Training Log Archive: ColmM

token

Donadea summer series
respectably close to conor, but given it was a semi-reasonable technical performance, still got smashed.
Lost 30s on 5, and 20s on 18, and multiple <10s issues.

Long - Splits

pine forest 10 with corbett.

flight delayed 5hrs.
made an obstacle course out of the queuing ropes and ran it ~80 - 100 times.
got competition from some wee kid.

EOC Relay
brutal.
dead.

EOC Middle - B final

Started alright but a bit scrappy. Lost ~25s on 3, searching for a way in. Took a wide right route to 6, probably not ideal, but hard to know.
Into 6 I caught the back of a train of women, went through most of them on route to 7, but just coming into it, the Russian girl went straight & I decided to drop more - I lost over a minute & this train of women had left me, ouch.
To 8, I was too low, and blew over a minute again searching at more rocks. Probably ~2:30 - 3:00mins on these 2 legs, ouch.
Crickmore & roar caught me here.

Crickmore dropped us, I followed roar along his route to 10, staying high early on. Got a better line across a river & myself and a Ukrainian got a wee gap.
Knew I needed to take 2mins out of roar to make the first relay team.
Took over, and worked hard, but the terrain was high visibility. Navigated relatively well, but not perfect on 13, and exit out of that control was also dreadful.
Still, kept going, navigated well enough, but was never putting that sort of time into roar.

Lost maybe up to 4mins, but not more really. Eoin's time is impressive.
Blatantly have work to do.

EOC Middle Quali - last again

Better today, some progress.
Still a little scrappy & not as fluid as I'd like on some controls (2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17).
Sjöberg caught me (6mins) at 17, I intended to tuck in on the remaining downhill, but dropped my Si Card on the way to 19, and spent 8:30mins looking for it.

Estimation of around 35-high / +7mins.
Mistakes to cut out.
Disappointed to be last again, even if a little unfortunate this time.

C • Classic 3

Middle model - downhill

Longer warm up today was somewhat beneficial.

Baby-steps

EOC Long Qual
Absolutely shattered. After the last few weeks I suppose.
A bit embarrassed, to say the least.

Czech baby

Minimito.
Felt like shite, but was 4-deep, off 3hrs sleep.

pretty dang tired.
Met up with taggart for a few on the pitches.

"The miles may run themselves, but the pints don't drink themselves". Truth.

minimito

easy jog with Róisín. Most lovely.

started steady, but by the end I was going hard enough.
Enjoyable orienteering, nice course, and fun addition with the scale change.

Nice to beat CNOC on their turf eh

LONG - Splits

minimito
pre-exam

sick & knackered

Been feeling really bad the last few days, culminating in getting sick yesterday evening, and today a little.
Probably just exam related, or maybe food actually.
Bit of an eejit though, so I've kept running.

minimito - illness beating me down

On the pitches. Again just knackered.
But ran into a post-pints Taggart which made the run a bit easier.

Out to Bushy post-exam, lovely evening but felt like shite.

from the engineering building. this was late.

pitches

The usual.
I offer no explanation as to why my gps offers no map data.

low mileage week, and the next couple are likely to be similar. We'll see.
Not a bad time to get a wee break.

10 wu, 20 tempo, 10 wd.

short solo tempo - barefoot, and taps aff.

easy lap with corbett.

Just a run. Another one.

On the pitches. Legs not feeling the most sprightly early on.
Some pain on the inside of my shin / calf last couple of days. And tight achilles to add.

Some more minor mapping.

C • mapping 3

Home a little early so got out to Bushy with a bit of brightness.

Latest I've done yet. Again, nearly off the wagon.

Some guy was driving round the estate with his hazards on stopping at every house and checking out their front doors. Second time I've seen this in the last year.
Sketchy at 2am.

Event: Irish Orienteering Relay Championships
 

Disappointing IOC overall.

4 sub-par performances. 1 surprising result (temporarily).
Good to see where I'm at.

IOC Relay - DSQ

Jaysus, nearly DSQ in 3 of the 4 races.
Doesn't bother me too much here, 2nd, 3rd, DSQ it's all the same result - you lose.

Absolutely farcical relay, but don't think it necessarily affected the result hugely. Impossible to know what would happen on a normal map, but usually I find the best still come out on top when the area is dodgy, and that wasn't UCDO, by a long shot.

