Training Log Archive: Olivia

Good tough class tonight, thankfully it was mainly aimed at upper body work since my legs are a tad knackered. Lots of press ups (over 140) and dips. The skipping rope was introduced today and it was good fun, I haven't skipped since I was about 11 so initially kept whacking myself with it, got the hang of it by the end... I'm probably gonna bruise though

C • Skipping 2

3rd Leg with Susan and StephP, it was chaos as I headed out so I had no idea what position I was in. Saw Susan before I headed into the holding pen and she told me just to floor it as the nav was pretty easy. I headed out hard and hit the first two perfectly, slightly mis-judged 3, which lead to another headless chicken moment (grrrr), but instead of running around I headed back to the path, attacked it again and hit it bang on the second time (-2mins). A little hesitant onto 5 I was headed from above and wanted to make sure I was running onto the correct re-entrant, -30s. The rest was easy peasy and I just went as hard as I could. I tended to take the high route at all times, my legs didnt have anything in them for climbing.

I need to work on confidence, hills, and speed in terrain over the next couple of months as they really let me down this weekend.

Jog down to the start with Susan

The less said about this the better, had a plan to take the first few slowly and build from there. Overshot the first and lost probably 2/3 mins relocating and realising if I had gone right around the first sink hole instead of left I would have seen it. Took the second nice and slow, split the leg into 5 pieces hit the first 4 perfectly and then totally messed up the end, 15 mins later I finally worked out where I was and dropped down into it. Again I was about 30m away from it when I decided to impersonate a headless chicken. Susan was into 2 ahead of me and we converged as we approached 3, as we left we ended up taking different lines and I completely screwed up 4, I could not make head nor tail of the map and eventually I packed it in as the rain came down and I started to get cold.

Took a bearing and headed down to the track, I was gonna head straight home and then decided to try and remind myself that I could in fact map read and needed to be able to for the relay. So picked up 7-12 and then dropped onto the road and headed to download. I need more practice on 1:15 maps in technical terrain, I bailed in Craig a Barns and I bailed today so somethings not right.

Jog up to start with Susan followed by a couple of mins on the model map

So many mistakes!!!! So managed to cock up the first control, came off my line too early and spent a couple of mins to work out where I was and realise I was waaaay to short to the first. 2&3 were fine, was running on a bearing to 4 and came off line, distracted by a watery pit that wasnt mine. Had been passed by a girl from HOC at this point so the next couple of controls were battled it out.

Made a mistake to 8 as I got pulled off my line by the girl, I knew she was wrong but still got pulled about 20m off line and then could not find my sink hole, eventually worked out where on the line I was and it was easy enough to correct from there. Again found myself pulled off the line to 11, I was nearly back at 7 when I worked out what I was doing and bounced off a nearby marsh to get into the control.

Too hesitant onto 18 there were so many people around but nobody was headed across the path which in turn made me doubt myself, I finally trusted my instincts and was bang on. Over the road crossing and screw up the second last control, well done Ol, head down the wrong ditch and wonder why there is not pit/control on your right, headless chicken moment and then fix it.

I need to work on not being distracted by people around me and hill work, two things I struggle with today.

Jog with Susan

Event: JK 2014
 

Gentle warm up with drills

Plan was to go off hard and maintain the speed for as long as possible. The first couple we grand, they also got better once I remembered you were allowed to go through the hedges. Maybe floored it a little bit too much through the spectator as I missed the steps upto the next control, and then couldnt decided whether I could jump the green on the curb, so I played it safe and went round, promptly falling down a few of the stairs on the other side, so 8-9 -30s.

Through the tight loop in the buildings I kept catching sight of my 1 min girl so pushed a little harder to close her down, finally caught her coming out of 17 but a massive mistake at 20 let her get ahead again. Everything I know about orienteering went out the window on the way to 20, compass (whats that?) reading the contours (nope) I picked a direction and ran, it was not the correct direction and then spent 2.5 mins trying to work out what tree my control should be on since its not on the one next to me.

Back through the gardens, and hanging on to the girl that passed me on the way out of 22, used her to push me hard over the last section of the course. I was mightily pissed off with myself come the finish

Jog with Susan

Shortest warm up in the world, I jogged round the field a few times whilst dad set up the exercise

Practice for reading control descriptions on the run. Dad set up a shuttle of about 20m and the idea was to memorise the description on the run, then pick up the corresponding card at the far end. Pick up card and run back, only checking the number half way so if you got it wrong you had to go back and try again. I was terrible at this to begin with, but as I got the hang of it/removed half the cards it got much better!

Second version, cards were split into 2 piles and the map was properly introduced. At the decision point if you would go left or straight, head to the pile on the left, otherwise head right. Apparently I'm not that good at identifying the shortest route cos I was permanently looking in the wrong pile. It was good fun and really made me concentrate so hopefully I won't have any control description related mis-haps on Friday!