Training Log Archive: mary

All I could fit in before my start

Another really fun race by the EUOC guys! Really impressed with the course setting as almost every control had a good route choice on it, and they made really good use of the multilevel area which was clear from the course notes/descriptions despite it being pretty hard to tell on the map what was going on!
Felt like I had a pretty good flow and during the race felt like I had spiked all but one control with a v small error - looking back over maybe 3 slightly better route choices I could have made... looking back on winsplits I was in 3rd place until long leg to 22... where I dropped 20s on Laura - slowed down flipping over control descriptions so made the right choice going and buying a long holder afterwards
24 - got lazy didn't check descriptions came on wrong side of fence dropped about 10s
31 - made mistake - ran past stair case... stood around a bit being confused then went back to it - lost 30s
32 - missed a gap but also missed a route choice - questionable as it passes under a bridge and was not mapped as an underpass but others obviously saw it - lost another 30s
33 - think the other route choice might have been ever so slightly quicker - again about 10s
So that's pretty encouraging really that I could have cleared up over 90s of the course and its not purely on running speed that I came away with 4th on women's open! 8th on course two... feeling like the training is paying off a little.
Got on better with the magnifier today - was able to use it when needed pretty easily :)

Two things to note...
Definitely pays to plan in Edinburgh and not rush it as it is easy to miss good gaps! Plan then run hard in between.
A lot of my small mistakes were correlated with distractions today - man standing in the way on spiral staircase/running into a dog etc.... can I do some sort of training to subconsciously refocus from these?