Training Log: HammerTime

Warm up to start

Scottish Orienteering League, Balfour
15th of 19
https://www.maroc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#321

Beautiful forest, but very humbling to be this far down on an event where I was actually not too bad in terms of nav or fitness (look at the controls from 22 to finish and you see I actually had the same speed as some of the guys way in front).

Started the course pretty easy deliberately because I felt like I wasn't fully warmed up yet and I wasn't sure how I would cope with the distance. A small wobble on #1 (15s lost or so?), but apart from that no mistakes and yet I was still LAST place on #5 and #6 (apart from Ranolph Whitehead, but he doesn't count because he is first year 18 so I would expect him to be quite cautious). I think I should take from this that I need to be less cautious at the start of races, and I need to get faster at contouring round, which is where I think I lost a lot of time. Also slight route choice differences probably coming into play here.

Got caught by 4 mins by Spender at 6 and lost him to 7- he was just running way faster over terrain, and I was being fairly ankle aware. Solo all the way after this.

On 9 I ran too far and to the left past the control, and on 10 I had a hesitation after not reading the contour features correctly and being too far north. I should have given these controls a bit more respect. Next section was very efficient, and plans were carried out well, but looking at Wozzle's track he is taking very straight lines and not using the line features to follow- on 11 and 14 maybe this let me down a little, and I should consider being more gung ho. Small hesitation into 14, 15 seconds.

Did the control picky section quite well I feel, but not with the same speed as some. 21 I was too far right down the hill, but looks like Wozzle was very similar- slow coming in through the fallen trees from that direction. 22 was the worst control on the course- came out of 21 in the East direction following an elephant track and then I aimed to approach from below, so travelled north east, but the control was so close to 21 that even with this direction I was still above the control- cue hesitation and headless chicken behaviour before spotting it.

After 22 I realised that I had a LOT more in the tank, which was a surprise, and I think I sped up quite a bit over the terrain. I think that I also psychologically realised there was not that far to go. Hared it to 23, was able to keep some pace up the hill to 24 and then kept up a running pace in the heather up to 26- a bit right on 25, but nothing to worry about. Had to tie BOTH shoelaces after 26- need to invest in some tape for that- and then had a pretty decent section to the second last control. Was a bit left to the last control, so probably lost 20s.

Overall, not a bad one, but still almost last. SOL startfields are stacked bro. Will say I am a bit teed off with the guys at the top of the startlist ignoring their start times and seeding themselves with 1, 2, 3min start gaps and getting trains- if we all kept to start times, I doubt there would have been any trains at all, and the boys definitely got a boost.

TIME LOSS:
1: 20s
5: 30s
9: 55s
10: 55s
14: 15s
15: 10s
20: 35s (too far right)
21: 40s
22: 80s!!
25: 15s
27: 30s (shoelaces)
30: 25s

TOTAL: 6:50
Without timeloss: 95:46 (1:35:46)

Warm down

Warm up

Scottish Middle Distance Championships.
16th of 31
https://www.tay.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#35
http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/d...

Mostly the timeloss here was down to running rather than any sort of nav error, but still some takeaways.

Number 1, turns out you could see it from the start, so if I had just watched Thompass leaving the start I could have seen him actually dib the control. This clearly is a timeloss- I navigated well to the first control, but not as quick as someone who already knew where it was. Probably 10secs or so. Learnt the lesson for tomorrow.

2 was good but way slower than the rest of the field. On 3 I think I lost 5secs by trying to cut through a bit of gorse- never again. On 4 I think the routechoices were fairly balanced, and I didn't lose much if any time. On 5 I lost 10s by accidentally going into the lake! Small time losses and nothing to write home about, course was kinda easy and the gorse was well mapped. 7 I could have done a quick cut through that would have been 5s faster but not much, and on 8 I could easily have gone under the crags for 10m less climb- 10s on a micro routechoice. 10 I had a bit of a faff but I was on the line. No real navigational errors at all from that point on- saw Wozzle behind me on 12 but beat him to the finish.

Overall, a good technical performance. Should have been pushing harder. Do less faff. Use any advantage you can to gain time off the start.
TIMELOSS:
1: 10s
3: 5s
5: 10s
7: 5s
8: 10s
10: 5s
TOTAL: 45s
Time without timeloss: 42:55

Warm up to start

Second half of afternoon training, Creag Choinnich

http://3drerun.worldofo.com/index.php?id=-17018133...

Good technical, only one mistake- reading contour features on a descent down a hill.

Into work.

Back home

To work.

Home via gym

10mins row.
Feeling very uninspired.