Training Log Archive: Jay-T

Event: Lincoln City Race
 

Lincoln Urban

#4 Planning ahead overshot turning [15]
#7 Headed for wrong woody hill briefly [15]
#8 Went north of first lot of houses when I had intended to go south. Not much in it distance-wise but threw me when I came out onto the main road [15]
#9 Whilst planning ahead I failed to recognise the uncrossable fence adjacent to path and was on the wrong side... Bit hesitant locating the small path in the wood [20]
#10 Again, not getting the plan / execute balance right as I was confused upon crossing the double path [10]
#12 Checking out the long leg on the other side of the map; planned to take second turning but ended up, hesitantly, taking the first [25]
#14 Not sure that this was the fastest route, but planned the rest of the course whilst doing it.
#19 Had missed the small uncrossable boundary whilst planning, but fortunately spotted it after a few steps down the dead end whilst executing.
#20 Western route faster in retrospect [10]
#23 Western route again quite a bit shorter [25]
#24 This was in the wrong place.

Not a great performance.
2nd, just under 2mins off Liam Harrington.

Yorkshire Division One match vs (unbeaten top of the table) Ilkley playing with Gary.
Wow. Very high standard. One of their guys had a rocket serve - best that I've witnessed.
We got 5 games in total! Had a nice buffet anyway.

Event: YHOA Urban League
 

Sheffield Chasing Sprint Race A

Decent long-sprint; some tricky spots and lots of route choice.
Once again, unfortunately suffered in a couple of instances from obscured uncrossable boundaries...

Fast, easy start.
#5 Selected southern route, but instead of committing to it started comparing it to the northern one, which to be fair was superior, meaning that I overshot the gate, adding distance and climb [50]
#18 North route which was further [10]
#19 Simplified to north route again, but it was quite a bit further and I took a wrong turning so evidently not as simple as I had thought... [15]
#20 Bit of a hesitation as I became a bit confused as to whether the fence was crossable [5]
#22 Ran down dead end to hedge obscured by overprint [15]
#28 Thought that there was an amazing underpass for some reason, but it was just a walled enclosure! [10]

5th place, 5m 30s off Crickmore, but after the error at #5 surprised to be only 40s off 2nd place thanks to a couple of high profile mispunches.

Sheffield Chasing Sprint Race B

Started at the back of a bit of a pack so the first few controls were simply a case of keeping my head up.
#6 Lost a few metres going the wrong way around the building [5]
#7 Went south with Preston. Rothman / Liepins went along by the river which appears to have been shorter, but we didn't lose much ground.
#8 Gained a bit by going west out of the small park initially.
#9 Lost some ground by following Liepins round the east end of the wall into the underpass [10]
#10 Passed Preston as he went south of the building.
#12 Went west, but ended up the wrong side of some uncrossable vegetation so retraced my steps a little (although I now see that there was a crossable section which I could have carried on to). Lost ground on Rothman, but gained on Liepins and pulled away a little from Preston (who I presume went east, although I thought that might have been quicker?) [15]
#16 Rothman pulling away. Still ahead of Preston and just behind Liepins.
#17 Brief deviation as I headed for a gap that wasn't, but fortunately spotted the (deceptively thin) black line just in time.
#20 Got past Liepins as he missed the underpass slightly.
#21 Rothman headed off down the wrong road so punched this in the lead! (of our chasing pack; Crickmore had probably already finished...)
#22 Couldn't handle the pressure of actually having to navigate and immediately took a poor route, letting Liepins back past, but still ahead of the other two somehow [20]
#23 Belatedly decided on southern route, but left the control on the northern path and climbed the spiral stairs (slow). Preston got ahead taking the northern route [15]
#24 Didn't do this brilliantly as I cut through the undergrowth too far east [5], but was almost back with Preston (and Liepins) - who both missed (significantly).
#26 Preston was leading - he went west so I went west (although doubling back east was probably better in retrospect). We tried to cut through the undergrowth from the south as it wasn't too bad to start with, but it got progressively worse. Being at the back I was lucky to be able to dive out into some less thick stuff further west and punch ahead.
#27 Saw I had pulled out 10s or so and ran hard for the last few to consolidate 2nd place overall.

Great chase with the 'lead' changing hands several times and people taking a variety of routes. Somewhat unfortunate that it was arguably the undergrowth that decided the result but I enjoyed it anyway.

Only just over 2m 30s down on Crickmore this time around - not that he had any company or real impetus.

See race graph: http://www.syo.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/rg2api.php?ty...

And again... backhand good.

Bit disappointed with how little energy I seemed to have this weekend. Probably need to have a bit of a rest to make sure that I am feeling a bit more lively in a couple of weeks time.
Planned to have a day off, but it was too nice an evening not to have a quick game of tennis!

White Rose Team Event
No surprises as the courses were pretty much a reverse of yesterday. Felt a bit more sprightly beforehand today, but (after route-choicing everyone downhill to the first control) that illusion was soon shattered as soon as it became necessary to climb and JamieP and Sludo disappeared.
Went backwards quickly as Field, Alcock and Magic all came past, but we were all came back together at #8 (re-entrant, but hung on an unmapped tree) after everyone missed it to varying degrees. Led the pack through until #16 but then came off the slope too early for #17 and a poor route back up the hill saw me slip back a couple of places. Didn't bother chasing too hard as knew that I would have to go immediately back out for the final loop.

Bit of a procession really. Cairn seemed to be a bit high.