Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

NOL long at Lok Cabay. Felt optimistic at the start - it's the first time for a while I've gone into a long race without wondering deep down whether I was going to fall apart (a feeling not really backed by tangible evidence). That optimism was dashed pretty quickly, though - on the long vague first, I thought I'd undershot when I'd actually overshot and dropped a couple of minutes, not the start you want to get off to. Robbie caught me there and didn't get away quite as quickly as I thought he might, but was still out of sight by the end of the first butterfly. Settled down well with just a couple of minor drifts in the flatter areas, and ran quite well to halfway. The next miss came at 16 - Craney caught me there and I concentrated too much on what he was doing and not enough on the map (we lost 30 seconds there, which lost him the race), and another minute was lost at 21 - a flat leg where missing low had the potential for disaster, and I was so focused on avoiding that that I missed high instead. Thought I might get back on Oliver, who dropped me there, but never did. By then my quads were starting to fatigue quite badly - something which happens to me in longer road races but rarely in orienteering - and I was drifting back a bit. Couldn't put up much of a fight when Josh went through me at 26 (but did get ahead of Toph at the same stage). Didn't make too big a mess of the kilometre-of-nothing 29, and plodded home. Don't know my final placing (since the USB stick I downloaded results onto is, I hope, in the pocket of the shorts I packed as cheked luggage) but think it was 10th - my highest of the year at this level but in a field which was a bit lacking in depth, and I can't be happy about doing 88 when Simon and Craney did 67.

This was a great set of events - the build-up was certainly stressful for the key players (I got to see a bit of the stress at close quarters on Thursday or Friday), but if anything went wrong on the day I didn't notice it. A great job by Top End in general and Lachlan and Susanne in particular.