Training Log Archive: rcroIn the 7 days ending Feb 16, 2015:
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Monday Feb 16, 2015 #
Running (Westbury Harriers) 54:44 [4] 11.49 km (4:46 / km) +110m 4:33 / km
slept:4.5 weight:72.4kg shoes: Saucony Powergrid Triumph 11 y
Westbury Group 2 with Alex. Henbury loop.
Found this hard work as per last time but probably running better. Suspect still recovering from weekend, and hamstring not brilliant.
Despite all this, was a few minutes too late uploading to Strava to have won a new KOM - the guy I was "racing" with up Henbury Road was apparently 1s faster (we were pretty even).
Really struggling by the end. Don't know how but Abbey Road manages to be much longer and more hilly than going right around it in any direction.
https://www.strava.com/activities/255890752/overvi...
Found this hard work as per last time but probably running better. Suspect still recovering from weekend, and hamstring not brilliant.
Despite all this, was a few minutes too late uploading to Strava to have won a new KOM - the guy I was "racing" with up Henbury Road was apparently 1s faster (we were pretty even).
Really struggling by the end. Don't know how but Abbey Road manages to be much longer and more hilly than going right around it in any direction.
https://www.strava.com/activities/255890752/overvi...
Sunday Feb 15, 2015 #
Event: WIM Winter Warmer
Orienteering race (WIM Hales Purlieu) 1:09:43 [3] 11.62 km (6:00 / km) +155m 5:37 / km
slept:3.0 shoes: VJ Integrator High (2)
10.2km Brown at Hale Purlieu.
Running pretty well given yesterday's efforts.
Lost 90s on 2 as left 1 and ended up far too far east and hit wrong fence, went wrong way to find gap. Meant Tommi caught up and was on my tail for next 15 controls.
Good line on 4, ok on 5 but didn't think the map was any good - vegetation nothing like on the ground. Fairly straight to 8. Fighting windblow 11-12 and early on 12-13. Straight to 14 went well.
18 was a bit of a disaster as I made the mistake of using the map rather than the compass. Contouring was ok, just there was no control on that level. Mapped vegetation was imaginary and real veg wasn't mapped. Counting spurs didn't work (my mistake here was assuming there were only the two mapped spurs rather than 3 on the ground). After 5 mins of looking around for any of the small gullies, and lining up with path junctions, eventually found control some way to the east, much lower down than contours would suggest, nowhere near any gullies. Error meant Tommi caught up again and led him and someone else right into it. Very much bingo control and map nowhere near up to scratch.
Good for 19 and leading pack as per rest of race. On 20 had to go well south because of massive unmapped block of gorse so lost a few seconds. Picked up the pace for the last few to make sure I'd be ahead of Tommi.
So, clean run would have been about 64 mins and excluding time loss on 18 would have been 65:30. When left Jack Benham was leading on 60 - so a little frustrating to lose out on possible ranking points. Still was a lovely day, nice area and very encouraging to have run well for 3rd race in 2 days and without any hamstring/calf troubles. Tommi running much better if I couldn't drop him.
https://www.strava.com/activities/255303024
Turns out the ranking points are crap anyway so 5 min loss not a problem. Might just have got something with a clean run.
Running pretty well given yesterday's efforts.
Lost 90s on 2 as left 1 and ended up far too far east and hit wrong fence, went wrong way to find gap. Meant Tommi caught up and was on my tail for next 15 controls.
Good line on 4, ok on 5 but didn't think the map was any good - vegetation nothing like on the ground. Fairly straight to 8. Fighting windblow 11-12 and early on 12-13. Straight to 14 went well.
18 was a bit of a disaster as I made the mistake of using the map rather than the compass. Contouring was ok, just there was no control on that level. Mapped vegetation was imaginary and real veg wasn't mapped. Counting spurs didn't work (my mistake here was assuming there were only the two mapped spurs rather than 3 on the ground). After 5 mins of looking around for any of the small gullies, and lining up with path junctions, eventually found control some way to the east, much lower down than contours would suggest, nowhere near any gullies. Error meant Tommi caught up again and led him and someone else right into it. Very much bingo control and map nowhere near up to scratch.
Good for 19 and leading pack as per rest of race. On 20 had to go well south because of massive unmapped block of gorse so lost a few seconds. Picked up the pace for the last few to make sure I'd be ahead of Tommi.
So, clean run would have been about 64 mins and excluding time loss on 18 would have been 65:30. When left Jack Benham was leading on 60 - so a little frustrating to lose out on possible ranking points. Still was a lovely day, nice area and very encouraging to have run well for 3rd race in 2 days and without any hamstring/calf troubles. Tommi running much better if I couldn't drop him.
https://www.strava.com/activities/255303024
Turns out the ranking points are crap anyway so 5 min loss not a problem. Might just have got something with a clean run.
Saturday Feb 14, 2015 #
Event: League 1
Event: HOC Western Night League
11 AM
Orienteering race (North Glos League 1) 58:27 [3] 7.23 km (8:05 / km) +265m 6:50 / km
slept:4.0 shoes: VJ Integrator High (2)
First 2015 League race, at Painswick. 5.9km blue.
