Training Log Archive: cricketk

Went down the wrong watercourse from the start and recovered slowly enough to be caught by Annwen before getting halfway to the control. Whoops.

We took different routes to 2 and I was confident I beat her to it. Across the fields and curled around the back of 3 for an easy approach to the control. Straight across to 4, back on to the granite and along most of the way to 5, with a brief pause to read the map and figure out which of the rocks was hiding the control.

Took a deliberately windy route to 6 to avoid as much of the green as possible. Still hit far more than I would have liked, but there really wasn't much choice. Across the paddock to the watercourse junction, quick re-read of the map to confirm staying low and was on the control when I looked up. Along beside the spur and over the fence, through the rocks to the gully and another easy approach for 8. Another set of avoiding rocks for a low wiggly route to 9, with an un-necessary pause at the wrong control.

Caught April! OMG! I am actually doing as well as I think I am. April went up and then changed her mind and went low. I committed to the up choice with the easy granite and pushed for the fence. April popped out about 50m behind me as I came off the granite. What fun to actually have someone to race!

Road, granite, clearing to my attackpoint and very clean to the control. Over the granite again to the watercourse - but it was the wrong watercourse and I was too excited to notice for a bit. Probably lost another couple of minutes here. April caught me! Gah!

Bolted for the finish, convinced April was right behind me and finished in just over 60 minutes. Carried the day for my class, but still DFL for the weekend. Think I may have achieved coming somewhere near the middle for my course.

Was really high after having such a well-executed run and may have been a little over-excited and bubbly while starting the later runners. Oops.

C12 Day 4 - Splits

Bad start, attempting to figure my way along the rocks, instead of sucking up the climb of going the sensible way. After that, determined to have a plan for the route between controls with nice big handholds along the way and use attackpoints. Yes, attackpoints! Where I really committed to doing this and sucked up the extra distance (2,8,9,10), I have much better splits. Will do even more of this tomorrow.

Also had a rough time with numbers 7 (rocky hillside from the top - came down too far to the right and didn't spot the good attackpoint on the map until after I'd spent a bit of time bouncing around the bottoms of various boulders) and number 13 (pushed too low scrambling through the green, took a while to figure out exactly where I was, and then lacked energy or enthusiasm for bashing through any more green, so went via the track to the next granite surface) Slow from 13-14, but that was entirely about my anxiety about falling on those steeper slopes. Raised a trot all the way to the finish from there and came a very surprising 10th on that split.

Spent a lot of time today bouncing off my fitness limitations and having to walk, even when I knew exactly where I was and the runnability was excellent.

One fall today - feet slid out from underneath me on a downhill and landed on back in lovely soft mulch. Saw a lot of falls today - some of them looked very painful!

C12 Day 3 - Splits

Not a great run, but really loved the map. Given the level of fear I held about it due to my inability to usually read an Alex Tarr map, I was pleasantly surprised by how well I understood this map (except for my huge blowout between 3 and 4 - and that was due to me resolutely ignoring the contour lines on granite, not anything to do with the mapping!)

Apart from the aforementioned blowout, I otherwise had a pretty good go at it. For 13 out of 14 controls I had a very similar experience to last week, of mostly getting to the control circle or very near the control itself and then being sensible. My sense of what the land should look like at all points of the run and especially in the control circle has improved so much. I'm obviously still making errors that I find really hard to recover from, but I'm so hugely improved it's fabulous.

Was very hot, but still felt pretty good at the finish - could definitely have raised a much faster trot had there been any need to do so.

Fell really awkwardly twice, both times made even more awkward by mostly successful attempts to protect my dodgy wrist. I'm really going to have to chat to Simmo about importing shoes with serious grip. Had my first proper map reading fall today. I think this means I'm turning into a real orienteer :-)

Was very surprised by the number of people expressing serious unhappiness with their run afterwards. I thought the map was fabulous and my course was really enjoyable and interesting. Obviously I'm disappointed that I blew out so badly, but I know _why_ it happened, so that's satisfying and something to keep in mind for tomorrow.

ETA - note - course distance only 4km - I did just over 150% of the distance and about 170% of the climb. Pretty much all of it in between 3 and 4 I should think.

C12 Day 2 - Splits

Event: Frazzle Rock Easter 2011
 

Nice jog with Rach in Kings Park, taking it nice and easy.