Training Log Archive: ColmM

Jukolaträning.
Mass start course with 3 loops totalling 9km.
Very rough forest physically with a lot of rocky ground and heather / grass underfoot.
Warm weather plus other things meant I was wrecked. Maybe not hydrated enough either.
Stayed with the group on my loop for just half of the first loop then dropped back a bit, Walked a bit more and that after as I lacked energy.
NIce area, tough terrain though.

Must drink more water before bed in future. Tired now.

Öl-OL - 3rd
After a lot of football today, finally came the Öl-OL. Went out hoping to do Ireland proud. Ran hard and drank hard.
Lost time to Nicke drinking but was gaining a bit in the forest.
3rd place at Sammandrabbningen - probably the highlight of my orienteering career thus far.

C • Surprising 2

Travel and stuff, football in the evening with GbG.

Some of last weeks maps

Really bad sprint - couldn't run.
Bad middle - alright race for the most part with 1 annoying mistake, then blew 4mins at the end as I got tired.
Good long distance - still lost 6-7mins in total but strong throughout.
All in all - pretty shit, blown almost any shot at WOC, there's an outside chance.

But I may get to start my Scotland base training very early!

For more detail see each race below, maps hopefully to come.

Training - Hinterbech
Ran the training from last week after it had gone badly then. Still struggled with this mapping style, felt the veg was overmapped and impacted on readability of the overall map. Still, better orienteering, skipped a couple of easy controls I had done before.

Platabek - Middle training.
Feeling surprisingly strong. Back to the middle area we ran on last week which we had black and white maps for. Nicer with colour, as expected.
Went over my ankle on the way to one of the early controls and subsequently skipped a loop, and walked a bit. Continued on cautiously.
Caught Ruairi after skipping the loop and from then on ran more.

WOC Long distance selection race - 2nd Irish. (+14mins on Nick), (+39mins on Thierry).

Finally a decent race, but the obvious reality is it's probably too little, too late.

Started well, and pretty in control. Very nice through the first 7 or so with no real time loss and nice navigation. Not running very quickly, but fluid, and decent stride. At 7 a finnsh lad (4mins) caught me, and subsequently dropped me going up to 8.
I planned ahead a lot on this climb though, and it distracted me so I felt fine running it all, before conouring from the tra bend into the control. Speed down to 10 resulting in my first stupid mistake, coming down the spur then off the the track into the control I was slightly too late and then dropped too low as well. A little faffing but I came back and got it (1.30mins).

Up the track to 11 I had some of my gel, and passed Conor coming down ("Is that 4mins?"), took some water, but then followed the elephant track towards the control as I put my gel back in my pocket, but the track missed the control and I ended up too low and wasted some more time trying to reloacted the control (1.30mins).

The next finnish lad ot me punching 12 (8mins), and I headed out of the same way as him, actually deciding to change my route and go straighter down the trail as opposed to around the hill on the road. Alone again and climbed well enough into 13. Climbed straight up out of it, and up to the track junction for 14 and then ran quite quickly from there. Back in control and running well, but a climbed a bit too much out of 15 and ended up higher than the track I wanted to hit and had to drop down (30s).
Alright through the pre-spectator controls with only minor misses.

Over to 19 I stayed right not having to climb as much, and getting nice running. To 20 and the start of the butterfly I decided to take the left track, this worked out alriht, but getting up to the track over some cliffs took more time than anticipated. Suddenly there was snow and it was very cold in the butterfly - also much trickier orienteering. Slow and steady through it, it started well, but a bad mistake on 23 where I lost concentration. and couldn't find myself again (2.30mins?). Finished the butterfly and surprised myself still feeling strong, took the right-hand route choice, but hit the road way earlier than planned and lost some time (20-30s).

Ran well through the final loop, feeling strong and navigating cleanly, but fluid through the nice area. Good to feel decent at the finish. Happy enough with the run despite the silly mistakes, very good to see my endurance is in a decent place and din't really notice the ~800m climb.