Training Log Archive: roar

2 sets of sit ups, 2 sets of back ups, 1 min planck. feeling better today

felt slow before i started but i went out hard and tried to keep running hard the whole way. felt good about how i was doing and i was happy enough with the orienteering

Long - Splits

took it handy today. it was nice to be out for a run. there were 4 awful controls and one dodgy one which almost negated the point in going.

the first two controls were grand with no real issues occuring apart from a car trying to run me over as i hopped a fence.
came to the circle of number 3, look at the map and descriptions. "k its in the forest at the gully junction" go into the forest and wade through nettles. find a gully junction but no control... "WHAT?". I decide I must just be in the wrong place so i decide to leave the forest and relocate and there on the edge of the forest is the control on top of an earthbank. "fair enough" i thought.
no.4 was grand apart from that it was not on any feature on the map, then all was fine until number 10. I met Don leaving 10 taking the wrong route choice so i shouted at him "where are you going, thats the wrong route choice" he laughed and i continued in and got the control. left towards number 11 on the right route choice which assumed the dark green was completely runnable, which it was...
so i come up the hill along the edge of the forest to where it should become open while i watch don run across the hill losing ground on me. lo and behold a wall of brambles exactly where the forest should be open so i keep running, and keep running, an keep running, until i find a gap, which is a path. attempt to go into the forest only to find large amounts of rhododendrons. don decides to go right of them, i go left and hit the control "finally" i think.
I leave the control come out of the forest and head across the open field to 12. theres no sign of don behind me "he must still be looking for it!" I decide on the straight line into the forest to 12. wade through nettles, check map map and description...it should be on a well... "S!%T! nearly fell down a well there. wait, where the f&%k is the control?" I look around no sign of it. not even an elepahnt track to show anyone has even found the well. something is wrong here. decide to wade through the nettles in a roughly easterly direction. noting. don shows up. Don: "where's the control?" me:"no idea but i found the well" then i decide to go north and some nettle stings later "I found it don, its on this gully junction over here" so i punch it and wade out of the nettles towards 13. then I stop. look around. I can't see any way out of the forest. I think to myself "it's like Estonia all over again..." and go for it through the horribly large nettles.
13 is fine so i come to the circle of 14. look at my map, cairn right in the centre, with a path pretty much the whole way around it, thought it is in the middle of green, "this should be ok" I think. look at the control description. veg. change corner. "oh right" look at the map again. no veg. changes in the circle. "ok, now this is just wrong" I arrive in the circle and i don't know what to do. do i search randomly or go for the cairn. I decided to go for the cairn. turns out that was a bad idea as it was in the middle of a lot of impassible green. don catches me again. "found it yet?" me:"nooo..." so begins the searching randomly... about 2 mins later, me:"it's over here behind this tree on the wrong side of the path beside the veg. change that isn't on the map don" and i here curses from the other side of some bushes. i jog off towards 15 laughing. all went well for a time then until 18.
I took the straight line option. You think by now I would have learned that that wasn't the good one. At least this time there weren't too many nettles. got to the edge of the forest on my compass bearing lok left and right for the thicket with the control. no sign of it. ok "I'll just look for thickets in general, its probably in the wrong place" so i run up and down in the forest looking for thickets for a while and then don arrives again this time i was took quick for him "no, I haven't found it yet." I decided to go out of the forest and have a look at the outside to decide where i could attack this from again then. take one step outside the forest. there is the control at the edge of it. in a resigned tone "its out here don" *sigh*.
19 went without major incident aside from a huge building on the only route not being marked on the map. 20 only involed running on what the map said was open when it wasn't and 21 was another routine "ok ill just go above the top bench because thats my exact line" only to find that i arrived in the forest in the complete wrong place because the benches were marked incorrectly.
to summarise when some random guy tried to pass me out on the run-in i didnt even try, i just let him have it. it didnt matter.
a fun day
felt pretty good after running. ill be able to push it properly in the curragh i reckon.
didnt know what to do with the technical intensity as your orienteering ability didnt help or hinder u today

had intended to upload my Donadea stuff but my garmin is packed at the bottom of my bag so i'll just wait to get home. probably wasn't a good idea to run yesterday though

cycling to the doctor. got some antibiotics. hopefully theyll make for a speedy recovery