Training Log Archive: martin(uk)

Still can't put much weight on my right heel, but I can run uphill, without using my heel. Visiting Hayman family in Italy, so ran up first half of Sacro Monte from Marky's new house in Varese. Very nice ciocalatto caldo at the cafe at the top, followed by a beer in the sunshine.

Can walk, but only by keeping weight off my heel. Ouch.

Hurdles training at the track. Jogged a few laps, then set up 4 hurdles at 110m spacing and height, trying to get the stride pattern working. Managed a couple of good sets, but then hit a hurdle with lead leg, and landed very heavily on one foot without managing to bend my knee. Jolted all the way up my spine. Aargh - seriously painful!! Tried to run it off, but couldn't. In fact I could only just walk. Lesley drove us home.

Event: York City Trophy (the 8th)
 

York City Street Race. Started with a trail-o section in the NRM, which was fun but resulted in a 20 seconds penalty for getting two controls wrong. They were a bit dubious, definitely a case for an argument, but it was just a bit of fun so no point.

Ran the course fairly well, no mistakes just a few hesitations in the circles. On several long legs felt a bit sluggish, still got to keep working on fitness and speed before Portugal.

Managed 2nd place Vet - Steve Watkins beat me by 20 secs, but that may or may not have been because of my penalty points - will need to check the leg 1 splits to see.

C • New concept 2

Scottish Relays, Tullochroisk. Same area as the individual, but on the 1:7.5k version of the map. Another nice sunny day, more tremendous views from the assembly field.

Arrived to find that I'd been put in the M40 handicap team with Charlie and Colin Smith (as expected), but I was doing the 3rd (shortest) leg. Quite happy with that - had been up quite late with JonX and other halves the night before, drinking various wines and vintage whiskey.

Charlie came back with the leading pack, Colin ran well, and then I had a fairly uneventful run too - just a slight wobble when I caught Pete Gorvett (who I knew was also running a C leg), but it turned out he was on a different gaffle. Knackered at the finish, but we'd won the 6 point handicap class.

warm up

Tullochroisk - Scottish Champs. Decided that the course would be physically pretty tough (a lot of climb), and that I'm not fit enough yet, so instead I'd try to just have a clean steady run. Missed #2, but not too badly, then got into a nice flow. Was a great day, blue sky, and great views of the hills and Glen Rannoch.

Was still going steadily at the end when the course came into some intricate little hills and crags. Rob B caught me (though he was obviously running 21E) so I pushed a bit harder to try to stay with him. Unfortunately I also lost concentration, and navigated from 17-18 as I was leaving 16. Was slightly surprised to be too far left for 18, but corrected myself, chased after Rob, and finished. Only found out I'd missed 17 at download. Doh!

Never mind, it was such a nice day to be running on the hills, I enjoyed it despite being DSQd.

warm up & run to start

Spring Cup, Loxley. Arrived late because of train delays, and wanted to get away promptly to watch the Champions League final, so just jogged round the first two thirds of the long course.

Harvester Relay, first leg, SYO handicap team.

Lots of debate before the race about who should be running which legs, but in the end Charlie took the long last leg, Dave P took leg 3 and I ran first leg. With Neil on first leg for our A team, I was confident I wouldn't be keeping up with him, so I just wanted a steady run. Hmm.

Set off up the hill on the long first control, amongst a fairly big group that slowly got smaller and smaller. Much greener on the map and on the ground than I was expecting - lots of holly bushes were making it quite difficult to make progress. The bearing seemed about right, but none of the tracks seemed to fit. Never mind, Jon Cross seems confident, I'll just stick with him. Then he stopped dead on a path and started looking carefully at the map. I reckoned we were too far left, so after a quick check to the left I ran to the right and re-located. Found #1 ok then, but well behind others who'd found a better route. #2 was easy, #3 was back amongst the holly bushes but foiund ok.

Overtook a few people but at #4 everyone around me went straight through the block of forest (on another gaffle) but I had to turn back and find it. Far more holly bushes on the ground than on the map, and I lost several minutes. Then missed #5 as well, but re-located more quickly and got it second time. Managed #6 and #7 ok, then there was an easier section through the spectator control.

Lost another load of time at #13 looking for a pit, where again there seemed to be much more green on the ground than on the map. Loads more time lost at #14, an earthbank in the green. Spent several minutes crawling on all fours under holly bushes religiously trying to follow the earthbank, but not finding the control. Out to re-locate, back in to the same earthbank. Eventually found a flag in an unmapped clearing next to the earthbank - what?!? It was almost funny.

