Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Final day at Grandtully. Really good final day course, with minimal climb and mostly downhill (they still managed to make the first control up hill though :) A vague forested slope, so accuracy in compass and height was to the fore today. Not so much for me unfortunately, with several slip ups costing me. Still, had a large lead in the overall competition, so a reasonable run today was enough to take the overall win - for which i take home a nice paper-weight.

WRE long at Craig a Barns.
had been anticipating this one all week, well known for it's toughness, and with a 10km long distance on it...
So all in all was surprised that it wasn't actually a 2hr course. The setters were kind to us :) Had my plans disrupted pre-sstart when I learnt that actually Cat started 3 mins in front of me, not 3 mins behind... So no waiting for her to come through and seeing how long I could hold on ;)
Bit of a slow start, with some needless messing around on #2 (I mean, all messing around is needless, but this wasn't even in a mistake or anything, just kind of enroute). Picked into things from there as I caught Fay to #5. Took a nice route to #6 with lots of track running rather than contouring in steep forest. Bit surprised that this was the only long route choice of the course.
Thankful for the drink at the end of the farmland bit, before heading into the technical light green hill top. 1min mistake on #11 in here as I wasn't accurate enough with my bearing or stepping stones. Out into the heather, and it was a matter of picking the right elephant track and gutsing it through. #17 was a beauty of a climb, before heading back into the light green stuff for a last chance at mistakes. Held my head through here and through the last open controls to come into the finish 3.5mins behind Cat, in 2nd. Happy with that.

Back into things with a 10 contour climb to the first control (plus 25+ to the start!). Fast and open running today, some light green plantation at the far end, but otherwise was just a matter of setting course and letting my legs do the work. Took a couple of routes to admire some ruins, and a sweet hill fort at #3 :) Orienteering tourism.
Got stuck in some horrific bracken on the long leg to 12. Had to happen again at some point I guess!

Rest day sprint. Incl warm up. Found out on the start line that there was a food hamper up for grabs...tempting, but managed to be reasonable about things ;)

Ran tempo pace for the first half but really ballsed up at the top of the map where the I got super confused taking a route choice along the road at the edge of the map. Could have done with an extra cm of detail on the off-the-map side.
Jogged from there to the finish. Probably the most sensible call anyway :)

Warmup curtailed by the fact there was zero space at the prestart, and a decent descent back down to anything runnable.

Day 3 WRE middle.

Such a cool area and well set course. Nice and technical, and a couple of longer legs to get the lactate going. Got a glimpse of cat behind me on the long 7th leg, and she caught be at the end of the other longer leg (13). From there I was mostly leading us through to the finish. Pretty happy with the run, some small time loss in the first 3 controls (overshot #1, and maybe the slower route to #3), otherwise was clean and confident. Would have been interesting with a more stacked start field, but that can wait a week :)

Day 2. First control out did yesterday by being 12 contours directly up the slope today!! Beautiful. Made damn sure I admired the view of the loch, given the effort required to get up there!
First few controls climbing/contouring through the open slopes. #4 was very much in the wrong place, and it seems my skills at deducing where a wrongly placed control would be have been severely blunted by living in Norway...so I spent 2mins just standing on the spur confused before I eventually headed up hill (the only way it could have been) to find the errant control.
Was pretty peeved after that, as I was 6mins behind Claire yesterday, and needed a good run to catch some time and confidence up. Managed to put it behind me though and plug my way through the heather and marshes of the middle part of the course. A few fast controls and a bonus climb to finish. Much better than yesterday.

WU to the start with Jake, who started walking when he saw the trail of people hiking up the steep hill...then realised they were on course, not enroute to the start!
plus wd walk back to the arena with Jenny and Conor

Scottish 6 days #1.
Oh boy. Straight into things with a first leg straight up and over the top of the hill. Fresh legs what?! 10 contours in short time before a few short sharp zigzaggy legs back down in dense spikey pines. Clean start but then didn't check direction out of 5 and made a mad parallel error. Sent myself on a goose chase through head high bracken and a decent bonus hill to boot. And that was before even getting into the patchwork plantation forest/marsh/bracken/clearings that I was meant to be running through. Massive mistake.
Out that behind me and continued on, through the bogs and out into the open hills and heather. Back into the mud and back into the patchwork. Did much better this time, but still patchy. Took a questionable rout back through my head high bracken to the last few controls which true to he bulletin were in nice fast open farmland.
All in all a rude introduction to Scottish terrain haha. I did not handle the change well! Not the best to have an early start on the first day, as I had more bracken to deal with, but to be fair, probably less mud too.

Nice hit out still. Not surprised to be 10mins behind cat and 6 behind claire given my balls up. Ensured that the commentary didn't consider me favourite for the week haha. They did, however, say I was a former jwoc medalist. So that was a nice birthday present :)