Training Log Archive: Mark3

Actually finding it pretty painful to walk today.

Day 2. Pretty mild night for the time of year; no leaving sleeping bag discomfort at all which was a bit weird. Got up an hour and three-quarters before our start time (5:45 for 7:30) - this was a good amount of time for not having to rush anything. The bagpipes at 6am weren't a shock this year!

We were 15:06 behind in the "proper" chasing start - none of the 3-minute-intervals stuff like last year. After being interviewed by The Adventure Show on the start line (the first of several times camera crews mistook us for an elite team) number 1 was an easy track run which we nailed to claw back some of the 15 mins. Then #2 was 400m ascent in about 1000m up a ridge; hard work but easy navigation. The manned control at the top told us another team had been through 8 minutes ago - it was going well.

Throughout the climb we'd been discussing which 4 from 6 we'd get; this was much less obvious than yesterday. In the end we went for Jack's choice (the shortest) after going through the positives and negatives of each. I had wanted to stay high and take the longer route avoiding about 150m of climb but being 1.5km longer; it looks like exactly none of the other teams did this which implies it probably wasn't a great idea. When routegadget appears, have a look and see what you'd have done. I was also worried the descent would be slow due to the grey contours (rocky slope on a Harvey's map) but in fact we barely noticed these - consistent with the mapping of the area, but not with previous Harvey's maps I've used - grey slopes in Mourne were basically impassible.

Down into #3 was out of the cloud so it was another navigationally easy leg. Then another slog up to #4, but we were rewarded with both another camera crew interview 'on the run' at the top, and our first sighting of the team ahead of us - we'd caught them! They were holding onto us going to #5 but I hoped it was just them over-exerting themselves; and this may have proved to be the case as they dropped away as we disappeared into the fog for #6.

We had a little bit of a scare in the fog again at #7; the hill just didn't 'feel' right, but it was another easy control and we didn't lose any time. #8 was a straightforward downhill leg with another camera crew at the control.

#9 was the time at which my body started to fall apart. I'd been getting a bit of knee pain (#OMMKiller) starting on day 1 when going down hills, but it hadn't been that major, but contouring steeply down was obviously the last straw and it started to get very painful, and my pace slowed a lot. This was a bit of a shame as I usually like downhill in terrain. We opted for the 1km longer path route as the ride looked pretty rough and I thought my knee would be able to handle it better - this proved to be a good choice as we saw some teams looking pretty destroyed coming into the control from the ride.

Then to #10 along the path, started to get shin splints in both shins but pretty badly in the right leg. Shin splints! An injury I'd previously regarded as "something other people get". I googled it and said 'tends to affect beginners'. Dammit.

It also said the main cause was tight calves - I had suffered from very tight calves after running pretty quickly at both the Weston Prom and the Aztec 5k, and I think maybe those were main cause, and the previous 9 hours of running was just exacerbating it.

Anyway, the last bits through the forest were painful but straightforward - actually the whole day was navigationally much easier than yesterday, and we had pretty much a perfect day.
https://www.theomm.com/results/OMM2016/classc.html

Onwards to the B class next year, although will need a new partner again. Jack wants to do the long score (if he does it next year) and I was definitely slowing him down, especially today. I think there is less of a difference there than between Tom and me, though, so maybe I can convince him to have another go on a longer course. Owain would probably still be up for next year though, we we'll see!

Looking at the B Class results from this year, I think we'd have come a respectable third (definitely in the top 5). This is based on the RAB results, where the pair that were 2nd on the OMM B class were 30 mins ahead of me on the RAB B class, and I beat the pair that were 4th at the OMM by an hour and a half at the RAB.

This is a video from someone doing our class - it accurately shows the fog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1umBmuBwENM&in...

EDIT:
Day 2 - http://www.omm.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#93

The race I've been looking forward to all year.

Started badly. Light drizzle and slight fog; drier than last year but worse visibility. #1 probably the hardest control on the course (no RG yet), but we agreed on a mile of track running then following a wall and then a stream to get us to an AP as close to the control as possible. This route didn't go through a crossing point, but we figured the crossing points were optional as the boundary wasn't overprinted.

