Training Log Archive: ndobbs

ENOL race in Trieste.

First time running since Venice. Decided to see what rest would do for my knees, but have been walking quite a bit so...
...
2nd place on 60+pts... not sure how donatella picked up her 100 pts but :)
first to the bar on several occasions. also held my own inside... vino birra vino*3.5 tequila tequila birra bushmills jameson ...
... took a while to recover :)

it was raining. italians also found the going rough ;p---#

Street-O Venice! veramente un bel posto per orienteering...

1st Emil Wingstedt 65:36
3rd Giacomo 67:09
Alberto de Riz 71:58
Me 74:20
A de R caught me at the 4th control 18 minutes in - started 2mins after me...
... ran each other into the ground after. took it in turns leading depending on whose stitch was worse :)
in total, maybe 2 minutes lost due to mistakes and bad route choice (incl. going to 30th control on the way to the 2nd!)... and that's including anything over ten seconds I think.

Evidently wasn't going as fast when on my own for the first four controls... for the next few we were racing against each other and then racing with each other - staying indept but using each other.
Twice I got seriously helped in among the tourists - found it hard t keep map contact in the thick stuff...

But in general (since I didn't get properly lost), I wasn't impressed with the difficulty level. It remains to get six or seven minutes fitter and learn to run aggressively from the start.
Looking at route choices, I can't see any that are substantially better than the one's I made.

ps, stitch started to become a killer stitch (breathing/running really, really difficult) by maybe the 21st control... by the 26th of 30 I was in pieces... held on to finish but...
... a fair bit of lactic acid ...

pps crossed bridges 75 times during the race... adds up after a while, although I have to say I didn't have too many problems with them...

ICTP to Prosecco, dumped bag, then a trail loop on the Santa Croce map. Sunset over the Adriatic even prettier than usual - the tops of the dolomites were peeping through...

A rather stunning brainwave came to me - perhaps starting off my run from cold with a 5-10 minute uphill mostly on big paving-stones/steps may not be the best for my knees...
... not quite sure what the alternative is 'though

training 'race' in the old part of Trieste, start/finish at il Melon by the castle/cathedral San Giusto.
two loops, 20 minutes total. two mstakes (one dead end and one at the start before I worked out the mapping style), and a bit of time lost looking for a misplaced control. Possibly two slightly bad route choices.

not as fast as I used to be running up stairs... lack of training is starting to catch up...
... on the other hand, that was the first day I felt the knee-cap scraping since Pradis which was reassuring... there's less fluid in there now...

also 10 minutes part warm-up, part taking in controls...