Training Log Archive: Ollie

Work to Putney.

Putney to home. First half to Waterloo with HG, in 23 minutes. Then 30 minutes from Waterloo to home, via Blackfriar's Bridge & A10.

SO Level C event at Cowdray Wood, near Worth. 6.1km Black course. Tried to keep the tempo up as course relatively short. Made two mistakes, both near a fence on the northern edge of the race area. The second mistake cost me at least two minutes.

Event: London Street-O Race #3: Clerkenwell
 

SLOW Clerkenwell Street-O. Cool, crisp evening. The map stretched from the Thames at Blackfriars, to the start of Liverpool Road in Angel, and included the Barbican and most of the western half of the City of London urban map - so, being very familiar with the layout, I concentrated on that. Took a gamble near the end and went up to Percy Circus from Mount Pleasant to get a 30-pointer just before the end - that, + a 20 pointer on the way back, gave me an edge and meant I finished third out of just under 90 runners, my best Street-O result for ages. I got one answer marked wrong (a parallel error) which was due to building work blocking a marked street - I assumed the street wasn't shown on the map, but it was.

Post-race pub (The Bowler) was very nice, even if it was >£10 for two pints of lager, especially as they gave us a free drink to say sorry for the food (which was excellent) taking so long to arrive.

To/from Putney. Raining gently the whole time.

To Waterloo

SN Trophy at Frith/Old Windmill Hills. Running Black - quoted distance 11.9km. Forgot compass, so found the course a challenge in this tricky, technical area (army area - maze of paths, many curved!) although the latter half of the course was more straightforward, so picked up speed here. Poor route to No. 1 (set off too fast, not following map closely enough considering no compass) and struggled to find No. 3 while in the circle. Also big (90 degree) mistake to No. 10, again would have not happened if I had had a compass! Finally, a few too many bingo controls for my liking - hidden in small deep pits, which themselves were often well away from other features. But, pleasant day (blue sky, cold, damp on ground), nice course, great area, just about justified the exorbitant EOD fee (£14).

Extra bonus is I (narrowly) beat HWW.
Lots of blisters from running in new shoes.

Tired.

Event: Salisbury City Race (UKOL18)
 

Salisbury City Race. Running Course 1 (7.9km straight line). Finished 8th of around 50. A few small mistakes near the end. Had some legibility issues with the map - in a couple of places, a set of three wide but close-together steps looked like an uncrossable wall. One control was also technically unreachable as required crossing a narrow (50cm) channel mapped as uncrossable! The course avoided the centre of the city, probably due to the traffic and crowds. A pleasant run and interesting course though, with short technical sections in schools interspersed with good route-choice legs, and a great long leg through the centre of the city. Great to see a 50%+ overrun course.

Back from Waterloo. Great tail-wind!