Training Log: PeterM

Fen ditton. Fresh, but so sunny and nice. Byron was a wild guy.

C • Byron 4

WU. Quite literally reeling from the mind numbing boredom of filling out CUOC’s sport centre grant application.

Return of the woc loop.
6:47, 6:27, 6:44, 6:39
Interesting stuff. I took the map of the course with me on the first two, just to get my head back into the route and make sure it was memorised. Then for reps 3 and 4 I took different maps to read the routes from: Finnish champs quali and European Unis quali, aka the James Ackland Dibber Smackdown.
Surprised by the difference between #1 and #2. Suggests what I suspected, that I need more sprint style on warm up to get me in gear? The map reading on #3 and #4 was interesting, definitely felt more comfortable on #4, which may just be because the Finnish map was of a printing quality so gash it hurts.
Probably best not to overanalyse, but the map reading at speed is a good thing to work on and this felt like a good way to do it, so I’m happy with that.
Pleased with this again. Wore the clompers to protect the ankle, which was all good. Onwards.

C • #1 and #2 2

WD, past murder street.

To gym

Featuring a bonus appearance from Josh. Feeling pretty inadequate doing exercises next to undoubtedly the most jacked harey (slim pickings to be fair).

Chlaps

Grantchester with Maya and Ellie. The cows are back - hurrah.

Morning mooch. Chilly.

WU

Track
8 sets of 600(200),400(400), 4x200(200)
My goodness me that was so boring and long. Worked down from 1:46 to 1:41 and 68 to 65 respectively, then did some 30s and 29s.
The only exciting thing that happened was I managed to go to the loo at the end of set 6 and not miss the start of set 7.
Gonna need to be the guy who brings sprint maps to read on the run cos my mind was going to some weird places here. Good work though.

WD

To gym

No single-leg stuff but otherwise a decent sesh.

Squally chlaps. Excellent rest is history episode about Byron, a fellow trinitarian.

Grantchester, initially with milly and then just Ewan when she peeled off to be sensible. 60 seconds or so of rather painful hail spiced things up. Good chat. Ankle fine.

It turns out that I am entirely superfluous to requirements for FVO to do the JK/British double. Love to see it.
Stiff ankle this morning but totally fine at the event. Back to business (minus rough surfaces) from tomorrow.

Shake

WU

British Champs Long - DNF, spectacular mode
To say this was not my day would be offensive to the very concept of days.
Set off cautiously but well, emerging unscathed through the first techy section with some safe routes and careful nav, as was the plan.
Hesitant to #4 when everything suddenly started making very little sense but picked things back up. Defo lost time through dodderiness though.
And then it all went wrong. Got stuck in grot leaving #4 and hit the open, which was not very nice, and saw the forest and thought that it looked nicer, so went there. Nicer is a word used cautiously - it still looked like the set from 1917 after a prolonged rainy spell but we take what we can get.
I soon discovered this forest was full of deeply rutted tracks and was decidedly not nice, so resolved to hit the path ASAP. I thus happened upon some mud of unknown depth, thought to myself ‘how bad can it be, it’s right next to the path’ and confidently stepped forward.
Except I didn’t step forward. I stepped down. A long way down. And suddenly I was treading water (or really mud) up to my neck. Not good for me, or for the sport.
Clambered out and realised that literally everything on my person was now covered in mud. Cleaned my map (great idea) but realised that a clean map is not particularly useful when your hands have become mud, because, reader, you need your hands to hold a map. This meant the next few were effectively banter orienteering - constant map cleaning then destroying, a guess at what the circle might look like and a punt. That I was only 3 mins down at spec is actually quite heartening.
Tried to do a clean up job at the water point. This did not go well. Then set off into the far felled section and was flailing everywhere, really unable to read any detail. Pretty hesitant stuff regardless of the circumstances - I’d just lost mojo.
Up to #14 and then exiting this control I rolled my ankle. Did lots of swearing and grimacing, then some shouting, then some walking, then realised that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t my day. It’s the second ankle roll that kills you (see Finnish relays 2023) and so I decided to bail and do the walk of shame back.
Upon downloading I had the extremely surreal experience of Steve Cram suddenly appearing in front of me and asking me all about my race, including a particularly astute observation of ‘you look very muddy’. This was helpful, because up till this point I had been unsure as to whether or not I was indeed muddy.
In all seriousness he was lovely - cool to meet him and have a chat, even if only cos I looked like some sort of circus freak! Really gutted to retire - I don’t do it lightly and it sucks, but there’s too much important stuff coming up to not jeopardise, and an average run at Mulgrave woods is not my hill to die on. Respect to the guys who got round.
No run for me tomorrow - again, frustrating, but to run would just be a total capitulation to my fragile male sense of pride and ego.
We live to fight another day. Just slightly muddier than we were before.

C • 2nd ankle roll that kills you 8

C • Bog 4