Training Log Archive: Frostbite

Double Dukes long distance, Trossachs.

Again I was not feeling great at the start, this time with digestive troubles. Curry trouble. Anyway,trundled along with minimal mistakes and survived to the finish with an ok time but a long way behind Charlie and Ben.

Winsplits says I made a mistake on 6 but I was just slow getting across the slope and maybe stayed a little too high for too long. I went for the valley route to 14 leaving the climb to the end of the leg. This might have cost me a bit of time when compared to the more direct contouring route, but at least I couldn't go wrong. Jon X lost 3 minutes to me on this control, which ultimately led to me beating him as he went to pieces over the last 5 controls.

6th old man, beaten by one W20.

Double Dukes middle distance Blue, South Achray

Didn't get a good night's sleep with palpitations all night, and just felt a bit out of it at the start. Ran past the path to #1 before I realised where I was and ran up the hillside to it rather than the open spur, maybe 20 seconds. Half way along 1 to 2 I started reading the parallel leg 6 to 5 which cost me about 15 seconds of confusion although I was still just about moving in the right direction. #4 I was slow up the hill and just when I had nearly got to it I persuaded myself that I hadn't and swung left, confirmed where I was and came back again, 30 seconds.

After that I was good until I encountered the fence. On the way to 13 it just appeared half way along the leg without me having spotted it on the map, and I had to go around it to the right. Using the upper crossing point would have been better. Another 30 seconds.

Then on the way back to #15 I insisted on going back inside the fence so that I could choose the wrong crossing point again to come back out. It would have been much better to stay outside the fence altogether. 45 seconds lost. Charlie went around the outside and caught me at #15, then took another minute out of me from there to the finish.

And finally I lost 7 seconds between the last control and the finish. I punched the last control and headed for the tent with the control in front of it, when 90 degrees to the right was a large finish banner with a control in front of it that I just hadn't seen. I was heading for the string course.

Not too bad a run but not in control of things and not running particularly well. Nice area, better than it looked on the map. The undergrowth screen was unnecessary at this time of year.

Round the Hollies and Meanwood with Evie. I've been trying to persuade her that she needs to do something other than steady running if she wants to get faster, so we went to do some tempo work in the Hollies. My idea was that we would do a longer hilly loop, but I set off too fast and Evie exploded on the first big climb. She took a while to recover and then we did the climb again at a slightly slower but still quite quick pace, then jogged home. She did well to have another go because she was not happy at all after the first effort.

It's about a 4 minute climb in in 3 sections with flat bits in between.

Verrrry slow to Bywater with Tasha

Bit of an effort to seven arches. I was a bit heavy legged and it felt slow but it wasn't.