No problems at 15,16,17, but finished in 66 mins, which was at least 15 minutes lost. Went to bed not very happy. Rest of the team ran well, so we finished only 68 minutes behind our A team (I thought 70 down would be a good target, and would win us the handicap trophy).

C • Green stuff everywhere 1

C • "Jon Cross seems confident" 1

warm up

Event: Harvester Trophy Weekend
 

Event: JOK Chasing Sprint
 

JOK chasing sprint, prologue, Bloom Wood.

After several poor runs recently I decided I would really try to focus on this race, get the technique right, and have a clean run. It worked. The course wasn't too difficult, but I got into a nice rythm and nailed nearly all the controls, with just a slight wobble off the best line on one leg.

I didn't feel like I was running especially fast, but I decided to save any pain for the chase and finish the prologue with a little energy to spare. In the end it was good enough - I had 14 secs lead over Charlie, and Quentin was almost a minute behind.

JOK Chasing sprint, chase.

With Charlie only 14 secs behind me I decided he would certainly catch me at some stage. I didn't want to get caught by Quentin, as I didn't fancy taking him on in a sprint finish.

As it turned out the first two controls were really close to the start, so I was very slow and careful through them, and Charlie was with me leaving #2. That was good - we then worked well together, Charlie leading me initially, then me taking over for a few controls. Between us we hit them all and were running fast. Charlie started pushing hard on one of the uphill sections out of a valley, I dug in and stayed with him. On a longer uphill leg he would have dropped me, but it was only a couple of contours.

At the penultimate Charlie still lead, but I started pushing, punched first at the last control, and sprinted hard to the finish, just a couple of seconds ahead. Nice to retain the flying pig trophy for the Vets class.

warm up and run to start.

Ecclesall Woods training. Really nice evening - sunshine, bluebells and not too many brambles. First time I'd run on the new highly-detailed map of Ecclesall, which requires intense concentration! That's not something I'm good at after work, but anyway it was a pleasant run.

Warm up, run to start.

Touch regional event. Was feeling quite tired running uphill to the start (I think Friday took more out of me than I realised). Missed control 1, a group of three boulders, because I stopped to look at a group of three boulders that didn't seem to be on the map. Found out afterwards that they were on the map, but totally obscured by the control circle - annoying. Anyway, that only lost me a few seconds, whereas I lost several minutes due to running too slowly in the tough Scottish terrain, just too knackered / unfit.

Had a reasonable run technically on some challenging terrain, but missed a couple of controls late in the course when I struggled to read the map - it had worn out on the folds, and was turning white, obscuring the detail.

A good weekend of orienteering, even though I wasn't happy with my result on either day.

Stirling Sprint race. Great new map, great course, and apart from the rain that caused the pavements to become really slippery it was great fun. Had a decent run except for one control (#13) which just completely baffled me. I didn't see that the uncrossable metal fence had a gate in one end, so I was looking for a way in to the control (to the left, down the steps to the right, behind the building, etc) and couldn't find it. Eventually realised the gate was there, but wasted 2 mins, stupid!

Warm up

The Great Rail Challenge, a charity fund-raising day of krypton factor type challenges for teams of 4. Various wacky sports throughout the day, which roughly equated to half an hour of intervals.

Training at Greno Woods. Nice terrain, nice course, very pleasant sunny evening. Managed to run up the last hill, but only slowly. Still fairly unfit, but feel like I'm now over the cold and subsequent cough I've had for weeks.

Cawthorne National Event. Tried to have a steady clean run, but got really annoyed with the terrain that was brambly and rough. Missed at a ditch control, where another ditch was hidden under the control circle. Then missed at a depression in some vague white-with-green-splodges forest - must have been within 10m of the control at least twice before eventually finding it, 5 mins lost. Finished not at all happy, at least 9 mins lost.

Warm up and run to start.

First Hallamshire athletics fixture at Hull. 400m hurdles went reasonably well (64.7), just needed to push harder earlier in the race. I had enery left in the home straight, but couldn't stretch out properly because of the last hurdle.

100m hurdles was fairly hopeless (20.6), but at least I got to the end without knocking any over or falling. Have got to try to get the 4-strides pattern working all the way down, to avoid having to switch to 6 half way through the race. PB is 20.4, and that's definitely beatable.

Managed to avoid getting roped into the steeplechase, 5k or triple-jump, just.

Warming up/down for two track races.