Training Log Archive: Frostbite

VHI relay, Hillsborough Forest.

Apart from being knackered, felt much better today. My legs were a bit sore but as soon as I started running I felt I could be aggressive and push the pace, which I hadn't been able to do at all the day before.

The relay format doesn't give you much clue as to how your team is doing. We seemed to be a long way down when Lucy came in but I think actually we were doing ok, and I had Eddie Harwood and Kevin Harding to chase maybe a minute or so in front of me. I passed them between 4 and 5, and didn't really see anybody else on my loop. I did see lots of people on other loops, the courses being quite convoluted and going through the same central area multiple times. I lost a few seconds each of the 3 times I had a control in this area, maybe a minute in total. From other people's comments that wasn't too bad.

I don't really know how long I took, there are no official results yet. Alison looked to be running really strongly at the finish and brought us back as the leading English team, in third place about 3 minutes down on the Irish and also behind the Welsh.

England won the VHI by a huge margin, possibly helped by the scots getting their relay teams a bit confused.

VHI individual, Rostrevor.

This was a bit of a struggle. I never felt right all day and the weather wasn't helping - low cloud, rain and quite strong winds on the tops. I started in my cag and should have taken it off once I was in the forest but it seemed like too much effort. Lifeless, couldn't get going at all. I was telling myself it was because it was such hard going but I was just as bad on the tracks when we got to run on them.

Anyway, mostly technically ok - 30 seconds lost at #6 looking on an unmapped ditch first, 20 seconds lost on #7 looping round the hill. The last section through the forest I was really struggling and more or less walked into #12 and all of legs 13 and 14. Then it was back out onto the moor and a bit of a disaster leg. Not much visibility in the cloud and I was probably not where I thought I was when I left the forest. I put a lot of effort into running slowly up the hill and never managed to locate myself on anything. I told myself this was fine because sooner or later I would hit the track by the mast, but I managed to be way to the right and didn't hit it until I was nearly at the wall across the top of the hill. It was simple enough to run down the track to the control from there, but I had done a little extra climb and a lot of extra distance by then. 5 minutes slower than Charlie for this leg - I am guessing 3 minutes down to the mistake and another 2 minutes because I was going so slowly up the hill. From there to the finish was all good apart from getting stuck in some vegetation trying to cut too much corner at the bottom of the steep slope between #20 and #21.

Not very happy with that, 14 minutes down on Steven Linton and 12 down on Ben, but as far as points were concerned it wasn't too bad because I managed to just pip Angus Tyner, and Fraser looked like he was struggling with an injury and was over 2 hours.

I am blaming our travel arrangements. A tea-time flight would just about have been ok if it was on time but we ended up arriving at Belfast International after 8pm and by the time we had sorted the hire car and found somewhere to eat it was after 9pm, and that was only fish and chips which wasn't ideal.

Fastish to the bench, 11:25, jogged slowly back. ok.

Seven Arches. Slow. A bit snuffly.

Round Hill, trying quite hard but not going very fast. I was aiming for under an hour but lost the path in a bog on the way back and lost a minute or two. I'm not sure how, I've run through the same bog many times before.