Training Log Archive: Leon

Event: NOC Urban Event
 

Nottingham Urban Race - 1st, 43.09 (1 leg excluded)

Quite warm, and legs quite tired.

Probably deserved a bit more promotion this event, rather low key for a 'big' city race.
Slightly more testing than yesterday route wise, but again too many 'medium' legs, certainly a leg 16-18 and 23-25 would have been better without the intermediate controls, and the area around 26/27 would have suited some short legs at the end.

Anyway, took a while to get going in both sense, confused by boat at #1, and should have come back out to #2, and gone east side to #3.
Then fine until #11 when didn't spot cut through after climbing steps to west of #10.

All fine after that, except didn't spot until afterwards that should have gone west into #28 and through tunnel.

Pleased with my weekend overall.

Gloucester urban - 2nd, 42:02

A pleasing run, though as others have commented, not the most tricky of courses. Legs in much better order than yesterday.

Overall, the first 10 legs and the last 10 were fine, but the middle 12 were straightforward and required litte route choice or planning.

Looking at where I lost time to James Hoad, apart from obv he is a faster runner!

#8 - slow and cautious as didn't reall clock what was going on on map, though realised soon enough (20s)
# 13 - lost another 20s here, but no idea how, maybe avoiding people? (20s)
#22 - on realising you could get there direct from east, went south, but hindsight suggests north is quicker (20s)
#24 - went south, lost 15s so was north quicker? doesn't look much in it (15s)
#29 - lost 30s here because of locked gate, had to backtrack to previous path. one of those things (30s)

On most legs wasn't much in it, which is good.

Really not sure how necessary kerb lines are on the map.

Event: Triple Gloucester Weekend
 

Event: YHOA Urban League
 

Various warm up/warm down/jogs

SYO Ponderosa sprint - 7th, 20.31

Disappointed to arrive and enter and find no maps left
Given the relatively late appearance of any details other than date and location online, it didn't appear there was any onus on entering in advance (much like Nottingham and unlike Gloucester) so you'd think they would have gone with an excess of maps rather than cut corners.

So had to hang around a bit.

Anyway, started off OK, first 3 fine but legs really struggling with incline, can't have been the only one

Messed up 4 by trying to approach from SW but uncrossable, and so was caught by 30s man on exit, held him off to 5 but legged it off the wrong away under pressure and then misread CD at #6 and he was away and gone.

7 - 12 all fine, but had caught up with myself planning ahead by this point, so started to go to 14 instead of 13, thankfully realised or would have been another sprint mp disaster

Was then slow at 13, and to 14

Very crowded round 15/16 so not sure route choice to 17 was the best might have been easier on road to south

Didn't clock CD at #19 but not sure how much difference this made given this was only way in anyway

Fine to finish

Not as bad a run as initially thought.
Didn't cope well with being caught but more unhappy that legs didn't go as fast as I liked.

Ponderosa sprint final - 5th (2nd for this one) 17.28

This was good.

#3 - stood by control without seeing it low down for a few seconds, had caught man ahead at this point
#5 - almost overshot until saw it from corner of eye
#7 - almost went easterly route, not steps. But saw everyone else ahead going steps and so put foot down to get on tail of bunch
Slow on exit of #10 whilst adjusted direction on exit

From #11 to finish was great head to head racing

Remembered where #14 was from last event here, and gained some time, then got a couple of place by using ramp not steps to #15

But lost a bit by gambling on east route to #19 which was slower and bad entry to control

Finished strongly

Was helped by having people ahead but think still was in control of planning and running hard for 95% of this


Only afterwards realised I should have jumped some of the fences round the blocks of flats etc rather than slowly clambering underneath

Well earned rest day.

Allens West to start

CLOK Coatham Woods event - 6th, 46:29

Strange area, new woods basically so not fully formed, either very runnable or not runnable at all.

Four big errors
#3 - couldn't see ditch crossing at first junction so convinced myself I had took path to left (hadn't) and so went right and dived into trees after that, which was wrong as I was right in the first place, ditch crossing must have been in there somewhere
#7 - had veered right more than I thought to stream, an understandable mistake
#8 - misread map, which was a bit unclear really and couldn't cross ditch despite path being either side, as thick hedge in way, had to go round
#9 - stream looked uncrossable where I went, faffed about before crossing somewhere shallower.

Planner made the best of the area as there weren't too many features other than the boundaries and paths and streams. Tried to run a bit harder in places but map contact should have been better in a well defined area, mistake to #3 was very avoidable.

Train to catch! Not helped when Urlay Nook crossing was down...

River south. Waited for the hail to go. Started feeling good but leggy by end.

Out to Bramley on the canal. Tired.

Bramley Fall O - 6th, 27.34

3 big mistakes, the rest was fine, but the last mistake was shocking really. Always have one shocker per series, lets hope this was it.

Slow on the canal, feeling tired but getting it done.

River north, very windy

Track - 10x 500 (60s) 5 x 200 (40s)

Really good - a bit tentative at first, 1.34 but moved through the gears and last 3 were 1.27
Dead on the 2s but never mind.
Felt good, worked hard.