Probably at the bottom end in terms of my performances at Painswick (and I've had some pretty bad runs in the past). 1 min on 1, 45s on 2, 1-1.5 min on 4, 1.5 min on 7, come up far too early on 9 (45s), 1 min on 14, 1.5 min on 15... So at least 8 mins of mistakes. After 4 eased pace down to save some energy for WNL and WIM.
Would like to blame the horrifically out of date map (and dodgy contours) for at least some of my errors. Unfortunately all were down to poor navigation:
1 - just assumed control was next to the path junction to W so went there without actually reading map.
2 - didn't have an attackpoint, just went for road junction then back
4 - left 3 aiming for wrong trees so added bit of distance. Crossed fence too high and spent a while deciding which way to go for control. Map might actually be wrong here when comparing against GPS plot.
5 - just went along road as it was easy. One old woman driving past thought would be sensible to swerve into verge rather than go around me so a little concerned about getting run over - but hit control perfectly.
6 - not really reading map closely enough leaving 5 and went down wrong path for a bit.
7 - no real plan. Still think this one's more about luck than skill.
14 - went up right spur but stopped too early, further up than I expected and should have kept going.
15 - went past 12 and turned to go east - very poor bearing and ended up well south. Didn't see path junction next to overprint - this would have been obvious attackpoint.
Well beaten by several. Great run from Andy Stott and Scott had gone run too. At least didn't have humiliation of Chris McCartney beating me in non-urban. Won a split too (12) which was a bonus.
Good to see a lot of INDs in results - hopefully a few more new recruits coming in.
https://www.strava.com/activities/254945519
Probably at the bottom end in terms of my performances at Painswick (and I've had some pretty bad runs in the past). 1 min on 1, 45s on 2, 1-1.5 min on 4, 1.5 min on 7, come up far too early on 9 (45s), 1 min on 14, 1.5 min on 15... So at least 8 mins of mistakes. After 4 eased pace down to save some energy for WNL and WIM.
Would like to blame the horrifically out of date map (and dodgy contours) for at least some of my errors. Unfortunately all were down to poor navigation:
1 - just assumed control was next to the path junction to W so went there without actually reading map.
2 - didn't have an attackpoint, just went for road junction then back
4 - left 3 aiming for wrong trees so added bit of distance. Crossed fence too high and spent a while deciding which way to go for control. Map might actually be wrong here when comparing against GPS plot.
5 - just went along road as it was easy. One old woman driving past thought would be sensible to swerve into verge rather than go around me so a little concerned about getting run over - but hit control perfectly.
6 - not really reading map closely enough leaving 5 and went down wrong path for a bit.
7 - no real plan. Still think this one's more about luck than skill.
14 - went up right spur but stopped too early, further up than I expected and should have kept going.
15 - went past 12 and turned to go east - very poor bearing and ended up well south. Didn't see path junction next to overprint - this would have been obvious attackpoint.
Well beaten by several. Great run from Andy Stott and Scott had gone run too. At least didn't have humiliation of Chris McCartney beating me in non-urban. Won a split too (12) which was a bonus.
Good to see a lot of INDs in results - hopefully a few more new recruits coming in.
https://www.strava.com/activities/254945519
6 PM
Orienteering - Night race (WNL Hope End) 59:23 [3] 6.17 km (9:37 / km) +325m 7:37 / km
shoes: VJ Integrator High (2)
HOC WNL at Bramble End and Slippery Hill, or something. "Shitty" probably best way of describing the area. Bit of a disaster.
S-1-2-13-30-21-6-23-14-11-7-29-15-24-10-9-26-16-22-F. 365 points.
Think was third starter, behind Lucas and Tommi. We all ended up doing pretty much same thing and were together at 21 (but overshot - despite crossing several more fences than mapped). Realise afterwards that 21 and 6 not worth the time.
Lost several minutes crossing fence between 23 and 14 as it leaned very precariously if any weight put on it, and it was quite brambly. Did well to see it as my map appeared to have had ink rub off there (more later).
After 11 was a long unmapped fence, and a lot of contours up to 10 point control. Left for 29 and spent ages (minutes) looking for the overprinted crossing point (more later) before giving up and chancing the barbed wire. Then didn't find control in bramble very quickly - contour feature should be further north in relation to field corner below. Getting pretty fed up by this point.
With Lucas doing cross-bramble to 15, contouring and hitting very clean - he's navigating well for a newcomer to O, and his first ever WNL. Dropped down to lower path for 24 and brambles not too bad. Got out of wood with about 17 mins to go so started to head back.
Lost time at 10 as control was at least 2 contours lower than mapped so stopped far too early to see it. Struggling for pace up hills to 26 and 16, and really struggling for the short wooded path descent - for the really steep bit chanced the brambles, otherwise stood still in path and waited until slid to bottom - glad wasn't going the other way!
