Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

First part of the tourist phase of this trip, and this meant the first tourist run. We're staying in John O'Groats, mainly because of its convenience as a jumping-off point to Orkney (and not as tacky as my advance reading had led me to believe, despite playing host to mainland Britain's northernmost vandalised phone box). I think the reason why people are disappointed with John O'Groats is that they're expecting a dramatic headland and what they actually get is a small harbour on a straightish coast. To get a dramatic headland you need to go a couple of miles east, and that's what we did, stopping for regular photos of coastal rocks stacks and sheer coastlines. A bit of cross-country coming back. Didn't feel that brilliant, though better later on; I think Jenny, who's done three hard days in a row compared with 1 1/2 for me, was feeling it a bit more.

Most of the rest of the day was spent doing a day trip to Orkney, with the number one target being Skara Brae, a Stone Age village buried beneath the sands and unearthed in the 1850s by a storm - quite impressive stuff. There's some rings of standing stones, too, not so different from Stonehenge and probably near-deserted if you go there at something other than tour bus stop time.

Orkney and Shetland became Scottish after being mortgaged by the Norwegian king to raise funds for the dowry for the marriage of his daughter (the mortgage was never repaid). I wonder what would happen if Norway suddenly decided they'd found the 50,000 outstanding florins (and, let's face it, the Oljefundet is not short of a quid) and could they have the islands back please?

Glutton for punishment prize: the day after the WOC long final, Sabine Hauswirth (or possibly somebody masquerading as Sabine Hauswirth, although the time looks about what I'd expect) ran the last day of the 6-days - not in W21E, but in M21E. Would I be speculating wildly if I suggested that this participation might be the result of losing a bet at the WOC party last night?

Finished off the 6-days on a fairly reasonable note as we headed onto yesterday's WOC terrain on the north side of the valley. It was still tough, but this time it was tough in an enjoyable sort of way - still lots of soft and sometimes uneven ground, but none of the clambering over and around windblown trees which added so much unpleasantness to yesterday (where windblow existed today, it was mapped as dark green and thus avoidable).

I still struggle to run properly in this terrain; I think some of it is about learning what sort of ground can be trusted and what sort can't, although I need much more strength in the terrain, too. That did improve a bit today and in the second half I was at least running moderate hills (if not the really steep ones). Happy with today as a technical performance - just one small overshoot at 8, and drifted and lost contact a bit on the long 11, but when I relocated it was with the happy realisation that I was a couple of hundred metres closer to the control than I thought I was.

Not sure what the winning times ended up being - it was high 60s when I left.

So ends the orienteering part of this trip - lots of tough terrain, some realisation that I'm not really up to dealing with such tough terrain well, and a bit of frustration as a result. Bendigo next Saturday will seem very different. In between now and then, there's some travelling around northern and western Scotland between now and departure on Thursday night, starting with a day trip to the Orkney Islands tomorrow. The first stage came with a car-versus-wildlife near miss, involving a small deer in what I would have considered the unlikely setting of the road just out of Wick.

S6D - Day 6 Glen Affric - C38 - Splits

Day 5 of the 6-Days. Came here straight from a meeting (the travel was by far the smoothest of all the days, despite, or perhaps because of, the dire warnings) and headed into the forest after the trip to the start, which was a decent warm-up. This was on the south side of the river, and while there were some nice patches in the forest, there was also lots of fallen timber from high winds and logging, and in general it was a real slog - especially on the long 5th leg which involved circumnavigating one massive fallen tree for what seemed like a couple of minutes, then bashing across a large felled area (and then stuffing up the control). At this point I decided I had higher priorities for today than spending 100+ minutes slogging through such terrain (somewhat ironically, the terrain as I cut across from 5 to 17 was nicer than anything I found on my actual course). Some slight positive signs in that, when the vegetation allowed it, I seemed a bit stronger up hills than I have been in the last week.

WOC was definitely a day of mixed emotions. Hanny's result (again) was great, but it was soon apparent that our men were in difficulty. As I know from bitter experience as a Norwich City supporter, getting relegated is a particularly empty feeling (hopefully we can follow Norwich's example and come straight back up), but it's difficult to argue that we clearly deserve to be in the top 22 countries when we came 25th in the relay and had no-one above 50th in the long. At least, unlike the Russia-Ukraine contest in division 1 (lost comprehensively by Russia), I don't think we're going to be starting a war with Belarus any time soon (on the other hand, perhaps I shouldn't give Tony Abbott any ideas).

C • Abbott vs Lukashenko? 1

S6D - Day 5 Glen Affric - C38 - Splits

Another day largely devoted to IOF meetings - notably the Extraordinary General Assembly on the split WOC proposal (the result of which you will have seen elsewhere). Taking the opportunity for a bit of rest while I'm still not 100% and don't have race commitments - the next couple of days will be pretty tough.

