Training Log Archive: roar

Shamrock O-Ringen Day 2 - Crohane Mountain Map.

Wasn't too bothered about this race before the start. Felt I had done everything I needed yesterday... Went out to have fun on a hopefully nice course. Plan was to start easy and pick it up, as always in recent long distances.
1: was a little left but was getting into the map, so many more mapped features than yesterday! Saw the re-entrant with the stream before the control and in from there.
2: Was already feeling tired on the hill but tried to just keep plodding up it. Saw Colm in the upper marsh and shouted at him, "What are you doing up here?". Somehow he heard "you're too low"! Easy control up the re-entrant and in.
3: More climbing out of 2, but then really easy, could see the gap between the two hills.
4: Stayed right to try and avoid some of the re-entrants, was a bit higher than planned but the legs seemed to be getting into this running thing. Easy control from above then.
5: Compass, read some features, see two marshy re-entrants and in over the ridge.
6-7: saw the feature from the previous control.
8: Hadn't really planned this before as the running was so tough, reading the map was difficult. Decided on staying high, again stayed a bit higher than intended but it turns out that afforded me slightly better running. Running up the re-entrant I found a piece of runnable ground! It was grassy and only slightly uphill. It was great! The entry to the control was going to be tricky so I slowed right down and picked off all the features and came down from above it to make the feature as big as possible. Saw Nick Barrable down the hill here and he found the control because he saw me go into it.
9: Had to go down, but hadn't actually decided what I was to do. Was a bit wavy at the start but the rest of the leg was fine.
10: Saw I needed to be careful I went down the right spur. Once I did that it was fine, had a little hesitation half-way down.
11: Could see the hill I needed to get up, just a matter of getting there.
12: Got to run a little along this relatively flat piece. Again it was pretty clear where I had to go. Barrable caught back up to me here and got to the control just in front of me.
13: Very easy control. Barrable was running a bit faster than me on the hills so he got a gap here, but I knew I'd get him back on 14.
14: Compass, knew once I was right of the line I'd see all the marshy features, I did and then it was easy enough into the control, now ahead of Nick again.
15: Higher crossing point and through the god awful marsh. Worst runnability of the day, really suffering. Caught Hugh Power here but no Barrable to be seen until I left the control I saw him behind me.
16: Downhill, past the crags and down the re-entrant.
17: Went to the crossing point, then just up over the ridge.
18: Was tired here and couldn't make myself climb so I went around, but then Barrable got into the control just ahead of me.
19: Trying to pass him out, but no dice.
Finish: Really boggy.

6th, so now in 7th overall! Classic Ruairi form, with a terrible middle and a decent classic putting me in a good position. Was set up for the chasing start now, Dave ~5mins ahead, Barrable 6sec behind. If I had looked at the results at all yesterday I might have tried harder to get away from him today!

Happy though, a lot better than yesterday!

1 - Splits

Event: Shamrock O Ringen 2013
 

Jog to the start with Colm O'Halloran

Shamrock Day 1 - Black Lakes

Started fine, through the crags and straight lined to 1.
2 was when it started to go funny, there was lots more hills on the ground than i could see on the map. I went around them but I stil had a ways to go before the control.
3-5: uneventful
6: Ran across the marsh, wobbled my way down a serious crag. Got confused which part of the lake I was at and then was avoiding climb. Easy control in the end.
7: foolishly stayed low for this. Up would have been better
8: bad direction of of control. Realised eventually and corrected, then went fine.
9: started fine. Looked up said I need to head for that hill in the distance. Got to the only hill I could see, only it was not on the map. Saw where I was then went to the control.
10: Ran down the re-entrant, over the spur. Thoughts were then "Oh I'm in a re-entrant with a hill, that has ferns on it! Only one place I can be!" I wasn't there, but everything I did assumed I was. didn't find it. Came back up and saw Conor running around the the non-existant hill I had trouble with on 9. Tried again from my ferny hill, this time flukily saw it. ~4 mins gone
11-13: easy
14: Lots more on the ground than the map again and I couldn't follow my compass apparently.
15-Finish Just trying to make my legs keep moving.

18th, so not a good start to the weekend. Over 10 mins down on Darren, not good. Wasn't too motivated for the rest of the competition at this stage.

Map

Jogging back with Gina

1 - Splits

Event: Pre-Shamrock Sprint-O, Ross Castle + Island
 

Shamrock warm up event in Ross Island. It was set up so two people could start together, which me and Conor did. We agreed to not look at our maps for the first 200 m, which shows how much we cared.

It would take a very long time to describe everything that happened in this race, but suffice to say that it was a complete travesty. Everything went wrong (big mistakes, wrong order of controls etc.) On top of that the map was really dodgy and some of the legs were terribly pointless.

The forest looked nice though.

Map

Event: FVO-Wed Evening Events - Polmaise
 

Was a bit late, so an up tempo jog to DVC, where it turned out there was no one anyway. Just me for the session so I had to come up with something on the fly that I was happy to do. Then continued my warmup while I thought about that.

6x 400m 60s rest
A relatively easy session, but I'm fine with that considering the Shamrock and I was by myself, so I was happy I did one at all.
Started the first one at the wrong pole so it was too long.
93 88 87 86 84 85

jog home

Water of Leith run.
Was horrible weather after the weekend, which in reality means it was nice, and legs were feeling pretty good. Pleasant.

They were a lot more serious about me not taking the closed path today and there were detour signs up, so I followed them.