Training Log Archive: mintore

Event: Town and Country Weekend
 

Walk back to the train.

Bizarrely, the train came off schedule and we were sure we had missed it. Then the bus came right when we exited the train station. And I found 20 p on the way to the meet, and then 10 p more shortly after. There goes all my good luck. I will need to watch for window sills harboring teetering 16-ton weights.

Walk from Brandon Station to Day 2 of the Town and Country Meet

Brandon Country Park - Brown course (8.79 km/50 m)

Decided to run slightly up today in the M21+/M40+ bracket just to get a longer course in and on succeeding days. The map was good; its difficulty was associated with a lower density of features and the relative ease for the course planner to put together legs that benefited little from the large number of tracks.

My course didn't start well with me getting intersecting a track moving at 45 degrees then which I then fixed cross-country while my brain warmed up. The fix would have been more rapid probably on trails. The control itself was a bit hard to pin down (an isolated pit in light green) and so this was not a confidence builder either. The next two controls depression in medium green and a thicket in white forest with no good attackpoint each seemed to get better as I was starting to catch on. Overall, the run continued to improve and except for a couple of rustier spots I navigated more confidently and more directly than of late. The forest was faster, since the undergrowth was not frequently vine, brambles, or rotted tree holes. Usually it was taller grass and branches.

I am not sure what my placing was but it was low, a few off the bottom. I am more pleased with this as I kept up a decent pace, it was all in the woods, and it was at least challenging technically. I think I might even survive New Forest next weekend ;)

Aidan did two courses: Orange and Light Green. Orange went well; 26:49 for 3.33 km/15m and was likely the fastest time. Light green was a good attempt at an advanced course; 39:36 on 3.98/10m. I met him in the woods at his #6 and was pleased to see that he was moving confidently off the trails. The leading time was about 2:50 faster. He thought that some of the controls had a bit too much bingo character; mostly, this was the need to attack across featureless map on a bearing to a control on the back side of a distinct tree or in a depression. It was all fair but it was unforgiving if you missed.

We both did the trail-O. He was leading when we left. I am really aweful at this. Maybe if I come up with some systems for dealing with the types of puzzles that make up trail-O, I will find more joy in this.

Trail O

Final results:

I finished 20th of 31 on brown just outside par.
Aidan finished 3rd of 14 on light green 6 sec out of 2nd, and 1st on orange out of 19.

sadly Lou Reed is gone.

Event: Cambridge City Race
 

Train station to start at Jesus Green

Cambridge City Race. 6.5 km/0 m

A most excellent city race! Bustling, crowded streets of pedestrians, people graduating and people taking their pictures, bikes, busses, and slow moving cars, interspersed with city parks, quads for the colleges, cool architecture, and bridges. Trying to go fast particularly on longer bits and needing to jump around people was exhilarating. Technically interesting legs with very few exceptions, and everything nicely in the correct place. Some very cool alleys, especially a narrow winding alley near the end of the course and some quite small courts hidden behind circuitous entrances.

It was a bit of a gray day with some very windy bits but the weather was good. My run was good with really only three controls that suffered from more significant errors (the largest not recognizing the correct route choice until I had gone too far to fix it, which in retrospect caused a subpar choice for the following leg. I got trapped by the messed-up flow). I am roughly guessing that a clean run for me would have been about 4.5 min faster.

C4 - 5s pause, wrong tree
C8 and C9 - these were deviously long legs connected by shortish lines, it did require one to run through the middle of King's College which was superb. The run was actually long enough and the route to C9 obvious enough that I could look at the buildings and enjoy it. It is also fun to run through the closed college past the sentries and out the gate (legally).
C10 missed an early small passageway and then missed a way to limit some of the damage later in the leg by passing through a very hard to see small gate. Sadly, I think the missed run in the first instance went through a more scenic quad. (90s)
C11 took the winding route rather than the straighter one. In retrospect, the straighter one was meaningfully shorter and set the control up better. (20s). This was the only control that really felt hidden but it was fair on a narrow strip of path wedged between a wall, path, and hedge (back to my poor setup coming from the most blind approach)
C13 chose the longer route by two parallel paths (20s)
C17 had to wait to cross the largest street (20s that felt like an eternity)
C21 had to pass a slow runner on a very narrow passage, lost contact and turned rather than stopping (15 s and some in-my-head cursing)
F just winded coming into the finish, a really hard 40s across and open lawn and I probably gave up 1-2 s
Finished one spot below half on 54 runners in veteran mens (Course 2), one second behind the closest runner (8:42 min/km).

Happy and tired (but the clocks change here tonight, win!) ; Aidan and I are going day-of to the Brandon meet in the morning.

Walk back through parts of the course, saw some of Cambridge and the market, and went to see the Eagle.

Same run as last night but alone and backwards. I thought that I was dogging it at the end so I picked up the pace but probably should have just stuck with mellow.

Comfy night run with Aidan.