:15000 map and we did some mini-mass start/relay training which rapidly devolved as we all got more and more tired. It didn't start off well since we didn't really know where the map was relative to where we started and ended up doing a rather extended warm-up. Eventually we found it but the training was really quite lengthy and physical. Nice forest, but as I've said in the past, the uneven footing, the heather-y-ness, and on this map, the climb, really ate away at all of us. The map was also a tad old in some places and Toni actually took some features off the map and kind of... well, didn't mention it. Mysterious clearings....

Nevertheless, we all felt very hardcore having done a tough race yesterday and then just kept on pushing away. High five, us.

Emily, myself, and Damian stubbornly went out for a second workout, just a short one around a nearby map. It was quite nice. What was less nice was the giant hole that had appeared since the last map update. It was a gravel pit. And kind of tragic. Who needs gravel, REALLY.

A real light morning training ahead of the afternoon's..."festivities". I kind of wanted to do two training sessions every day while I'm here, so despite the upcoming race I went out anyway for about 30 minutes of orienteering and then jogging home which took another 20 or so. My legs are progressively getting more and more grumpy, but a good warm-up makes them feel better every time. I suspect that as time goes on, the warm-up will just need to get longer.

Which is ironic, because then each workout will get longer and subsequently make my legs more tired.

While I was waiting around in the Edinburgh airport, I remember wondering if there were any fell races near where we were staying, in the hopes that maybe we could do one. I remember seeing there was one somewhere, but the internet wasn't working well enough to see how close it was.

Fast forward to the Friday night, and Toni had heard on the radio that it was "free sailing day" at some lake somewhere, or that there were some highland games somewhere. I decided on a lark to check that out, see where it was, and what sort of stuff they had. So sooner had I looked I discovered that THIS WAS the hill race I saw, and it was really close!

I can tell you, at first the enthusiasm was really not there, which was a little surprising because I thought we were all athletes and liked to do, you know, athletic things. But, then Toni got on board, and everyone came around and we agreed to do it.

And it was a great idea! Right off the start, Damian and I ended up in front, which was really surprising. I really figured that there would be 6 or 7 loping Murray-clones that would just devastate us right from the get go, but it didn't turn out that way.

The toughest part was near the beginning of the climb, as I was desperately trying to find an easy route up the hill. At one point I split up with Damian and found a very small path that made the running a bit easier, which actually led to a slightly larger path. Unfortunately the trajectory Damian was on meant that he eventually found it to, and my distinct advantage fizzled. I had a lead up to the top, but I knew downhills are not my forte and in short order we were back together.

In retrospect, I should have then really put everything I had into the second climb. At the time I weighed climbing hard and the possibility of blowing up, or hanging on to the comfortable pace we had going up the hill and really working hard to stay in contact on the way down, figuring I could outrun Damian on the road section back to the finish.

Unfortunately, like most large animals, it took me too long to get moving when the downhill started and although I was pulling time back, when we got to the road he was about 10 seconds ahead which was simply too much time to overcome with the space I had. I think I could have climbed harder and even if I was blowing up, I could have made enough space to recover going downhill and be in the mix at the road. No matter, though, it was a good experience, and I'll know better next time.

Race to my strengths, or work hard on my weaknesses. Or both.

We also ran an "800m race" later, which was a cavalcade of lactic acid and suffering. The pace was pedestrian enough for the first two laps that Damian and I cruised to the front again, until the start of the 3rd lap where muscle-man with track spikes came absolutely charging to the front and I had a brief thought of "AW HELL NAW". He was flying, but I think went too early and I was able to hang on to the backstretch and pass him again once we rounded the downhill corner and into the finish.

I've often felt that at the end of races I don't switch into truly sprinting mode, in the sense that I can feel my sprint "run" pace, and my sprint "soccer" pace, for instance, which is an extra gear that I find myself rarely putting in at the end of running race. This one, however, definitely featured "soccer" pace, which really meant the difference between 20 and 18 pounds prize money. CHA-CHING-A-LING.

And still no Euroflop. Despite my desire, at this point, to keel over and die.

I've heard good things about Roseisle. And they are good things! Except for the green. Just off the ocean are some forest-y dune terrain that are real, real nice. The WOC organizers have a training course set out so as a bonus, there were also flags. Number 6 was a bit of a debacle for everyone. The control was in a small reentrant in some green, but we all mis-took the green it was in for beachfront, which suggested we were much closer to the beach. I continually doubled back until it was found by someone else. I was really trying to just do contours there but the vegetation just threw me off too much, especially because we had already been in a different patch of green that was different from this patch of green.

Later on were some very large patches of thick forest which were also quite tricky. I tried to focus on seeing the big features and having a strong plan, but that only worked out 50% of the time, and definitely did not work out when I simply didn't have the visibility to feel confident if this hill I was standing by was THE hill I wanted.

It usually wasn't.

The far end green section went real well, though, so it wasn't all bad. And the white forest was so nice. I wish I coulda gone back and this was at all relevant to WOC terrain (which I don't think it is).

Another afternoon training, with a mostly contours only map. The heather was a bit more evident on this map, or maybe that was just my legs being slightly less enthusiastic about jump running today. There was another section of the map that was flat and crazy vague, so I *think* I figured out where the control was supposed to be, but I can't be certain. The areas where there is new forest after being logged has pretty darn low visibility and is slow to run through. That part is less fun. However, undoubtedly a real map would have a distinct vegetation edge marked, because the change is really quite obvious. My mind also wandered to far less orienteering-important things, so the focus wasn't there for a little while either.

