Training Log Archive: ba-ba

sl: 8.5km/215m.
Some controls were the same as yesterday so I tried a few different things, getting #13 (#8 last night) dead on by using Alun's route. Despite some hacking yesterday, I still tried to go straight through green to #2 before being repelled and going around -after that I steered well clear! Thankfully the white was pretty nice (apart from to the penultimate control, where it was exclusively brambles and gorse).
In general, a bit hesitant and scrappy, but not too bad. Need to be a bit more careful picking my APs, as at #12 I picked a ruined wall which went on longer on the ground than on the map - but it was either that, a long path curve or a long bearing through green. Biggest mistake was #16 where I relocated off #13 - a lot more trees on map than ground here, but should have been a bit more aggressive as had a solid catching feature

At the moment I can't hold a contour in a bucket (used to drop, now I seem to gain!), and my direction out of controls is pretty poor. However, I am feeling much better physically through terrain. Assertiveness should come with practise.


splits

Into 'boro. legs felt a bit disconnected to start with, but feeling OK by the end

5th place - my worst position in a NE parkrun, but was really pleased to see a strong field at the start-line. A good pack behind the front 2, when an African bloke came straight through us all, jogging in his trackies and a hoody.
Pulled away from Andy 'Rev' Minister from 1.5km with a quakers bloke. Worked with him until 4km when he pushed on and I cruised in - looked at watch at what I thought was 80secs out thinking I'd be 17.15ish, but it was actually 1min out so, if I'd really dug in at the end, I could have got a new pb. Felt good though, just need to work a bit more speed into my legs as I felt pretty comfortable throughout.

After a summer doing mainly long fell stuff, pleased to pull this out, 2-3 seconds outside my pb.

The quakers guy was ecstatic to take about 40secs off his pb, and good to see young Sam take 30secs off his to get 17:17ish. The lad's going to be fast, shame he doesn't like O at the moment, but that's the problem with fast youngsters in our current climate in the sport - they'll often be drawn towards pure running.

C • Sam 2

home by the river

SL: 5.9KM/220mDusted off the head-torch and took it through some green. The forest was generally quite nice, but I decided to test out a few of the more entertaining bits.
Very hesitant, very much so on paths as, with Hamsterley being popular for MTB there were a lot of unmapped ones/difficult to spot path junctions
Other than getting forced off-line by veg in places, 2 small mistakes included excessive hesitancy throughout a long path-run to #2 and missing a path junction to #12 (then going a bit too high). 2 Bigger issues were getting too high to #4 (couple of mins) and not knowing what the hell was going on at #8 (pit amongst denser veg and undergrowth than expected). Thankfully Andy Conn lead me and another bloke into this before I lost too much time.

Quite pleased with 59 when i finished, but Alun Powell blew that away with 43:40! Still fastest NEOA, so does that make me a regional champion?

splits

Beautiful day in Rivellin and Wyming brook. If this is my 'bad run after a bit of time off' then I'm in for a great winter! Normally would be intensity 1 but body still feeling a bit sluggish, although I got going after an hour or so.
Out with Mal and Lucy before fluceluce and I headed down to Daz's funeral which was beautiful and very well attended.

As night cover was off ill I was meant to go into work at 00:30 to take an important sample. I went for a bit of a kip beforehand as I was really tired today, but ended up sleeping through my alarm and woke up at 5. Oh well. Apart from the 'anguish' of adding 50% to my workload for the next fortnight to repeat the experiments I fucked up, I felt excellent for the sleep!

evening - off down Sheffield.

got back at 11.30 last night and completely knackered - have been pretty tired for a while. Easy week (or 2) into the OMM, then another after before hitting winter (and SPOOK) and aiming towards next year