Training Log Archive: rcro

Nobody else turned up today so planned to stick on the tarmac - turns out to have been wise based on how overgrown and nettly path behind church was in places. Got to edge of Coalpit Heath just at the same time as a running group started but seems my 4:40 ks was enough to drop them pretty quickly.

Picked up the pace a lot for the last 5k and put in some good efforts up both sides of Church Road followed by a struggle to get back as quickly as possible.

Seem to have found some Strava segments on the way - if you strip out the cyclists that have pretended to be running I've done quite well!

http://app.strava.com/activities/185726252/overvie...

Event: TVOC Didcot Urban Event
 

Didcot urban race. 7.2km Men Open course.

Foul weather driving across but seems was very lucky for my run as it didn't seem bad at all.

Pace was good, maybe didn't take the best route on 1-2 or 7-8 but was pretty good on the rest. Suspect fairly direct on 11-12 would have been quicker but had misaligned cycle tracks so committed to a southern route.Had trouble with the emit cards not giving any feedback - waiting a full second on many and had to go back and punch two again since there was still no flash after 3s or so.

Nice to not spend ages in the middle part of the map (around control 11) like the previous two times. Good route choice legs in places but did start to get bored of the N-S path west of 14 by the last time.

Clearly running well if did 10k in about 48 (despite stop-start emit punching/nav etc) and still felt like I could keep going.

3rd of 18 finishers at download (91s down on lead) - might be chance for some ranking points.

http://www.strava.com/activities/185154748/overvie...

Event: (Cancelled) Urban Event
 

Helping at Severn Bridge HM - there by 6.40, helping set up goodie bag tables, bag storage/management, and clearing litter after. Managed a 2 hour break in the middle to go out and watch the start on the bridge, and see the finishers up to 90 mins.

Bown led the orienteers in 1 hr 24, Matt Leathwood 1hr 26, Ben 1hr 29, Tim 1hr 34. Didn't get to speak to Mark but the other three seemed really happy with their results.

Lots of smiling faces today, and clear that lots of hard work had been put in by Andy and Paul to put the race on. Hope they are able to do this again next year as, watching the finishers, something inside me was wishing I was competing -another year of decent training and I might even get a reasonable time.

Ran from subway up to the finish on way back from watching start - so the last 250m of the course. It was a hard climb for my current fitness - maybe I'm glad that I didn't enter this year..!

Legs weren't in the mood for running today, but I was. Good field today as I started well but was down to 15th or so by first corner. Managed to keep the pace fairly steady and got me to a fairly good course PB - 50s faster than last week. Think I could do it faster if I really wanted - just don't know if I'd ever put the extra effort in. We'll see how I do next week...

Everyone still seems agreed that FoD course, even in good conditions, is much slower than most other ones - I suspect today's run is equivalent to about 19:45 at Little Stoke.

Pleased with my run regardless - wasn't expecting from GPS to be so much faster but I felt as though my running was much stronger this week.

http://www.strava.com/activities/184177286/overvie...

Finished off with 1 hr 45 mins mapping Lydney, 15 minutes cowering under tree and an hour helping set up for tomorrow. Productive day - but tomorrow should be really good too.

Event: Street Challenge
 

Last NGOC street O of year, in Cheltenham.

Much better than last time as made use of the actual Pittville Park o-map. Also got to take in some new indistinct (but overgrown!) tracks across the old railway line - connects the park with the good bit of urban better.

Going quite well but feeling yesterday in my legs. Put a reasonable amount of effort in and happy to be just ahead of 5 min ks actual distance.

Still think it will be much better if/when we have the rest of the area mapped properly to 1:5000 scale. We'll probably rest it next year so plenty of time to get it redone!

http://www.strava.com/activities/183515417

Collected in controls east side of Pittville Park as starting to getting dark.

Crook Peak Cake Race

Thought I'd started out fairly slowly - managed to keep pace going but it did steadily start feeling harder. Pleased to get to the top of Crook Peak.

Not very quick going down as queued a bit and then it took me a fair while to start going again after the rocks. Ran most of way up hill 2 but fell in to a walk a couple of times for short bits.

Pushed from the trig point harder than I really wanted but nice to feel like I've put in a proper effort. May have lost out to Keith, Matthew Owen and Ifor in the final stages but fun all the same.

Bit too fast and flat a "fell" race for me to get a good result at current level of fitness - looking forward to next year already now I've got a time to beat!

http://www.strava.com/activities/183050474/overvie...