Not that that's a new concept.

Jess graciously offered to drive us out towards Inverness for a training day. The first map was another older one, with some giant new clearings that were not marked on the map. These are becoming less and less bothersome since its a strong reminder that I don't desperately need every feature on the map to navigate. The last half the course was really quite nice in a more contour-y area with some tiny features.

I've stopped using my magnifier for this entire training camp, since I'm hoping it will get me to go back to basics and see the big features rather than search for the tiny ones. I think I'll definitely still use it for nationals, since I'm still accustomed to it, but I'm going to train to phase it out again, methinks.

My feet and ankles are starting to get a bit grumpy. This terrain was a bit more rugged, tall ish grass with rocks underneath, which makes me a nervous runner. Reminds me a bit of Hong Kong, in fact...! We first did a short 2k relay mass start race, which I had my usual troubles while around other people. After I got dropped a little things were much more calm and I would slowly claw my way back, but the race was pretty short so the comeback never really happened. Then it was off to do some uphill orienteering on another part of the map which was much more pleasant. My directions were usually off and I rarely had a solid plan, but I was able to easily pick things off on the way and correct when I started to drift a little. Turned my ankle a little near the end and had to walk it off. Par for the course!

I think several times during this workout I also swore I was going to take a day off because I felt physically and emotionally drained (for a variety of reasons), but, then I would usually resolutely decide that I could rest some other times. And then made lots of sense. Some other time.

Headed to a nearby forest for a few smaller loops of training. Unlike the flat-ish training of yesterday, this was far more just straight forest around a few large hills with some cliffs and boulders. Of course, an "impassible cliff" in Italy generally meant something that if you fell off, you'd probably die or at least lose about 3 or 4 contour lines (and your time would really suffer). It seems in Scotland, the cliff symbol gets used on what appears to be a steep grassy slope that might have some rocks underneath. Not... "quite" so scary.

So far my impression is that relocating can potentially be difficult here. There weren't any flags out, so at times when I wasn't 100% sure if I was at the correct location or not, it was tough to find features to relocate on since it all looked very same-y.

Also, compass is important. AND WE'VE NEVER HEARD THAT BEFORE.

My Garmin ate my workout so I'm having to read Damian's log to remember what it was. Even then I still can't quite remember. OH RIGHT! Now I remember. A lighter afternoon session on a kind of older map. This map is the flattest we've been on so far, which can be really quite tricky. Its very possible to go straight on a bearing, but its often a feature-less area with just some vague form lines or vague hillside with a rock or two. Great opportunity to work on the compass, which is still quite flawed. However, I felt I was able to see the shape of the land fairly well despite it being very, very subtle. There was quite a few cutlines and trails that were missing from the map, which meant I didn't really need to worry about them.

Made it to Scotland with only mild mind-numbing irritation! Glass half full!

For our first session we headed down the road to an actual real training map with controls and everything on Loch Vaa. This actually reminded me quite a lot of Rumsey. Wide open bits with tufts of trees and rolling hills. The only difference being instead of grass, there was heather, so running is just that little bit extra fatiguing. But, in general it was a nice confidence booster because it wasn't overly difficult. Although it was helpful to be aware of the contours, in many cases you could just keep your head up, spot the tuft of trees you're heading for, and, BOOM, trip over some heather because you weren't picking up your feet.

Nice.

C • Scotland terrain 5

We joined in the SAROC training in the evening. It started at 6:30, so naturally we showed up at 7:15. This was embarrassing because apparently some of the club members wanted to run with us, since it was a pairs exercise. That would have been nice. Sorry. I ended up running with Tori, which was just fine by me. I found this morning and this evening that my chest was feeling very tight, almost like going down from altitude provided too much oxygen. My red blood cells just didn't know what to do with it all.

Still, the terrain was really lovely still, especially on the highest one where I had to stop and check out the nice view.

Well, another WOC has come and gone, and once again I feel it was an abject failure. I honestly thought I was, at least, fitter, and for once felt confident in my running shape, even calmly confident at the start of the sprint. Ironically my sprint result was probably one of my best, in terms of how close I was behind the winner, and how I was able to run with Prochazka for a while. He even said after the race that he was concerned he must be doing badly because a Canadian was running ahead of him. ... thanks? (Im quite sure it was a joke, but, you know czechs, some of them... the delivery is less the perfect). But, all that is irrelevant because I didnt get in the final. It doesnt matter who I beat who or how close I was, this is a binary measure.

Regardless, I'm obviously a results-based guy and so having to then watch the sprint final I so desperately wanted to be in was the worst thing ever. (watching Khramov point out the correct alleyway to his female Russian teammates was I suppose a brief moment of amusement). All I really want to do is be in the game.

The sprint relay was a minor highlight, but the results were a painful reminder of how far behind I still am.

The forest performance compounded the misery, as I blew the middle trials race that was probably mine to win 3/4 through the course, and the long trial race was basically a long middle and not the least bit representative of the long final. I desperately wanted that race at WOC too, but the trial race was just far too technical for me and I wanted it too badly. The aftermath of which was equally infuriating.

I also feel huge responsibility for the relay, in which I went out very hard and lost it at number 6, losing the speedy pack, and making a bad, bad mistake at the end. I feel that made my teammates feel the need to chase the race, which is never a good place to be. I'm not sure I want to be lead again.

Anyway, after six years, this WOC felt the most like I've made no discernible improvements since my first one in Hungary. I am heartened by what I think are some running fitness improvements, and am quite enthusiastic to continue pursuing that.

Perhaps its time for my first marathon.