Training Log Archive: Ollie

Event: LOK Holmbury Hill Regional Event
 

Running M21L at a LOK event at Holmbury Hill. Wow, what a great area - loved it. The map felt very similar to that of the nearby, and similarly excellent, Leith Hill. Weather was cloudy but clear, quite warm and not too breezy - very pleasant.

I had quite a slow run - I thought I did OK, just about running out of energy as I crossed the finish line, but I finished 2/3rds of the way down the result list, and behind a whole lot of people I know - Paul, Roger, Matthias, most of OUOC. I tended to walk, rather than run, up the many short climbs (these were generally around 25m each time, and there were a lot of them!) I also made two big mistakes, an appalling start costing me over two minutes, and I was misled by a section of poor mapping later on, costing me a further three minutes. But, considering the length of the course and the relative technicality of the area, I wasn't too annoyed with the mistakes.

Mistakes:
To 1: Poor navigation and map-reading. (2m)
To 3: Hesitation (30s)
To 13: Hesitation (30s)
To 16: Bingo control (30s)
To 18: Poor mapping (vegetation detail) (3m)

Cycling from Dorking Deepdene station to the orienteering event on Holmbury Hill. Using my mobile photo satnav module to guide me! The (road-based) route involved a serious amount of climbing, but it was extremely picturesque which made it worthwhile.

Other cycling today: To Victoria station - going very fast, then from Holmbury Hill to Peaslake (entirely downhill and great fun - again pretty fast), Peaslake to Gomshall, and from London Bridge back home.

Launch of the Permanent Orienteering Course at Beckton District Park, set up by CHIG and sponsored by Newham Fit Club (the council's sports development programme.)

Beckton District Park is only a few miles from my house, at the other end of the Greenway cycle route, and features a nice pond at the north end, some tricky(ish) park/wood terrain in the middle, and some large fields at the south end, with, slightly surreally, a small horse-riding circuit. I wasn't expecting to find horses in London's Docklands area, but there they were.

Today's event was a mass-start score, using the 23 permanent control posts, and pencils/control cards to note down the letters on each one. The turn-out seemed to be pretty good - thanks presumably to a lot of promotion by Newham Fit Club. The event being free, with free drinks, medal and goodie bag at the end, means this was probably the best value orienteering event I've ever been to.

Walked around the Petticoat Lane area, which includes Catherine Wheel Alley (great name) and Devonshire Square, as well as the Petticoat Estate.

Turns out it's a pretty dull area, and as it's cut off from the rest of the map by Bishopsgate and Houndsditch, I would imagine only the longest courses, if any, visit it. I was disappointed that public access to both the Devonshire Sq and Cutlers Gardens developments is restricted - both of these will have to be OOB. Petticoat Estate is also restricted and is anyway a lot less interesting than the map suggests.

Surveyed the western and northern part of the Barbican Estate, including the Museum of London area. That's the Barbican completed now. Woohoo!

Another record-breaking number of photos taken - 375, or around one every 30 seconds. If all goes to plan, Golden Lane Estate tomorrow.

SLOW Street Race in Notting Hill and Kensington. Absolutely loads of people turned up. I arrived a bit late, having cycled right across Central London, so I wasn't in the best shape to do the race. My stomach cramped up after around 20 minutes and I eased off the pace quite a lot, only picking it up again near the end. I got 22 of the 40 control sites, some required quite a lot of looking around to find - many involved reading names off blue plaques on the side of houses. Ed won with 34 control sites found. There were a couple of notable hills - mainly around the side of Holland Park.

Estimated time - still haven't found cycle computer. To/from Notting Hill Gate, out via City University and Farringdon, back through the City.

Ran M21L at the TVOC Chiltern Challenge Regional Event at Downley & Bradenham, just north of High Wycombe. Warm (for February) and cloudless skies - lovely. Very muddy indeed underfoot in places, though.

More to follow.

Surveyed the eastern part of the Barbican Estate. Really nice, sunny day, and quite warm. Also considerably less stressful than surveying the Broadgate Estate last week - it was much quieter and fewer jumpy security personnel and CCTV. Took a record number of photos - almost 300.