Rules discovery of the day is that there does not appear to be anything in the IOF Competition Rules which prevents IOF events from taking place at night (this came up as a result of a rule variation request from Spain who want to run a night sprint WRE, and we couldn't work out which rule they were seeking to vary). Some might suggest a WOC race already has been run at night; in 2008 in the Czech Republic, the women's middle distance final was run very late (I think the last start was something like 7.30?) on a gloomy day in a gloomy forest, and I'm sure the light was poor enough to be a significant disadvantage to the last starters.

As a sporting administrator, I'm always on the lookout for innovative new formats. Our cricketers seemed to be trying to find one today - the one-day Test match.

Scottish 6-Days day 3. It was my turn for the last-minute dash to the start thanks to traffic hold-ups today - this time the main cause was a crash near the event turnoff (not sure if it involved a participant or not). Made it with a few minutes to spare, but felt a bit out of sorts in the warm-up, which continued into the course, and once again mucked up #2 to the tune of a couple of minutes - this time through not properly getting into what was up and what was done. Navigation improved after that with only a small miss on 4 and drifting a bit wide on 7, but couldn't really get going in the rougher stuff - running uphill on softer ground is still a real problem. Got going a bit more once it opened up in the second half, but still a mediocre run at best. An early start is probably worth 3-4 minutes penalty here because of tracking (on day 2 it would have been more like 10 minutes), but even 45 wouldn't shape up too well against Nick Barrable's 31.

Had an experience at 13 which would have been shared with many F1 drivers of the 1990s, being overtaken by Mika Hakkinen. I'm assuming it's not the same one (if only because if it was the same one I'm pretty sure the 6-Day organisers would have made sure everyone knew about it).

S6D - Day 3 Darnaway - C38 - Splits

WOC middle day plus meetings in the morning. Would have tried to squeeze a session of some kind in had I not been carrying a bit of an injury, but I am so I didn't. Another pretty long (but enjoyable day) - made longer because we heard as we were making our way out of the car park (a long process) that the main road back to Inverness was blocked by a crash, so we went in the opposite direction and had dinner in Forres (inevitably, more than half the pub were recognisably orienteers).

A reasonable day for Australia - Lachlan, an early starter, got 20 minutes or so in the hot seat, Simon had another place in the 30s (the fifth time he's placed between 30th and 37th in a WOC race), though the women might have hoped for a bit better (Hanny's 2.5 minute mistake at the first control made the difference between 21st and something in the low teens).

On the way to the event, the radio promised us the "latest MFR news". Such a thing might have been expected to include things like "Clare Baker on the comeback trail after the birth of her son" and "Blair Trewin faces a late fitness test before the second day of the Scottish 6-Days". Instead it was all about the passing of Cilla Black (who, as far as I know, has never been a member of Melbourne Forest Racers) and deteriorating police response times in the Moray region. (In this context, it stands for Moray Firth Radio).

Traffic was a bit of a theme of the day, starting with the travel to the event. The numbers attending the 6-days were rather more than they're used to and there ended up being an hour-long delay getting into the parking field - I think for no more reason than that the entrance couldn't cope with the numbers, and the odd person got stuck in the mud and needed some pushing. (We tend to forget that, outside of parking fields, most Europeans have zero experience of dirt-road driving). We both made our start times (without a lot to spare); many didn't, though punching starts were on offer so it didn't cause too many issues on that front.

Traffic was also relevant once on the course. I'd heard that Strathfarrar had been rejected as a WOC candidate area by the SEA on the grounds that "orienteering is a running sport", so I was expecting something tough, reinforced by the returning Krystal saying that the light/medium green final section was the nicest part of the course. In reality, there was heavy bracken over much of the terrain and it would have been a horrible slog for the earliest starters, but by the time I was out the area was heavily tracked (although very muddy).

I'd been very doubtful as to whether I'd make any impression at all. I wasn't sure how my back would respond and was quite prepared to do only a few controls if it gave too much trouble. It wasn't 100% and I didn't try to run up too many hills on soft ground, but certainly vastly improved on Saturday. Still felt I was blobbing around (and I suspect my splits on the short downhill legs, 10 and 19, will not be a thing of beauty), but after an early 90-seconder or so on 2, I got into the map and terrain quite nicely and was happy on the technical front. The result turned out to be more respectable than I was expecting too; fastest times when I left were in the mid-50s, and I was a few minutes closer to the likes of Nick Barrable and Tuomas Tala than I had been in the equivalent races at the WMOC qualifiers.

Possibly somewhat demotivating was hearing the commentator describing me, as I went through the pre-warning control, as a "planner and controller". I suppose this is official confirmation of has-been status.

C • planner and controller 11

S6D - Day 2 Strathfarrar - C38 - Splits