Training Log Archive: Craig

Event: Western Australian Long Distance Orienteering Champs
 

Warm up for WA long champs, feeling much more normal than yesterday.

WA Long Champs at Hill Park Dale (12.8km 595m climb straight line). Felt pretty good from the start, took conservative routes on the first couple and hit them cleanly. Small mistake on 3 but knew what I had done straight away (could see the control) so probably only 10 seconds. much more normal physically from the start. Already starting to feel tired by number 4 from all the rock and log jumping. Kept hitting the controls cleanly, just minor micro route choice problems here and there stopping it from feeling like a really good run. Lost contact briefly half way from 11 to 12 but recovered well and had a couple of controls where I had a clear plan for most of the leg but had only thought about rough direction for the first 200m or so and felt I could have run more efficiently if I had a clearer idea what I was trying to do. Had a gel at 14 (and almost forgot to punch), felt pretty tired through the map change and up the hill out of 18 but seemed to recover on the long downhill towards 19 and finished off reasonably strongly. Thought I had probably done enough to win but not by 18 minutes.

C • Too good 10

On my own this time.

Event: Western Australian Middle Distance Orienteering Champs
 

Warm up for WA Middle champs. Ran to the start and back then down to the farmhouse and back. Felt really out of breath all the way. Thought the big climb back up to the assembly would fix me up but still felt out of breath and not ready to do run throughs even after that. Did the run throughs anyway but still didn't really feel warmed up and ready to go.

WA mIddle distance champs at Hill Park Dale. Great course with lots of short legs and direction changes. Felt pretty slow and hesitant a lot of the time but I always felt I was hesitating at the right times with good reason so I was actually really happy with this run in terms of doing things the right way and feeling completely in control. Worst thing I did was to drift a little left of the straight line and hence climb a little more than I had to while planning ahead on an easy leg from 8-9 (didn't go as far left as Rachel who thought she had done it fine). Having first start meant I had to switch on about 17 of the 20 controls, by about 1/3 of the way through the course I was starting to plan ahead to start punching as soon as I could reach and read the map while waiting. It was about this time that the course turned uphill a bit as well and I discovered that I still felt kind of tired and out of breath like on the warm up. Hard to know how well I was running really as it wasn't the sort of course where you got to top speed very often. Overall very happy with the run, probably my best this year. Quite surprised to be only 41 seconds ahead of John (with John making a 30 second mistake) but I don't think I was as surprised as Steve was when John cought him 4 minutes. Makes tomorrow much more interesting and looks good for our relay team in Queensland. Looking forward to it.

Warm down with Liam.

Rehab loop at about 6:30am. Felt pretty crap, calves better early but still got a bit tight in the second half. Spent 8.5 hours in bed last night but only managed to sleep for about 2 of them.

C • Looks suspiciously like a taper 4

Couldn't think of a good enough reason to do anything. It would have had to be a pretty good reason since it rained a bit today.

Usual lap of KP with Ivan but we started from 100m down the street where Ivan had left his shoes in the back of his car and I jogged back to my car after finishing and stretching a bit. Started pretty slowly but picked up the pace on the way up the hill. I then kept feeling an urge to go faster, I think because my legs are still stiff and sore from the 5k on Sunday, so I did a lot of surging in the second half. Got back to the office in 39:29 so would have been just under 40 for the full loop which I was a bit surprised by as I thought the first half was quite slow. I guess some of my surging in the second half must have been quite fast.

Cut the SE corner off the 10k loop by going NE from the 5 way junction. Ran with Rachel for the first 20min then took a longer route and did 2x5min tempo efforts with a 2min recovery. Still pretty sore in the calves but feeling quite good apart from that. Not sure the tempo efforts were a good idea as my calves did seem to get worse during the efforts. Caught up to Rachel again just before home.

Usual lap of KP with Ivan. A bit sore in the lower calves but not enough to restrict me much. Started slowly but increased the pace so second half was fairly solid.