Training Log Archive: jcampbell

Scottish 6 Days - Day 6: Coulmony.
10.04am: one of first starters so no elephant trails, in fact the maker of elephant trails. Tired but really enjoyed the course, especially the first half without the heather underfoot. Course almost a continuous control picking exercise, which required constant focus. Used the new Moscow compass with the rock steady needle. Hesitating too much. Pretty clean until 12 when stupidly was too far down the spur so lost close to a minute there. Fine until 18 when I had a real hard time with the bracken, went too far, relocated on a recent rant and still had a hard time finding it. Think I got lucky in the end, but lost 4.5 mins! Clean the remaining controls.
Winner 42.03
Another fun place to orienteer. Overall a really enjoyable weeks orienteering. Shed some lbs and it would be even more fun.

Scottish 6 Days - Day 5: Roseisle.
1.56pm: Last starter on course. It was a 3km walk to start. Glad I took water with me as a hot day and the Scottish 6 Day does not provide any water. Roseisle is another coastal sand dune forested area, which is fun to navigate in. Tried to go out too fast and lost 2 minutes on the first control. Very frustrating! Took the safe route to 2. Hesitated on trail to 5. Really dumb mistake from 9-10 when crossed first ditch mistaking it for the second and did parallel error even ignoring the fact that a trail I crossed did not make sense. Finally realized error and quickly moved on, but lost about 3 mins. Clean and moving well for remaining 8 controls.
Winner 39.22

Scottish 6 Days - Day 4: Loch of Boath (near Cawdor Castle)
12.30pm: a light drizzle so no need for wearing rain jacket. Forecast was for some heavy rain. Good terrain, nice change to the coastal dunes with detailed contours. Map easy to read as contours not intricate. Basically hesitated too frequently and just slow going with my fitness over the terrain. Lost some time at 7 as heading parallel to hill rather than up it to the control. 9-10 drifted too far right so ended up on the wrong side of green. Quickly saw track and gate, relocated and headed down track, saw gap in woods, headed through and nailed control. Hesitated too early at 13, then lost time 13-14 as headed to trail on left instead of going straight to trail over hill.
Had fun, but need to be faster over terrain.

Rest Day: Went to Lossiemouth to watch Alison and Colm do the sprint race. Wandered around town with Carol. A interesting old fishing town that now survives due to adjacent RAF base.

8.30pm: a nice evening walk and ended up at Daviot Woods. Nice quiet spot with some old Scot's Pines.

Scottish 6 Days - Day 3: Culbin
10.58am: I have to say I really enjoyed this course, even though there was a number of trail options. The legs in the detailed contours was a lot of fun and the map scale at 1:7500, it was possible to read the detail on the move. Hesitated in the circle a couple of times. Only real time lost was control 9 when I drifted a bit left and early and lost about 2 minutes.
Overall the most enjoyable orienteering event I've done in a while.

Walk to start. Just as well it wasn't raining like on Sunday.

Walk back from finish to assembly area.

Scottish 6 Days- Day 2: Carse of Ardersier
12.50pm: nice and sunny, a big change from yesterday. A beautiful area very flat and open visibility, but heather tussocks underfoot in most areas. A late start with elephant tracks helped latter on in the course. Clean through 4, misread the contours at 5, climbed the one ridge on the whole map only to realize it was at the bottom! Probably close to 2 min error. Took direct route to 6, but got off track and was a good 75m to the east of point fluffing around. Another 1.5-2 mins. Clean the rest of the course, the body just couldn't go fast enough. Overall much better course than Day1, more orienteering navigation required, less trail running. Happy with time as less than I thought it took.

Event: Scottish 6 Days
 

Scottish 6-Day: Day 1 - Lossie - Morayshire
10.50am: Nice terrain with intricate contours adjacent to the shore. Not the nicest of days weatherwise, raining for most of it though intensity varied. Got into the map quickly and the first few were fairly straightforward, follow trail then head into control. Overshot 5 looking for a small builiding and ended up looking around a different spot before relocating back to control. Lost about 2 mins. 6-9 along the forested dune area was straightforward. Leg across to 10, I had a hard time as there were more forest rides than shown. Tried cutting across, but it was easier and probably quicker with my firness running parallel to paths and forest rides. 10-11 - initially cut across, but unclear wher on main trail I hit as map vegetation a little vague there. Anyway cut across more to path and clean until circle where wasted 2 more minutes. 12-13 opted for the safer, longer route going around and in from the north clearing and hit it cleanly. A bit of a slog out to 14 through the thick woods as the rain intensity increased. Just goy into the finish and an equipment vendors tent when the heavens totally opened up with torrential rain.
Happy with run especially with so little orienteering this year.