Training Log Archive: ColmM

Not many around so no easy long run organised.
Chilling a bit in the afternoon and procrastinating running, but eventually got out for a loop of the Southern 5.
Legs pretty tired, quads in particular fairly heavy DOMS from yesterday.
Nice afternoon for it though, and the trees all seem fully blossomed now so lots of prettiness in the air.

Ben Lomond hill race - 6th

Totty a winner though!

Wasn't super hyped before this one, but that's alright, don't need that for every race, and I was always going to go out try push and enjoy it.
The pace felt hot out the blocks and I immediately sat quite a bit back, and let plenty get in front.
I worked through a couple when we started actually climbing, and then myself and a chequered guy got into a nice rhythm together. We were going through people at a nice rate for a good while and working pretty hard. I almost got gapped, but I could see he was catching another guy so put in an extra spurt on a flatter bit so I'd have them to hang onto when it steepened.
In the end a group of 4 of us were climbing the steep grassy part, with me doing a chunk of the work. As soon as we got onto the better trail I pulled away, and based on my counting, I summitted in 10th.

I could tell I wasn't going to be caught from behind, so I set about getting as many ahead, but the gaps looked big.
Got one on the grassy bit, and then had a long quiet descent along the rapid stuff. Was beginning to lose hope of catching anymore until we left the clag and I could see 2 a bit ahead.
I got one just as we entered the forest, and when I saw the other on the fire-road I knew he was pretty done, so sailed past him on a minor climb.

Somehow ended up 6th even though I thought it was 7th.

Good day out, and lots of fun. More work to improve my climbing legs, but happy enough with that really.

Nice lunch run with Thomas & Lizzie. Blackford.

Jog home after lunch, 2 games of German whist, 2 episodes of fleabag, 2 cups of tea, and lots of chat - with Lizzie mostly and chunks of Thomas & Ali.

Carnethy reps - 3x (30", 30", 7min)

Wild mix of short and long reps. Body feeling a bit dead the last day or two, IOC took more out of me than I initially realised, and the legs resultingly also feeling pretty dead this eve, but good honest work.

I've done the same table I did last year again, it is just a nice review of Irish Champs.
On paper this year's results look fine, arguably good, but certainly not bad.
But only once before have I felt more disappointed after races than this weekend (WOC '19 test race), and even then I wasn't really disappointed with the performance, just the result, and what it meant I suppose.

I came into this IOC with lots of confidence, following a very good JK, and in some senses that was probably a large part of my downfall.
I also came into it not really interested in minor medals, I wanted to win some Irish Championships, and that probably played a part as well.
I ran hard everyday, I knew my fitness was good, and my navigation was good and I figured I could handle a hard pace, and also that I would need to run hard to beat the likes of Paul.

I think I toed the line with running speed, right on the edge of my navigational capabilities, probably not quite giving the terrain the respect it deserved at times, but I also did so much of it very well that it's hard to decide.

In each race, I had one mistake that is really killer, partly because they are huge mistakes, and partly because they are also so much bigger than the margin to victory (in the middle and long). Though that is of course the nature of orienteering, and I was comprehensively out-navigated each day. Congrats to all ahead - but in particular roar, what a weekend.

Race	Big Mistake	Margin to Gold
Sprint	~0'50	+0'58
Middle	~3'00	+1'00
Long	~8'00	+1'05
Relay	~3'00	+6'30

In each instance it's easy to pinpoint the mistake, and I reason other factors that caused the mistake (that I couldn't handle evidently) at times, but ultimately the recurring theme of a big mistake per race is wretched reading. Each was unique too, in the sprint I was pulled off-line by another competitor, the middle I was maybe beaten by the map, the long I left a path bend early, the relay I navigated to the wrong control. There are problems to fix, but there isn't one overwhelmingly obvious factor which would be easier.
The fact that I was unable to stop it happening after any given race before the next makes it worse. And probably what hurts the most is the fact that I don't get to come away with any positive performance.

Having said all that, I do think lots of the orienteering really was very good, and there are lots of positives. I do actually think I can (and for 95% of the controls I did) handle navigating at that hard pace. I guess what I don't understand is how I got it so right at the JK and so wrong here.
I am also relatively proud of how I pulled each race back together after disaster. I continued to push hard and navigated well till the end in pretty much each case (less clean in the long, but the mental comeback was still good), and slowly dragged myself back into contention each time.

