Training Log Archive: Old Daniel

NGOC Event at Cranham and Coopers hill. The introduction of the later makes the area much more interesting as the former had been well used.
Banana (and quite an over ripe one at that) to no 1, offline at 3 and stopped short at 17 -otherwise ok. A pleasure to run in nice woods with a cleat map and well chosen legs and sites. A bit disappointed by weakness on hills both and down. Dobs hurt my left foot but for me essential on this type of proper forest terrain may not help overall pace

Warm up etc

From Priory at Portbury. Sunny afternoon but with a nippy wind and very occasional patches remnant from this mornings snow. Started again with four layers and had to stop to take off a couple. (Time decremented). Suspected time would be longer (it seems quite along 6) so quite pleased

Purdown standard run twice through the wood -forecast seem to be driving snow so ran early to avoid but dressed more appropriate to a blizard. Of course it did not snow just damp so very over dressed. This may have contributed to what was seemed a real plod

Warm up

If you were to critique my 'O' races over the years -you would probably say it was the inability to concentrate for whole races, many being marred by the odd poor and often atypical leg.
BAOC event at Minley. I had been quite excited to go to a new area and a look at an old Routegadget revealed an area perhaps 4x than the postage sized used. So although I confess a little disappointed I had resolved to concentrate through the 29 controls. I was ok to 13 here I found my thoughts drifting away from the race, I had to determined to cross some semi open at an angle, I had actually gone a little further and now needed to run N but the angle was in my head and no compass so too far East. The control was just N of a small path or just S of a large one and I misinterpreted by picking up an unmarked path further south so a 3 min leg to an easy control became 7+ A bit angered I stompted off through the terrain rather than the safe path route and attacked the next a clearing in some low visibility from a major track junction. I was a little to far east and then circling randomly too soon -went out of the back and relocated. Came in again to same place and perhaps not surprisingly still no flag. Went back to the track junction ran 50 m along track -accurate compass to distinct clearing and flag. This time 3 mins had become 9+ and although other controls were ok, the zip had gone and a reasonable performance was now rubbish.
In US sports speak man v forest I am at 2-2 this year so things to work on.
Overall quite a nice little area, of which the 'control picking' style made good use and well worth a visit.

Oldbury Court session 11 x 2 mins with 90 secs. Chest not completely cleared -not very pleasant

Still just not feeling right -so abandoned thoughts of the BOK run

Blaise from the car park - seems a bit of a favorite at the moment - I guess it avoids Purdown mud. Wet day, waited for it to clear and ran late

West Woods - extensive felling/ thinning has left much of the wood a bit horrid and the tracks muddy. The wood has much more bramble than its earlier usage when much was glorious. Did almost no warm up as they were running out of maps and I am still 'running steadily' because of the cold. Good news was that the ankle was fine -perhaps running in dobs helped. As for the race looked at the wood which seemed a bit grim so went round the track, which made Glastonbury look dry, until I reached a near dead stop and then took to the brashings for some relief, so that slit won't be great. I also made a complete dogs breakfast of No 16. Mostly went quite straight despite mud, brashings, bramble - yes I did enjoy the outing! Not very quick!

Lowland walk with Charlie around Purdown 2.5 miles in 70 mins