Training Log Archive: ndobbs

over 15 before, 21.5 and 2.74km afterwards

Wow!
Polish Middle distance champs. Hats off to Wojtek for a fantastically tough course. It was wonderful.
First three controls were all uphil, 3rd was a longish leg (7:30 for the fastest, 9:43 for me) to get my HR up to its max for the race... following which he dropped us into a patch of green with the odd patch of yellow and lt green inside and a couple of rocks.
I said to myself it was going to be tricky, and slowed down as I neared the circle. Left the path knowing exactly where I was, rounded the first green patch carefully, then lost it... just headed in the general direction, veered off, didn't trust myself that it was further down... came back out, went back in, found it second time round without any real pbs here, but lost 5 minutes in the process. Doh. Not the only one to have done so either... many lost time here.

Next control I only take part of the blame for losing 2 minutes on... map didn't give us a good picture of the terrain, actually went within a couple of metres of the control (pit in light green, lots of small trees in long grass... early start so no tracks either).... came back out, verified i went in in the right place... found it.
that was uphill, so was 6... on a rocky spur sveral contours big... then across rocky ground into mostly light green across a bland slope. Stopped for a minute to let 10+ boar go by... knew where i was (yellow+boulder), 125m across slope to control and i messed it up - stopped short. doh. probably 2 minutes lost (fastest 3:14, me 7:39... pussyfooted in the stones).

afterwards it got easier, still physically tough and required concentration and a bit of drive to run through rough ground and through green and up a hill...

really intense course. brilliant!

except for losing 10-15 minutes... :(

Place 16th of 37

regarding course length: Wojtek was planning for internatinoal standard (in particular with WOC in Cz in mind). So could Thierry G have done this in 36?

Kowalski ran 49 I think and said he made maybe 8 minutes of mistakes (despite this being "home" terrain). It's definitely reasonable to think TG or Smola could have run 37-38... which isn't far from 36.

So why the hell was I nearly 70 minutes? :(
I'll have to come up with an answer in the next month...

C • 1

3.89km according o Garmin (4:12/km)

Polish Sprint Champs,
Wroclaw ZOO!

I think I remember seeing elephants and something which could have been a giant boar... the orienteering was technical enough that I had to concentrate on the map-reading.

Great course, a couple of really nice route choices helped by the irregular layout of the animal enclosures. Probably lost 10-12 seconds on mistakes and maybe 10 seconds on a route choice. 8th place, 1:24 behind Maciej Grabowski who won.
However Kowal ran almost a minute faster but ran past the control at the end of the bridge without punching....

Interestingly, MG only beat me by 35 seconds or so in a 5km race (17:2x v 18:01) the week before... so obviously I'm not orienteering as fast as I can run - I lost a minute but only counted up to 20 seconds time lost. Either I'm hesitating too much or not pushing hard enough. Need to train more!

mostly before

Apparently the organisers got in a little trouble after some people decided to take a shortcut through the zebra enclosure. The zebras didn't appreciate this too much, nor did the zoo manager.

Possibly the first and last race there.

river run.
tired today, but more lack of sleep due to too much daylight preventing me from recovering from the weekend. Physically rested - my HR after standing still for a while wiating for Garmin to wake up was 60-61...
and able to run reasonable fast without hurting too much...
started slowish, then sed up after ten or fifteen minutes... reached 6km mark in 32 and decided I could make it back in 60... which I did, averaging 4:39/km back... part of this on trails and there's also the wee uphill into town, so a fair bit was under 4:20...

felt nice, not hurting... although the rt calf is, as ever, a little tight.

tourist jog. found out where hala wibrowska was... went through a couple of parks... looked at some photos of how this part of Warsaw was once upon a time...
incredible the waste of fine buildings... we should get the green party to ban wars...