Training Log Archive: Ollie

London (Hackney) to Brighton. Time doesn't include stops - total time was 7h15. Stopped for around 45 minutes for lunch at the Dog and Duck, which was conveniently half way.

Along the canal - light enough for the first time this year for the commute home.

Well late today, so completely missed tail end of rush hour.

Really pushed this one. Felt great. Annoyed a lot of canal and road users though.

Via Marble Arch for OSM meetup. Head-wind the whole way from Marble Arch.

Felt good.

First part of surveying for the COL extension. Did the area around Shoe Lane. Took around 140 pictures.

Long cycle, on my mountain bike, from home in East London, through the Greenwich Foot Tunnel and along National Cycle Network Route 21, through South-East London, Redhill, Gatwick Airport, Crawley, East Grinstead and Eridge Station to Heathfield. This being an NCN route, there were various pointless diversions to avoid main roads, and some surprisingly narrow, steep and muddy paths. Then, as it was now properly dark, abandoned the planned route to Eastbourne (the remainder of which was largely off-road) and instead headed west for 10km on a fast road to Buxted, where the return train to London was gratefully boarded.

Back home from London Bridge Station, via Stepney Green.

151km in a day is my P.B. for distance cycling (previous best was around 105km when cycling from London to Brighton - that was hillier but was all on-road.)

SLOW Evening Street-O, Surbiton.

Running for one of the two SLOW teams at the BUCS Relays. I was the last leg runner, so I arrived well after the start of the relay, and conveniently around 20 minutes before my second leg runner headed in. Weather was lovely - a bit gusty, but dry and sunny, much better than the forecast.

A much better run than yesterday - although it couldn't have been worse. Looking at the map now, I made mistakes at almost half the control, but these were all minor mistakes. My biggest time waste was actually going over on my ankle - slightly stiff after yesterday. The first time it was just a few seconds of pain, but the second time, at control 16, resulting me in having to grab a tree in agony and wait the pain out - about a minute wasted here.

I also got off to a poor start - again. It should have been an easy first leg, running due west until hitting a track, but I swung north and went to the wrong side of a large area of greener forest. 2-3 was also poor - climbing up the wrong path, although this was at least correctable and I spotted what I was doing without wasting much time. And I messed up the control after the spectator control - although speaking to a few people afterwards, it sounds like a lot of people made the same mistake.

Despite what I thought was a good run, I was effectively overtaken by two team (although not actually, as we were running the Men's Open relay but started 15 minutes after the university teams.) However, this was partly due to our first leg runner, Ralph, having a superb run and coming in first place! I came 16th in my leg and the team finished 15th overall.

Well done to Ian and OUOC on organising a top quality weekend of university orienteering - and on coming second of all the university teams.

Went over (tired) right ankle during today's race. Hope it's fixed for the Tuesday night street-o.

Event: BUCS Championships 2009
 

The BUCS Championships at Esher - running before helping out at the start. My first orienteering race for six weeks or so - and it showed. I messed up the short start leg comprehensively, wasting three minutes on a one minute leg. I was a little smoother after then, making small mistakes in the very fast area, until near the end when it all went really wrong. My decision to wear a baselayer was a bad one - I started to overheat quite a lot and kept having to stop running to cool down, from around control 14. At this point, I was around a minute ahead of Jon M, who had started a minute behind me, so all was good. But it wasn't until after control 23 that I took off the layer. Immediately felt much cooler (and better) but then preceded to make several large mistakes in the tricky, technical part of Oxshott Common. First, I approached the spectator control from an odd angle. I then took a poor (i.e. just ran) approach to the next control, which was very tricky, in an area of broken ground. I also missed the next, and then Control 29 was my worst of all. I got lost on the way, and ended up at a junction with no idea where I was - and worse, seemingly no way to relocate. Every time I ran, I was unable to line up the map and compass, and kept thinking that I was just running in the wrong direction. Eventually managed to sort myself out and proceeded up to the top of the hill (!).

Ended up 14 minutes behind Jon - essentially, I should have been able to keep up with him, so should have been doing low-70s.

After finishing, helped out at the start, then came back to watch the really good people finishing, some with highly impressive times.

Cycle up the Lea Valley - taking a substantial diversion at one point due to flooding - to Epping Forest, then around the forest and back along the canal. FInished off by cycling along all the trails in Hackney Community Woodland, so they can get added to OpenStreetMap.

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