Training Log Archive: Frostbite

6 days day 6 - Grandtully.

The area didn't look much on paper but turned out to be a really fun race, mostly fast running in straight lines but with patches of low visibility which meant that if you weren't accurate on your compass you could lose chunks of time. I was slightly off line on #3 but could see it, hesitated before #11 to check what I was doing when I saw the control on the pit, and crossed the upper crossing point on the way to #16 when the lower crossing point might have been quicker - maybe 45 seconds lost altogether. Martin caught me at #7, I got back ahead when he hesitated before #8, and then again at #11 when he made a mistake. He got back in front at #13 and pulled out half a minute to the finish.

11th, best result of the week, helped by Martin, a lateish start, and a mainly downhill course. 4 mins down on Alastair.

6 days Day 5, Craig a Barns.

Quite a good run, only mistake was nearly going too far around the hill at #12 and missing the top of the re-entrant, 20 seconds lost. Also I went around the green at the start of the long leg when straight through would have been quicker apparently, but I was happy with the rest of the leg to the left of the line and coming downhill into the control. And another few seconds lost en-route to #11, where I was too far left going through the green before the crossing point and hit the track too high up. Probably could have been a couple of minutes quicker, but on the whole I was happy with the run. Disappointed to end up 25th - I think it might have got easier for some later starters.
15 minutes down on Charlie.

6 days Day 4, Culteuchar & Dron. Very easy orienteering across open grassy hillsides following elephant tracks. So easy I managed to slightly miss #3 and more significantly miss #5, but I was just trying to run hard and not really getting anywhere. Leaving #6 I went for the straighter line over the hill which probably wasn't the best anyway, but it would appear nobody else had been that way and I was up to my knees in tussocks and then heather. I walked most of the way to #7 and then carried on walking to #11, from where it was mostly downhill. I started enjoying it a bit more in the woods at the end.

61st place, 30 minutes down on Simon M. A waste of a late start.

6 days day 3, Dundurn & Cnoc a Mhadaidh. Best area of the week, really enjoyable woodland with rock and contour detail and mixed runnability. It was all good until Dave P and his MI6 shadow came past me on the climb up to #12. They didn't seem to be going very fast but I still couldn't keep up and the last time I saw them was as they went into #14. I had maybe tried too hard to keep up and on #15 for the first time on the course I wasn't sure what I was doing. Some other runners (including Kirsty I think) led me into it, but only after I had nearly gone past and turned myself around. The result of that was leaving #15 90 degrees off line and missing the very short, very easy #16 by a minute. I'm not sure it adds up but somehow I am sure Marky is to blame.

22nd place. Charlie won in 32.

6 days day 2, Edinchip. Uninspiring moorland and mixed woodland area at Lochearnhead. Early start meant I was making the tracks, and this was after picking the ladies up from the airport and getting to bed at 1am the night before so I was never on the pace. The open moor was very easy and I could see Chappers pulling away from me from his 1 minute start. Last time I saw him was #5, the last control on the moor. I lost half a minute at #8, looking at the other boulders first before spotting the control hidden in the bracken. Went over the top of #11, another 30 seconds, then was pretty good from there to the finish. Looks like I got the right (legal) option on the "Route choice across the uncrossable stream" leg, over the northern bridge. At #15 and completely out of the blue I saw Chappers leaving as I was coming down to it. I realised he must have made some mistakes in the last part of the course and if I sprinted back up the hill to the finish I could beat him for the day. I hammered myself up the hill and along the run in and took a whole second out of him, but that meant I beat him by 20 seconds or so. At least I had beaten him until the great uncrossable stream debacle in which I lost 3 places and Chappers gained 5 and he overtook me. We both took perfectly legal routes but mine was better, so when the leg was removed he gained and I lost. Not fair.

I finished the day in 41st place, but then got demoted to 44th for having made the right route choice. The time given is for the course without the voided leg. Niklas Rönnbäck won in 53 minutes.