Training Log Archive: Thraws

Cycled up to Chi Runners hill reps session at Goodwood, had a wander round a drastically thinned Goodwood while Lu trained, then went over to Selhurst to check on the brambles. Rear wheel wobble no better or worse, so should be able to start using the bike for work. Couldn't get onto smallest ring so went up the hill in a high-ish gear and got really hot and puffed out. Nice day.

The control at 15 was in the wrong place, about 40 metres west of where it should have been, in the next reentrant beyond a small path and next to a boulder which was on the map but obscured by the overprint. To be fair, the mapped reentrant where it should have been barely existed, but I found it and then spent nearly 10 minutes attacking it from every direction. I'd given up and had started to 16 when I was called back by the whistle of a gentleman who'd found the flag. I lost about 12 minutes but, incredibly, most people found it after a few seconds and the leg was never voided. I paid the price for not behaving like a headless chicken! Many of the other control sites were a bit suspect, though, and this probably contributed to the feeling I (and others) had throughout that they weren't running well. Courses were probably armchair planned and hung in a hurry. I felt as though I found 1, 2 and 3 more by luck than by navigation, and 6 and 7 were pointless deviations from a track run. We then skirted the best of the area before pointlessly crossing the canal twice. I was a little bit demoralised even before the fiasco at 15. I felt quite tired after the hour expired at the road crossing and couldn't lift my knees in the terrain. I was stupid on the way to 23 and could easily have gone up the wrong hill, and thought the placement of the flag at 24 was just bizarre. Very tired by the end, but splitsbrowser suggests I was moving OK. Two tough JK days look pretty daunting from where I stand now though.