Multiple controls in the wrong place, inconsistent mapping in many places, but mostly the map was actually alright. Gaffles this year, but not sure if it was worth it, because the unequal lengths were unfair and could have jeopardised it if the relay had been tight on last leg.

Great shame because the middle & long were great events on great maps, and well organised. That won't be forgotten about the previous two days though at least.

Personally, had a bad start to the run with a 15sec miss too high on 2. Down to the track to 3, cut up at the right time, and searched the forest but pretty clearly no control in or around here. Back down to the track and into the forest further along - there is a control on a different feature.
Hard to imagine how people will have nailed this because you needed to overshoot by quite a bit (on the track it's not much further, but if there had been 2 controls and someone had gone to the far one, it would be a bad mistake surely). Lost 1min - 90sec there, not sure.

I was still a bit poor though and was uncertain on 4, and on when to cut in on 5. Another 30sec.

Fine from 6 through 10 but just a little de-motivated and not moving well enough. Fine for 11 because I had heard people chat about this, but very badly in the wrong place again.

Fine fir 12 & 13, but took an earlier ride than I should have to 14, and was hesitant, cost 15-20sec I would estimate.

To be honest, fine from here home, but just not putting as much in as I should have been.

Disappointing end to the weekend & the UCDO career.

C • Spikes 2

IOC Long - 3rd

Hadn't read the final details, crossed a wall on the way to 29 not at the crossing point, so maybe I should have been DSQ again. Yeah, I guess probably I should have been.
I said it to Andrew, and he played it down, but I think partly he just didn't want to have to deal with a repeat of Friday.

Ideally it would be marked with a purple line on the wall, it's hard to break the line for the crossing point in this case as there were 2 options. Or ideally too it would be mentioned at the start in a note.
But there's no doubt about it, I should have read the final details.

I often don't read details or look at old maps etc because I like the "challenge on the day" type thing - but it's just careless when you consider situations like this.

Anyway, started quickly to get into it, and was fluid through the first three. Holy shit Conor crushed these legs and I can't get my head around those times. I was good there, and quick.
Miss on 4 as it was very hard to read, but when I stopped I made sense of it and corrected for a 15s loss.
Good line to 5 and hit it bang on, but to 6 lost a bit of concentration trying to keep the pace high and was down near the river when I got close - 20s.

Up to 8 I struggled to figure it all out and lost 20-30s. Struggled a small bit on the hill to 9, but not too bad (eeek good bit behind on it).
Alright to 10, and went for a low route to 11 to keep speed, which seems to have paid off.

For 12, I decided to basically climb a bit early, straight line it, and come over the ridge around the pillars. I read the far side of the ridge as all being rocky, but in reality some was very rocky and some was stony ground. Coming through the rocky part was very slow, and gave my first major time loss of about 2mins, including some hesitance coming down into it. Which was a shame because I had gone very fast along the first 3/4 of the leg.

Kept a little high to 13 and no problems, dropped down to 14 fine, the marshy walled area was obvious from above, but lost a little confidence when it went out of sight.
Went high above the green to 15 and seems everyone else went straighter, was alright on the climb, but straighter may have been better.

Felt I was moving well to 16, but lost time to others, maybe was in the circle a little.
Moved alright up to 18, but had to walk bits. Nailed 19, but not flying.

After the river crossing I was starting to struggle physically, was too alpha-male for a gel and started paying the price here. clean through 23-25, but hit the nearby control on 26, lost 30s, and was generally slow climbing.

Slow climbing & hesitant again on 27, lost confidence half way to 28 and turned back (15s).
Went around to 29, aiming for the crossing point, was on target for it, but when I saw it, I decided a slightly higher line might be nice. this was quite nice for the control, but also lead me onto the path of others and stopped briefly to help someone.

Easy controls remaining, tried to move strongly enough but clearly losing time to Marcus and Eoin.

Disappointing to struggle so much at the end. Was supposed to be strong enough. Technically, much better today, and mostly alright, but a lot of work to do to be as fluid as Conor was early on, and disappointed to lose so much on 12 - that suffocated my race a little.
Still, know now that a lot of the good stuff is still there for long distance.

mostly disappointed to have died at the end though.

C • Hills 4

C • Final details 10

Long Course1 - Splits