When we reached the boundary, it was a 12-foot tall deer fence.

We concluded that the crossing points must actually be compulsory. Therefore we ran an extra 800m along the path to reach the next crossing point, crossed the fence, but then had a much worse AP (retrospectively, an AP 600m away in the fog on a 1:40k map is not an AP). The fog had worsened by this point; it wasn't quite hand-in-front-of-face stuff but it wasn't possible to make out any useful features until you were standing on them. So, we got to roughly where we thought the control should be and then we faffed for a bit trying to make the map make sense. Other teams would emerge from the mists every so often looking equally confused. We wanted to go and find something to relocate from, but there wasn't anything for about a mile that we would have any confidence in. Eventually we thought we'd located the marsh just above the control, and followed it south, and sure enough we were in the right place. Our initial bearing had been quite good but we hadn't travelled anywhere near far enough along it before starting to control-hunt; ie we had totally failed to get into the scale.

50 minutes to complete the 1300m leg to #1. We knew we'd lost at least 30 minutes by this point - it wasn't going well. Still, we hoped that due to the fog, others would have lost time too, so we didn't let it get to us.

While thinking about the route to #2, we realised that the boundaries must be crossable, since the same boundary symbol was used in lots of other places on the map, but with no crossing point symbol at all, thus making some controls effectively impossible. Therefore we should just have crossed the fence. But dire warnings of disqualification have made us wary of crossing anything that looks well-maintained and massive. Something to remember for the future - if it hasn't been communicated, cross it anyway.

Took the long path option to #2, sticking with the pre-event plan of taking any path routes possible even if they were quite a lot longer. However, halfway along the route the terrain looked okay, so we decided on the down-up route across the terrain - this saved us a lot of time in the end although we nearly got caught out in the fog again by some dubious control placement ("East Foot" = "Pretty much middle of Crag, nowhere near East Foot").

Contoured to #3, making good use of our identical altimeters - we dropped out of the fog here and could see the feature from miles away, making this straightforward. Then for the optional controls - any 4 from 6. We'd had quite a long time to debate these, and basically went for the closest 4 allowing for the route to #8 (taking the path route). Terrain was pretty rough around here so there was a lot of run-walk. We missed one control in the fog (which GPS looks to me like it was in the wrong place by about 100m - although we'd still have missed it even if it had been correct, so that's not an excuse!). We didn't lose more than 5 mins, maybe.

#8 was okay but a tough climb after the boggy, indistinct path run. Then took another path option to #9 with another tough climb at the end. Followed by a technical #10 into the fog again where I chose to breakaway from the crowd and go to the trig point as the closest AP, and then take a bearing, and this proved a good decision as we never saw anyone else again.

Final control was straightforward taking us into the campsite, although DM and DN placement several hundred metres apart (although on different features) caused disqualification for quite a few teams).

The longest I've been out for and probably the hardest single day MM I've done. There has been a lot of "you should have done a harder class" going around - but I found this pretty tough. Also, I don't think you should feel bad about entering something that you have a good chance of doing well in.

And indeed, we didn't win today; we were 15:06 down:
https://www.theomm.com/results/OMM_2016_Saturday_R...
We knew we'd lost a lot of time at the start and so hoped we could pull it back on day 2, but we had no idea how much time the winners might have lost and so nothing was certain.

51 teams completed the day; a further 27(!) mispunched and a further 10 retired; therefore 2nd/88.

EDIT:
Day 1 - http://www.omm.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#87

Airhop.

EDIT
Results: http://www.bristolandwestac.org/2016/10/26/aztec-w...

They've robbed me of a valuable second! Time amended to 17:49.

PB! Finally.

3:36
3:32
3:35
3:38
3:32

Boom. Very busy at the start; boxed in for at least 1k before the field spread out a bit. This probably helped me not go too fast. Pushed really hard up the hill on the 2nd and third laps as I know that's where I usually lose time. 2nd i was able to accelerate and felt ok, but by the third my legs were entirely lactate and I couldn't maintain the pace by the top.the last 2k were pretty grim but I knew it was going to be a pretty good time so held on.

Resting for Aztec, because it looks like good conditions tomorrow and I seem to be in quite good form, so may as well give it a shot...

