Training Log Archive: Big Jon

Warm up at Botanic Gardens Nelspruit - hot and humid. Mostly in car park as no where else to run.

Day 5 - Nelsruit Botanic Gardens. Great area and lots of tricky small route choices (unless you were one of the many who ran straight across olive green areas!!!). Really enjoyed the run - best result of week (3rd).

Walk in Botanic Gardens after prizegiving, ca 1 hour - even hotter at mid-day!

Walk up hill near Sabie on return. Longer than planned - ca 50 mins in total. Great view from top and met guy who was the fire watcher at the tower.

Jog to start and some easy running - with Ewan before race.

Day 4, hillier and rougher forest. Going well, until control 10 which was marked wrongly - wasted ca 20 mins here (only found it as I was leaving for 11). Got into race with 2 others and had great burn up down hill from here to the finish. Day voided and no split times which would be interesting as I felt I ran pretty well apart from 1 deviation to visit 14 en-route from 6-7 (almost on straight line!).

Short warm-up at start after a 2km walk with Ewan. Feeling a little better - legs less sore, but still too early!

Day 3, longer race, 1900m altitude, felt desperate running but enjoyed area and race more than previous days. A couple of errors - probably 1.5 mins. 2-30 down, better!

After race moved to Sbie - altitude 1000m, so much easier to run!

Legs feeling dreadful - stiff and knees very sore. Hobbled round a bit before start (also early - 9-03 start time!

Day 2, urban race - mostly trivial technically, but at over 2000m so running was hard. A couple of small errors, but had to walk one downhill leg as struggling so badly!

Day 1 of "Big 5-O" Started as storm broke - never been so focussed or so sh1t scared in an O event - lightning and thunder going off simultaneously and felt like I was going to die at times - ran across all open areas hunched over - as if this might reduce the chance of being hit by lightning!!!!
map printing rubbed off - dodgy plastic rather than paper. Lost 3-4 mins due to a huge clearing having disappeared from the paper which in my already stressed state meant I ran back and forth to relocate for a while. 6th place and 4 -40 down.....

Short warm-up (had walked 2.5 km earlier), no warm-down as pissing wet and thunder storm, so jumped in car and drove home!

Training event at Belfast Ruins. Storm around so tried to avoid open areas! Still feeling pretty dreadful running - 1890 contour marked on amps, so possible altitude counting a bit!

loop round Belfast Ruins area - storm broke after 10 mins and had me ducking and diving as thunder crashed right overhead.