Training Log Archive: murraystraining

Late one after a full study day. Was going to do a bit longer but it was dark and my hip/glut/groin was whimpering. It might be time to bin these shoes - 734miles so far compared to the usual 600.

Pacing, jogging, striding, stretching.

Team 1st
Leg 3rd (Rich 31:00)
Out 2nd (+0:17 on ShUOC) back 1st (-2:08)
Despite knowing all the first legs had screwed up the first control I took it out hard to get back in touch with John. Lost control in the middle of the leg though and ended up doing a parallel mistake on the big depressions. Fortunately there were two distinctive thickets to relocate on and even better John just seemed to carry on. Even after that I missed a little in the circle, relocating on one of the other gaffles first. Probably -1min in first miss and 0:15 on the second. As I finally punched I spotted Spongey doing a meercat impression on the top of a dune which gave me another shot of adrenaline - ShUOC might be AWOL, but EUOC were very much there. Focus focus focus I screamed at myself, you've not won anything yet. The next few were better but then I got thrown off line in the burnt gorse to 4 and binned a bit more time - not much from the splits but it felt like an age! I couldn't see anyone behind me though so I relaxed a bit and got good lines on the next few. Next thing I know I'm coming into the spectator knowing it's pretty straightforward from here. I do almost lose it on the next one when I mix up some thickets - gorse suddenly mapped as green hashing and trees as dark green - but trust the contours and I'm fine. Into the urban - feels strange to be doing urban on an ISOM map, very 1990s - and I'm probably not as clinical as I would be in a sprint race, but its perfectly adequate for now. Through the last couple, trying to remember what Ant told me - something about the short grass being very short. Ah that makes sense. I seemed to be just behind srollins for a lot of this, wasn't really thinking about what was happening in the girls. It was only when I was half way down the finish chute with Oleg that I noticed the other BAOC girls waiting to celebrate. Us first!
So Interlopers finally win the JK Trophy, break their "curse" and send those pesky students home to think again. A couple of times I have run fastest leg times in the JK (04 and 06 spring to mind) and been quite proud of myself but I realised in this race that when you are defending a lead it's not about a foot-to-the-floor eyeballs out effort, its about doing things safely and getting it right which all three of us did today, and that's why we won.

Slightly convoluted jogging between car parks and then to the start. Not feeling too bad.

5th, 4 mins behind Hector.
After getting whipped by Craney at Hambledon I decided I ought to try committing to a Long race, and since this one looked a bit short it looked ideal. I started hard, pushing on the climbs and attacking the flats and downhills. It was going well when I got to the butterflys as I was in 3rd but then I got a bit sloppy and binned a bit of time. I pushed hard after that and I could catch glimpses of Ant (3 min man) but the gap could easily still be three minutes (which it was). In the end he beat me overall because I minced down the hill at the end. Loser.
Still one of my better long races, and I felt physically fine at the end so I'm sure I could've carried on for the full 90-100 if needed. Only 2mins down on Craney with 3+ mins of mistakes compared with 5 down at southerns with ~2mins mistakes so I was there physically which is a positive. Hector ran a great race, stealing seconds all the way with ruthless efficiency. Respect.

C • Desending like a 'stone' 1

With a slightly excited Tessa.

Wee shake out from the cottage. Time and distance estimates. Gutted not to have a chance to run up the Mournes (cottage was perfectly positioned to run out the back door straight onto the fell). Will have to go back and run/race there some day.

7th, 2:20 behind Craney, 1:02 behind 2nd.
Aim was to focus on navigation & not worry about pace too much. I think to start with I was more focussed on focussing than actually getting the nav right. I binned 2 minutes in total on the first 4, but to be honest I got a bit lucky on 1 & 2 as I saw the control when I didn't really know where I was. After I got my head into it I was pretty clean. Same speed as craney from 13-finish. Not great, but my best championship middle run/result for a few years.

To start and back with CK and Nixon.

Event: JK 2011
 

Lots of jogging around the leafy streets of Belfast and then some nervous strides before the start. Knee was a bit sore.

2nd, ~30s behind Craney.
Two small misses - route to #3 (excuse below) and then poor execution on #11 (knew the path went downhill but for some reason cut back down the stairs instead - my fault) which were mercilessly punished by an impressive run from Craney. Other than that I was never particularly at ease with the map and course.

I remembered reading a blog by Marten Bostrom last year complaining about how sprint races had changed over the last few years (http://www.martenbostrom.com/news.html - dated 27th Aug 2010) and thinking at the time about how he sounded like a typical road-runner-orienteer who just wants to win races by having a chance to run faster than his competitors. But after Friday's race I think he may have a point. We had 28 controls in 14 minutes of racing. The range of split times was only 0:15 to 0:49. At that intensity of controls the subtle skills of planning and memorising controls ahead, intensity management and decisive route choice are not on the menu, replaced with frantically executing the current leg and glancing ahead to the next while trying to minimise hesitations. I think there is a place for this sort of planning in a good sprint race course but not at the expense of the other ingredients.

Now, to the map. Have I become such a highly strung sprint specialist that the slightest deviation from ISSOM standards throws me? I know I struggled with the PWT standard map of Summer Palace in China but I think I want to blame my first route choice miss on #3 on the print colours of the map. If you still have the warm up map (which I presume was laser printed) compare it with the litho-printed race map. The brown ink used for tarmac and contours is far darker on the race map. To my eye the warmup map is "correct". I'm not sure if there's a allowable range for the shades of brown like there is for buildings, but this doesnt look right to me. I think this also contributes to the problem of uncrossable walls seeming to continue where a contour comes out the end of them. Looking at the map in the cold light of day this seems to me to be the only reason for why I would have taken the route I did (right) to number 3.
Add to this the poor standard of printing (after this I'm not sure litho printing should be used for sprint maps) and I'm left with a slightly bitter taste - I've looked at a few maps and they are not all the same.

This wasn't supposed to turn into a ranty moan. I really enjoyed the whole weekend and these are all just challenges that we have to deal with to achieve our goals. Credit to Matt for a great run and to the ShUOC boys for keeping the pressure on.

C • Fair point 5

Captain Campbell put on a Level ye Devils session where the aim is to run 6 identically paced intervals. Watches are banned and you score 1pt for each second your 2-6th intervals are away from your first. He was letting us choose our interval length on a Hyman-esque 6 minute cycle.
Given the four days of racing looming I didn't much fancy too much fast paced work so had the plan of trying to run 6 consecutive 6 minute miles to make it into a nice steady run. With no Garmin to geek over while running I really focussed on my breathing patterns and monitoring stress levels to try and keep the pace level. The first lap was 5:49, a little faster than I was aiming for but at least I got 11s recovery before going again!
After that I clocked 5:47, 43, 51, 43, 40 for a huge total of 25. Mags and Claire G won with a hugely impressive score of 5!
I'm really happy with this session though. While 5:45 miles are nothing to shout about, I was genuinely very relaxed throughout the whole session.

Easy fartlek on the RR loop. Included 4x90s, 1x5min, 5x100m.