Training Log Archive: W

Mega travel day, that started at 6:45 and ended at 6:45 the next morning. Getting back to Finland is a huge pain. And, did you know that in Finland, on long distance buses, they have no problem with you sitting in the aisle? You REALLY must put on your seatbelt when you're in a sitting, but hanging out in the aisle while the bus is going 120? SURE! Why not?

On one hand I wish I could spend a ton more time in Scotland, like, years, but, with the loonie being what it is, its really, really expensive, and I wanted to get back to my normal-ish fitting and only slightly creaky bed.

C • WOC write-ups 2

The WOC Long. The looooong long. Obviously I knew it was going to be longer than our normal longs. 96 minutes for Thierry is not going to mean 96 minutes for me.

The bus ride up to the pre-start was exciting right off the top. It was a super narrow winding road, and half way along it, we encountered another mini-bus coming the other way (this was not supposed to happen). So, we all climbed out of the minibus and watched it slowly, slowly back up until it found a place to get out of the way enough for another bus to go by. This took about 15 minutes, thankfully it wasn't raining much.

Midges! Many midges! It was funny to see some Euros who were covered head to toe with everything they could find. Gloves, hats, buffs, basically just so that their eyes were showing. The Danes naturally had bug covers for all their athletes. I found them a little annoying, but really not so bad. Probably wouldn't have wanted to stop for a picnic, but in general, not so bothersome.

Started out pretty conservatively, especially given two immediate downhill legs, which can go south really quickly (though in this case, north). It takes me sometime to adjust to the scale and the speed of the terrain too, but I emerged from 1 and 2 unscathed and a long uphill + long leg helped me get everything figured out.

The big problem was, I just couldn't move very fast. Everyone will say that, but its always to different levels. I didn't feel light on my feet, and ran inefficiently through the lumpy and soft marshes. I was actually in 30th place at number 4 because I didn't make any dumb mistakes, but that also made clear that over the rest of the course my fitness was a defining factor since I slowly and gradually dropped down. I caught sight of my 6 minute man, the Japanese fellow, on the way to number 9, but made some route choice errors and simply could not catch him until the end of the long leg. He then actually ran past me since he seemed to be able to dance a little better on this terrain. He was actually running pretty well for a while! But, he made a mistake at #18 that I nearly made too and got away again.

I saw a lot of people on the butterfly loop, and especially at the water control when I saw several people with low 120s numbers storm in, I felt very disheartened, but it turned out that they were still heading out on the butterfly loop, and I was leaving, so things were not going as slow as I imagined. The second long leg was scary and I felt I needed to go unnecessarily slow at times, causing the Japanese runner to catch up to me again after I made a mistake at the control location. This leg was also the first time I fell waist deep into mud, while cross the open marsh. It was generally a promising run across that marsh, and SPLASH, he's in the mud.

Although I had taken one gel, my hamstrings started to cramp on the 3rd long leg, which I believe is more a product of strength than nutrition. Too much walking with my back hunched over meant a lot of strain on my hamstrings and there were several twinges that I had to be careful with to manage.

Eventually on the way of the long leg I got caught by the German and the Belarussian, which was motivating to hang with them the rest of the race. I broke off and took a straighter route to 25, and then basically let them do all the navigation until the finish and I just ran along. Ran in to Gerald on the way to 25 and asked if I had a spare compass - his capsule had fallen out of the plate. Unfortunately I didn't, but he wisely just decided to hammer and hang onto our group and got into the finish solidly. It was mentioned afterwards that we weren't certain whether competitors are even allowed to give each other equipment. I've got to assume that was okay, because how insane would that be if you couldn't?

Anyway, I suppose "Top 50" sounds great, as long as you don't look at how many people were actually in the race! I basically didn't make any mistakes, but had to make plenty of map stops and the fitness is clearly not good enough when other people can wander around moping about 6 minute mistakes but they still beat me by 7. I'm convinced more than ever now that getting back in the gym will be a really good start, not just for strength in running in the terrain, but overall running economy, so that will be high on my list for the fall.

I suppose I was close to getting "pre-qualified" for next year, but I don't imagine I would have accepted it, since I don't believe that narrowly scraping out a 45th position necessarily makes me any more deserving of that spot than any others. But, since I didn't get that choice, its easy for me to play Monday morning quarterback.

Just starting the race, however, was a culmination of the only thing I really, really wanted to do for the last three years. I didn't blow it out of the water, but I just desperately wanted to start. I don't *necessarily* have to win, but I always, always, want to be in the game.

And I did! And I had a wonderful, albeit painful time! And now I want to train harder! For what? I'm not rightly sure, but since there's no China this year, this WOC long will have to be my springboard for next year's enthusiasm.

I was on the fence about whether to go to the model map or just to do a light run around the Inverdruie. These decisions are often decided for my by the amount of driving required to get there. In this case it wasn't too bad, but the map didn't seem crazy relevant, so we just went for a light run and a leg soak. We had some discussion on the optimal length of cold water leg soaking. Anyone have an opinion/evidence?

WOC Relay day! I don't imagine this race went remarkably awesome for any of us. My running second certainly took massive amounts pressure off myself and gave it to someone else. I've been there in that first leg before. You finally, finally, get a chance to do a mass start with other runners who are faster than you are, and its nigh on impossible not to go for it, and then things go wrong. Its pretty much the feeling worst thing ever. Guilt, disappointment, frustration, embarrassment. It sucks. I know it. Though, it also really, really makes you want to try again. You can't just leave it at that. That would be wrong.

Its also why so many CAN runners are desperate for more opportunities to experience these types of events, so that high speed challenge becomes more familiar. Realistically, this is the only relay any one of us Canada get to do in a year.

But, I digress. I should have run faster. Having a lovely open forest to myself meant I could run calmly and focus on my navigation. Although I didn't really make any mistakes, I was playing it relatively safe and didn't seem to really have the energy to open up as much as I could. I didn't pull nearly enough time back on the US as I'd hoped, and still finished in the overall ranking of my leg pretty far back.

Had some troubles co-operating with my compass on the last few controls, which was odd (though not surprising). I thought the crazy forking was very clever but not the least bit stressful in my position. The GPS made it clear that there was discombobulation all around, and just goes to show how many runners are quite clearly blindly following their competitors. Pretty nuts.

To a certain extent, we've run out of maps to train on, or at least ones that don't require a bloody 1.5 hour drive to get to. Fortunately, running around Aveimore is awesome, so I just went for a morning jog. I liken Aviemore to Canmore, kind of touristy, very outdoorsy, and a place I'd totally be okay with living in. There's even an awesome 1 bedroom church you can live in. Unfortunately the ad suggested it was already rented out.

Darn.

Monday model day up near Darnaway. The white forest is not quite as lovely as I might have hoped, just quite a bit of deadfall under foot. Visibility is quite good, contours are pretty distinct, might be better when running at high speed. The open stuff is pretty awful so here's hoping its only in the middle! (in retrospect, it mostly was, *phew*).

Did some Euroflop training afterwards. Need to work on drama level. Too low at the moment.

C • Euro flop 2