Training Log Archive: Mark3

3rd behind Tom F and Oli W. On paper this is exactly where I should come so pleased with that - and only 4s behind Oli. Won 4 legs of the 30 which I'm happy with too. Enjoyed the course. My desire to stay out of the forest as much as possible on urban events paid off - my worst legs vs other people were the ones where I took the muddier route; it was faster to stay on the hard surfaces even if the routes were quite a lot further. So bad choices on 7 and 27. The only other one I was annoyed about was 21, where I didn't even consider the best route which was coming at the control from behind.

https://www.mdoc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#335&co...

https://www.mdoc.org.uk/results-archive/2021/2021-...

Torrential rain and flooded roads on the way there ended up in a calm and sunny run.

93rd unique parkrun so getting closer to the elusive 100! I hope I can squeeze in another 7 without having to drive more than 45 minutes, but a couple of the next 7 closest ones are closed courses in prisons...

Pleased with this time. The course is really fast for the first and last mile (ish) along an old railway line (flat, good surface) but the middle mile is through the woods which had steps, slopes, corners and plentiful mud. It was hard to stay upright in road shoes at times. Lost a few seconds when a marshal indicated to go left, I turned left and he said "no, not that way".

Fourth for first half, overtook someone in the woods but then overtaken by someone different on the fast bit at the end. Good fun in the slight drizzle.

2nd behind Oli W and ahead of Nick B, so happy with that.

A little thrown at #1 by the wall being much higher I expected. Happy with route choices. Maybe could have run a bit faster without parkrun this morning, but doubtful enough for the win.

https://www.mdoc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#333&co...

2nd behind Oli W again. Disadvantaged in that I was one of the people who punched the finish box from part 1 before they'd replaced it, and so contactless was off for part 2 and I had to punch everything.

I had the feeling that that was going to happen though so at least I was prepared for it.

One bad choice on #4 taking longer easier route whereas straighter was quicker. Otherwise happy with choices again. This part was less of a sprint and more of a very short urban.

https://www.mdoc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#334&co...

I can only see my own result but I'm not on the leaderboard since MapRunG now requires a code to upload the result, and I left the pub before getting that code... However looking at others' results it seems like I did pretty damn well

despite the whole thing feeling like a disaster. Set off North (I often set off North on score events because I like that the map is the right way up; this is a terrible reason but it's true) and realised pretty soon that since it was MapRun I hadn't looked at the clue sheet and so had no idea what the points values were, how many of each there were, how many controls there were altogether, or the penalty for being late. I put these fripperies out of my mind and started ignoring some controls I thought were probably relatively low value.

A couple of controls didn't register first time but did after less than 10s once I'd gone to stand in the right place. Maybe 30 of the 37 were perfect and lost no time, so still way quicker than manually writing answers.

In the middle of the course I started missing some higher value controls since I was worried there still seemed to be an awful lot of the map left to cover - but then two thirds of the way round changes my mind and decided I was going to be back early and so I should just be getting everything. Finally once I got really near the end I realised I had no idea whether I had already been to these controls earlier as it was raining so much all the streets just looked the same (wet).

Other than 20 points I could have trivially got in the two minutes that I was early, it all sort of worked out in the end. But more by luck than judgment.

My big toe went through a 10 minute period of feeling like it was broken and making me run all weird, before becoming fine again. Other than that I felt like I was running well in the middle of the course; definitely slowing toward the end though.

6 ascents of kerridge ridge with 6 of us - I was nearly keeping up with the front 3 on some of them at least. A bit of waiting for the latter 2. Still 15 degrees which is a bit weird in nearly November although very windy.

Lots of stretching again and my hip was ok tonight so I'll have to keep that up.

Not many things you can leave in the oven whilst out for a couple of hours, but luckily a Christmas cake falls into that category and now my house smells amazing.

Did a load of stretches beforehand and consequently, feeling good.

Shorter than usual jaunt up to Shutlingsloe and around to Terry's memorial bench and then back down. Just 4 in the fast group but a great turnout of about 30 from a club on a pretty mild evening.
Feeling good.