C • Aztec 2

EDIT: Satisfyingly dominant; http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/d...
(worst split 5th, two 4ths and all the rest in the top 3)
and the massive numer of ranking points should take me back into the top 100 :)

1st when I left...

Very nervous going into this because open with thickets is generally terrain where I make horrendous mistakes. So deliberately planned on taking safe options and slowing right down when necessary. And it worked!

Long way around the green on 6-7 was twice as far as the straight line route and thought I might have lost time here, but split time very similar to Phil's. Then very safe on 9 choosing the closest AP i possibly could seemed to pay off as well. 21-22 took the more risky route through the marsh which I think was a mistake, but not much time lost here either.

Not quite a perfect run, but near-perfect; very pleased. Feeling the 16k yesterday for the first half, but feeling pretty good by the end.

Inaugural Parkrun and conveniently on the way to Malvern, so would've been rude not to I reckon.

300 people there but mostly the course was wide, and only 2 laps meant overtaking was easy. Really nice cross-country style course. The road runners were not impressed, but I loved it. Will be a great one to do one it gets muddy (along with Stonehouse).

4th, behind Ciaran, Adam and Scott - all people I'd expect to lose to, so that was alright. Good start to the day! Calves a bit tight from Weston.

Maybe regretted Parkrun slightly going up the hills...

Good start. Building mapping slightly questionable round #3 but at this scale I'm not sure you could do much else; maybe lost 15s. Hesitated at the road junction between 3 and 4 being a bit careful; another 15s. Another small hesitation before 5 as I'd read the control description for 6 and was wondering where the tree was.

6-7 tried to cross the crossable hedge but it definitely wasn't so had to backtrack; there's probably 30s there. But then took the South route up the steps thinking that you could get to the control from the road, saw some steps through a wall like I expected to see and then got really confused why the map didn't seem to match up, so stood around for a bit. But eventually matched the hedge; and then forgot about it. Afterwards realised that I'd accidentally cheated here by running off the map - given it wasn't an trap or intentionally cheating, and I think I probably lost time here anyway, I didn't dq myself. Lots of other people seem to have done this too (I realise that doesn't make it okay! If the organiser appeals for culprits I will offer myself).

Bad route to 8,30s lost here I reckon.too much extra distance and corners up the zig zag and cutting it was too steep for trainers really.

Lucky on 10; stayed high thinking there might be a way through but running downhill all the way wasn't conducive to using the magnifier.on 11 the stepped route probably wasn't the best choice either.could've cut the corner a bit to 12 as well. Basically losing seconds all over the place but running ok.

Had Adam to chase from 13 until lost sight on 18. 18 was distracted by crossing point purple when bridge was better AP, but didn't even see it.

Wrong way round for 21.

Should've cut through the green on 25;I see now that there is a path through it but it's about 2mm long and is partially hidden by the North line...

27 I didn't see the long easy road route to the E but think it might've been faster. Did consider the road route to 28 but decided it was too far; however with all the steps and corners, bet it was close.

Really good event.far from a perfect run but no massive issues.not fast enough to be near Leon even with no mistakes...

More garage tidying.

26th/373
PB :)

Very good conditions. Tried to ignore everyone else and pace it well; pretty much worked.

3:43
3:44
3:40
3:44
3:37
3:49
3:40
3:39

Weston Prom race tomorrow; also have some exciting garage-sorting-out to do that just can't wait.

16 x 250m (60s)

Basically sprinting. On grass, in the dark, no torches. Definitely dangerous, even on a flat field. I'd probably take a torch if I was doing this again. Someone ran into a fence on rep 2 (*).

Garmin is measuring these as 260-270 which is very possible as no-one could really see the start/finish cones due to the darkness.

250s: 53,58*,52,51,52,52,52,53,52,52,52,51,51,51,52,50

Pretty consistent. Definitely would've been a bit faster in the daylight.

Feeling less ill today, so hoping that's the end of that.

Attempted quite a few segments; failed at all but one.

Chased by a dog for a bit.

Jog round Bramcote.

BOK 3rd and my run counted; hooray! Good to have a reasonable run at a big event since that doesn't happen very often.