It was really nice being 6m above the traffic during pretty much the whole survey! The only fiddly bit is right in the Barbican Centre itself - particularly the access from the Gilbert Bridge to the main Podium and the upper level - it's a multilevel headache there. The map may have to have some "white lies" on it.

Appropriately, I am currently reading Mark Monmonier's "How to Lie With Maps" book, one of the texts for the geovisualisation module I'm currently doing.

I've lost my cycle computer, hence no cycling times for last week. I'm sure it's somewhere under the huge pile of papers on my desk.

Finished off the Broadgate Estate survey last week by walking around and memorising the missing bits (without camera) during rush hour, several times.

In to Waterloo, then from Liphook to near Henley, via Woolbeding Common - some of it off-road and very steep. Distance and time estimated.

GO "OO Trophy" and Southern Championships Regional Event at Furnace Wood, Woolbeding & Great Commons. Ran M21L. Cool and a bit windy, but not rain. Quite wet and muddy underfoot though. This was a well planned but tough course. A pleasant an intricate section near the start gave way to a tough, hilly section through commercial forest, before a final, flat but quite long section near the end.

As this was longer than any recent orienteering event I've been to recently, I deliberately ran slowly, keeping my pace and HR down below what it would normally be for orienteering at speed. I hit the wall after running around 12km (total distance run was 14.5km according to my Garmin GPS) and found it very difficult to keep running to the end. My aching hip that has been annoying me since New Year chose that moment to start hurting again, too, although it didn't significantly affect my time as much has having no energy to run. Quite amused to beat a fellow SLOW runner by three seconds, though.

Staggered across the finish line absolutely drained and exhausted - forced food and drink into my mouth and headed off, still in pain, to the post-race meet at the nearby pub. It looks like everyone found it very tough going, the cold weather and the hilly first half contributing, and in my case a hangover - and my 5K yesterday perhaps - didn't help either. Thankfully got a lift home, as there was no way I was going to be able to cycle back at any speed to Haslemere station.

I need to improve my stamina, and be able to run 12-15km orienteering races, and half marathons, without hitting walls near the end. Otherwise I'm never going to make it around the JK.

Mistake analysis:
To 7: Poor route choice - chose a slow route with too much climb, then poor map-reading near control (1m30)
To 9: Poor route choice - misread contours and needlessly climbed huge spur (1m)
To 10: Had difficulty finding control, needed to relocate (1m30)
To 11: Mis-read map and went up wrong stream. (1m)
To 14: Too low in control circle, although realised mistake quickly (30s)
To 16: Poor pacing, searching in poor-vis area too early (1m 30)
To 18: Ran out of energy, then couldn't find control feature (1m)

C • Seconded 1

Bushy Park Time Trial - first run in the new, and permanent, "reverse" direction. Very cold indeed (around freezing) and a clear, cloudless sky. A lot of people there, considering it's February. My pace was well down on what I was doing last year, but this could be as much to do with it just being difficult to run in such cold conditions, as me being out of fitness. My HR (first time I've worn my HRM to the BPTT) was a lot lower than I was expecting, and climbed gradually throughout the race - quite a bit different to orienteering, where it starts and stays high - I wasn't expecting that. Finished 59th, which I didn't think was too bad at all.

To/from Waterloo. Much slower in than normal as, for once, I got up when planned. It was also extremely cold (sub-zero.)

More field surveying. Planned to do the Broadgate Estate, and surrounding streets in Hackney. Got around 70% of the estate done before security caught up with me - to be fair I had taken over 100 photographs by that point - and kicked me out. I'll have to get permission to finish off the remaining section (mainly around Exchange Square.)

Warming down. Up to the old water pump and back. Didn't do much as I hadn't got very hot during the race itself, and also wanted to get back to have breakfast.

Test-ran the schools course at Wimbledon Park, after helping out teams from various south London schools with SLOW. Time may not be completely accurate as the start/finish clocks weren't perfectly synchronised. Looking at the distances and splits, and considering that my pace was faster than my normal BPTT 5K pace, I think the time was more like 4:55.