Got 22 fairly well and descent was ok, taken leisurely as had plenty of time. A very undeserved 2nd place, but well behind Ifor (but also well ahead of Tommi) - should be 985 WNL points so handicap still going up somehow.
https://www.strava.com/activities/254945531
Map printing. Unfortunately the waterproofed maps got lost in the post so we had non-waterproofed (but map bags were kindly provided - useful in rain). Print quality, to be honest, wasn't great. Plenty of forensic examination in the pub showed I was actually quite lucky - Lucas and Tommi had the planners' own inkjet printouts, mine was an inkjet printout of a PDF file that was the "master", and everyone else had a photocopy of my map - where black features were very thick. Area where the map had rubbed was actually tippex (organiser decided crossing wasn't safe), and the crossing point nobody could find near 29 was actually the original number for control 7, which had been rewritten in red biro more obviously. So I can't really complain about losing x minutes looking for a non-existent crossing.
S-1-2-13-30-21-6-23-14-11-7-29-15-24-10-9-26-16-22-F. 365 points.
Think was third starter, behind Lucas and Tommi. We all ended up doing pretty much same thing and were together at 21 (but overshot - despite crossing several more fences than mapped). Realise afterwards that 21 and 6 not worth the time.
Lost several minutes crossing fence between 23 and 14 as it leaned very precariously if any weight put on it, and it was quite brambly. Did well to see it as my map appeared to have had ink rub off there (more later).
After 11 was a long unmapped fence, and a lot of contours up to 10 point control. Left for 29 and spent ages (minutes) looking for the overprinted crossing point (more later) before giving up and chancing the barbed wire. Then didn't find control in bramble very quickly - contour feature should be further north in relation to field corner below. Getting pretty fed up by this point.
With Lucas doing cross-bramble to 15, contouring and hitting very clean - he's navigating well for a newcomer to O, and his first ever WNL. Dropped down to lower path for 24 and brambles not too bad. Got out of wood with about 17 mins to go so started to head back.
Lost time at 10 as control was at least 2 contours lower than mapped so stopped far too early to see it. Struggling for pace up hills to 26 and 16, and really struggling for the short wooded path descent - for the really steep bit chanced the brambles, otherwise stood still in path and waited until slid to bottom - glad wasn't going the other way!
Got 22 fairly well and descent was ok, taken leisurely as had plenty of time. A very undeserved 2nd place, but well behind Ifor (but also well ahead of Tommi) - should be 985 WNL points so handicap still going up somehow.
https://www.strava.com/activities/254945531
Map printing. Unfortunately the waterproofed maps got lost in the post so we had non-waterproofed (but map bags were kindly provided - useful in rain). Print quality, to be honest, wasn't great. Plenty of forensic examination in the pub showed I was actually quite lucky - Lucas and Tommi had the planners' own inkjet printouts, mine was an inkjet printout of a PDF file that was the "master", and everyone else had a photocopy of my map - where black features were very thick. Area where the map had rubbed was actually tippex (organiser decided crossing wasn't safe), and the crossing point nobody could find near 29 was actually the original number for control 7, which had been rewritten in red biro more obviously. So I can't really complain about losing x minutes looking for a non-existent crossing.
Thursday Feb 12, 2015 #
Running - off road race (NDAC) 48:32 [4] 9.7 km (5:00 / km) +180m 4:35 / km
slept:4.0 shoes: inov8 Mudclaw300 Yellow1
3rd race in the night series (of 4). Treating this as my free run as Mallards Pike next time will be much more worth paying for!
Started out with a climb and knew straight away that calf and hamstring weren't really up for it. Nice little sharp gravelly descent leaving quarry and then onto tracks.
Each lap started with a long, long drag uphill, and this was much more uphill than I had expected from OS map - meant that legs soon started to burn up.
Found descent tough in fields as so dry, having to take care with ankle. On the road, stood no chance against road runners and Niki ran very well to deservedly get ahead.
Maybe going better on second lap and still with Niki at the top. More comfortable through the fields down but again somebody came very fast down the road and got past. Fiddly bit into the finish was quite fun, and pushing it fairly hard. Quite a nasty little climb (unexpected) just before the finish gave me opportunity to get ahead again and 300m sprint finish.
15th overall, a little behind first two ladies. Would like to not feel the tightness in legs so much but still unsure if it's really affecting my speed much. For the course, happy with time, but hope that things get easier as the weather warms.
https://www.strava.com/activities/254078546/overvi...
Started out with a climb and knew straight away that calf and hamstring weren't really up for it. Nice little sharp gravelly descent leaving quarry and then onto tracks.
Each lap started with a long, long drag uphill, and this was much more uphill than I had expected from OS map - meant that legs soon started to burn up.
Found descent tough in fields as so dry, having to take care with ankle. On the road, stood no chance against road runners and Niki ran very well to deservedly get ahead.
Maybe going better on second lap and still with Niki at the top. More comfortable through the fields down but again somebody came very fast down the road and got past. Fiddly bit into the finish was quite fun, and pushing it fairly hard. Quite a nasty little climb (unexpected) just before the finish gave me opportunity to get ahead again and 300m sprint finish.
15th overall, a little behind first two ladies. Would like to not feel the tightness in legs so much but still unsure if it's really affecting my speed much. For the course, happy with time, but hope that things get easier as the weather warms.
https://www.strava.com/activities/254078546/overvi...