23rd/78
http://www.cix.co.uk/~neper/csc2016/results.htm#BR...

Safe to number one via the pond, trying to avoid the slope but it turned out it didn't get any easier, so cut the corner eventually; the forest was actually pretty runnable but there were so many paths, it was safer to stay on them. I know this will have lost time against cutting the corners but defintiely the best strategy for my personal level of ability....

Only real mistake was #5 where I strayed onto a notpath (which I thought was the case, but I thought I could pick up the path later one) and then had no confidence about where I was; relocated by the road... that basically cemented my earlier conclusion and I stuck to the paths as much as possible after that; probably lost 2 mins here.

Another minute at 12; overshot and got to the big hill and then realised.

Some more safe routes implemented properly and then caught up with a group at 20; think this was Jack Benham and someone from SELOC and someone from EPOC. I thought at the time that they'd caught me, but actually I had caught them. We ran up to about 26 taking it in turns to drive the train, which was really fun and I think it's the first time I've been actually taking an active part in driving the train and pushing really hard, rather than just being a passenger - really good fun. Pulled away a bit to the road crossing but then took a different (safer) route to 30 and had to recatch them. But then got ahead again to 33 and then led to 35, but got a bit crazy trying to go to fast and get away to 36 and had to slow down a bit to relocate; got caught by the group again.

Then on the long leg, could quite keep up with the SELOC guy (who freely admitted to being a runner) but was pretty close to him, we dropped Jack and EPOC and picked up someone from ShuOC.

So despite the area not being particularly inspiring, actually really enjoyed the event and glad I made the trip.

Just a cold.

Nice course, 95% grass. Felt good despite blowing nose every few hundred metres.

1st.

3:35
3:37
3:34
3:40
3:33

Quite enjoyed most of this. Bit low down on #3.

Pretty sure #4 was in the wrong place; would have lost time anyway since my first approach was nowhere near it, but then took a bearing from the PJ more or less due south of it and didn't hit it; I think garmin pretty much proves that this was slightly off, and in an unmapped depression slightly NE of the actual depression. I was one of the first starters and so there was no-one else hanging around in the area, which made it even more challenging. Also the MTB paths aren't mapped and the path that is on the map is no different from the other paths which aren't. So I'd run out of things to relocate from and had basically given up; was just wandering about thinking about what to do, and happened to turn around and see it. Bit annoyed, but then it was only a small even, so meh.

Happy with rest of controls; mistake on 11 where I was within about 10m of the control but convinced myself I was somewhere else. Found the fence and thought it was the other fence for some reason, even though that was ridiculous.

Glad I got the mistake out of the way today, though...

5x[600m(60s),400m(3mins)]

I thought these were quite consistent but being dropped by the group, especially on the 600s. Starting to accept I'm just a long distance runner. I am ok with this.

600s: 2:04*,2:00,2:00,2:01,2:02
400s: 78,77,78,78,77

*my heart rate strap fell off in the last 100m, reminding me of why I hate the damn things. I'm definitely going to move to something with optical HR next.

As expected; consistent.

Recovery run; thought I'd go with BOK since it was close to my house. Steady pace; felt tough near the middle actually but was feeling good by the end.

4 x (500m,400m,300m) with 60s and 3 mins recovery.

Couldn't quite make myself do 5 sets. It was a reasonably long day yesterday. I was a bit worried about body parts falling off but actually I only felt CV out-of-shape...like usual.

500s: 1:42,1:41,1:40,1:40
400s: 77,77,79,78
300s: 55,55,55,56

Pretty consistent considering, but the 400s were beginning to suffer.

34th / 281 (men)
http://www.sportident.co.uk/results/2016/RedBullSt...

This went basically perfectly.

Was getting worried before I started that the standard was going to be much higher than expected; there was a definitely absence of the older generation that you normally get at trail races. Looking at the results there are a few MV40s but about 90% of the field looked young and fit. Ulp.