Anyway, that's enough of a review for now, here is my table.
It would probably be remiss of me to mention that I did get a medal in each race (excl. foreign athletes, i.e. Phil), and if you choose to look past my negative cloud you could easily view it as my best ever IOC, but safe to say I won't be doing so.

Elite IOCs (all results only count eligible IOC athletes)

Year	Sprint	Middle	Long	Relay
2023	2nd (+0'58)	3rd (+1'00)	3rd (+1'05)	2nd
2022	4th (+0'51)	3rd (+0'26)	1st	4th
2019	1st	2nd (+2'14)	5th (+9'10)	6th
2018	6th (+1'03)	8th (+7'52)	5th (+12'23)	1st
2017	3rd (+0'09)	---	---	---
2016	DQ	8th (+4'44)	3rd (+5'15)	DQ
2015	---	1st	5th (+15'31)	3rd
2014	1st	6th (+13'40)	2nd (+0'03)	3rd
2013	---	6th (+4'23)	5th (+7'07)	---
2011	---	---	---	3rd
2010	---	---	---	3rd

Individual Medals: 12
4x Gold - 2x Sprint, 1x Middle, 1x Long
3x Silver - 1x Sprint, 1x Middle, 1x Long
5x Bronze - 1x Sprint, 2x Middle, 2x Long

Relay Medals: 6
1x Gold
1x Silver
4x Bronze

Nice little recce of the upcoming handicap route with Tim & Dashwood.
Some tricky lines out there!!

Easy down to HH for Salty Dogs. I wasn't going to session after the weekend so jogged down with Totty and back with the gang, and just jogged around spectating a bit, with some 30sec surged when they went by to keep sociable.

IOC Relay - 2nd (+ 6'30)

Aidan had an alright first leg, came in about 10mins down, but probably closer to 7mins down on CNOC, and less to CorkO who were most likely to be contenders.
Eoin did a very solid job of pulling back a minute or so on the leaders, so I set off probably about 6mins down.
I knew with roar and Darren out on first leg this was almost certainly too much. But, I did also feel like I maybe could claw back a few minutes on running and if there were mistakes, you never know.
I also had LVO somewhere in front of me, and Nydalen (Anton), CNOC 2 (Shea) and GEN (Jonny) all close behind, but I wasn't sure how close.

I felt confident I wouldn't be caught so I went out pretty hard and tried to see what happened.
The first lot were very easy, I actually did have 5-10sec misses on #3 & #4 though, so not amazing, but I was running strongly, so felt confident it was going fine.
Looks like I lost 20sec taking the track on #5 which is a big surprise.
Anyway, climbed all the way up to #6, all good. Had a 20sec miss coming across to #7, thought I saw the rootstock lower, but it was above me.
Navigated well through #8 & #9, and was moving well.
Hit the path to #10, and climbed the next track, dropped into the forest, and realised I was going back to #7 - nightmare.
I think I got confused by the lines and the slightly odd colouring which blended in with the features a lot, but there was no excuse, just under-reading the map I guess, and I had accidentally navigated back to #7 instead of #10, and had to turn back and cost about 3mins.

As I came back I saw Anton on his way to #11, so I knew I'd been passed, not ideal. I wasn't particularly clean on #10, lost 15sec on #11 at the bottom instead of the top, but got through the next few somewhat okay, and could see I was close enough to Anton through the spectator, maybe 20sec.

He obviously realised he was ahead and as we ran up the hill on the long leg I could see he was probably putting time into me. Thankfully, as we climbed the last bit I saw him overshoot, and I snuck in ahead. I knew he'd probably realised, so the gap would be small, but wasn't sure how small - he later said it was <20m.

I was pretty confident that if I was very clean through the next section I could get a gap, and I nailed the next few controls and did get away (helped by a shorter gaffle). No sign of Anton, even while I faffed on #19 (which was really weirdly mapped - so much veg). So cruised through the last few into 3rd, which turned out to be 2nd because Darren had mispunched.

A pretty good result, but I was just frustrated with myself for not being able to get even 1 clean race out of myself because of another incredibly stupid mistake.
Also while 2nd is nice, the field isn't competitive enough to want minor medals, it's all about gold in my head.
Having said that, it's the first time 3ROC got silver since 1987 or something, and they've never won it, so not bad.
Need to keep flying Eoin back now.