I knew there would be people going off crazily fast, but I also knew that 8 miles and 500m meters of climb to the first elimination was not insignificant, so I paced myself to a 4min k along the road at the start. Most people did not do this. Unfortunately the next k was a narrow climb that a lot of people were walking up and there was no chance to overtake, so lost quite a bit of time here (2 mins?) but not overly concerned as still ages to go.
Went through first timing in 74th place, so knew I was easily inside 220 and thought was probably safe for the 100 too, and that 20 was out of the question, so it became just about getting as high as possible.

Some of the coast path is genuinely stunning. I was very glad to have trained enough to be able to appreciate running through scenery like that.

59th by the first knockout - was very happy with top 60 and by this point could only see one person ahead so thought that was going to be it. Great fun overtaking people on that they probably thought was a mountain but after doing a fell race...it was a reasonable slope, but no more than that. I overtook a lot on the technical downhill as well.

Then the wheels started to fall off...everyone else. I just kept running at the same speed and was up to 50th, then 45th, then 41st, then 35th by the end. My last split coming into the finish was 15th fastest - I'm very pleased with this.

I was amazed to see Kit at the finish and to find out I was only 27 seconds behind him - I hadn't seen him since the start line. He was 6 and a half minutes ahead of me at one point. He was nursing a bit of a calf issue but I'm still taking this as a good result. An extra couple of k and I'd have had him...

9 minutes away from top 20 - not bad over 18 miles. Due to some very dubious maths (never do maths while running - I got from 16k being 10 miles to 32k being 16 miles...) I was expecting 33/34k, so was pretty surprised when it ended at just under 30. The good news is I would've been happy with the extra - legs starting to ache a bit but otherwise good.

Results afterwards show I was 4 mins ahead of someone with a 2:44 marathon time - I think this shows I've definitely improved at hills!

Race-wise; very good organisationally, there was one and only one place I'd have put an extra route marking sign; hoodie included and also stew, bread, cream tea... And unlimited red bull. Will definitely be entering next year.

Good use of SIACs for the timing as well, with boards that showed your position as you passed them.

Up early to arrive for 8am to put some controls out for Phil. Pretty straightforward apart from one where I'm not convinced the feature existed... I don't think I have ever actually orienteered here before?

1st/3 when I left. This was the first day of a long-o weekend; most people were doing the 1, 2 or 3 hour score, but I don't like scores - luckily they put a blue and a green on too. Didn't push too hard due to being conscious of the race tommorow, but still, was nice to be out running on Dartmoor. This bit of it was very rocky, and the non-rocky bits were pretty rough. Going round the paths was much faster when it was possible; there was one leg near the end where I should've done this. Only really one mistake on #3 where there was a lot of contour detail not on the map - because it was too low, undoubtedly, but the control feature when I did find it did not look to be any larger to me than the unmapped bit. But not fussed really; was just a nice day to be out running :)

Finally got around to writing up the RAB MM :) 2 weeks late!

Packing; etc

Probably should have done the Coombe Dingle session really but it was a bit too much effort to drive there :(

4x1500m(2mins),(5mins),8x100m(100m)

1500s: 5:27,25,26,23

Beautifully paced.

100s: 17,18,17,17,16,16,17,16
These weren't flat out; each one was concentrating on a different aspect of running form. Tried pretty hard on the last one though, and it was about a second faster (which rounding has destroyed).

Planned all weekends for rest of year; was going to crosstrain afterwards but it took ages!

Couple of efforts; only one proper one since that's the only segment I could remember exactly where it was. 2nd of 300ish; miles away from Ciaran at the front though.

2nd/38
https://www.fullonsport.com/event/badminton-horsel...

Pretty pleased to finish inside 1:30 given it was entirely on grass and there were jumps to climb over and water splashes and things.

Lovely weather for running as well, in nice surroundings.

2 second PB for this course; not really sure how! Good running conditions though.

4:02, 4:31, 3:49, 3:15, 3:12

Compare with previous attempts;
4:04 (4:02)
4:37 (4:33)
3:48 (3:47)
3:16 (3:20)
3:07 (3:12)

Good weather, ground boggy. Walked quite a bit of the uphill. Then lots of the downhill was too steep for me; gained ground on the gentler bits but lost it to the crazy people sliding down on their arses.

Good fun though.

Jog up and down Pen y Fan from an angle I haven't approached from before, with Richard and Ben.

Feeling pretty good considering.