Training Log Archive: markg

QLD Long distance champs at the Cascades. Epic fail. I simply didn't have the technical or the physical skills today. Poor technique, and felt weak - couldn't push myself at all. Really annoyed at myself for lame mistakes. More than once I butchered a control despite hitting solid attackpoints on the edge of the circle. #1, #2 and #3 were all good examples of that and left me nearly 10 min of the pace at that point! I lost another 2 min on #5 despite executing my chosen route (contoured round to the fence at the start) pretty well - I just felt sooo slow. When Blair caught me from 12min at #11 my spirit was pretty much broken and when I lost 2 min on #12 I was completely gone and had a little sit-down in the shade to recuperate. Plodded through the remainder with some more big mistakes 3 and 4 minutes and some good legs.

Failures:
1 No flow. Not reading ahead at all, not paying attention to what features are coming up and what I'm doing then
2 No direction control into and out of (see 1) controls. Screwing up a control from a good attackpoint is just lame.
3 No fitness. No training either so shouldn't expect much.

Shit way to finish my championship season.

Warm up only. Not coughing so much today.

Add to the list of failures above failing to read and navigate by the contours. Case in point: on control 10 I took 8.31 and the fastest split was 5.36. I lost 45s in the circle but the remainder was pussy footing around navigating off rocks instead of blasting down the big bloody gully ... what a knob.

QLD Middle Champs. An undeserving 2nd place 4min behind Lorenzo. Looking at the splits I dropped 2.5 min to Lorenzo by #6 despite only a couple of minor wobbles. At the time I was pleased to spike #6 and thought I'd done it pretty nicely but in fact I was a minute off the pace. First error at #7, about 45s, nailed the next two but then had a big wobble mid-leg on #10 but that seemed bigger at the time then the splits show because Mark Nemeth charged past me to set the fastet time after making a mistake at #8 where I had first passed him. Lost 1.5 min on #11 after navigating pretty cleanly to the circle - probably wasn't being careful enough from my attackpoint on but just couldn't make sense of the detail. Passed Mark again because he also stuffed this one. Ran well through the next few but then made a really dumb mistake on #15. I hit the big pair of boulders to the SE of the control but didn't check my compass and ran well to south, and let Mark finally get away from me. Tried to chase hard across the open areas but was feeling pretty ordinary and couldn't get any speed up. Figured I lost about 1min from there to the finish but the splits show I wasn't much off the pace.

Warm up and warm down with many coughing fits.

Easy commute to and from Subaru dealership in Toowong. Had a good stretch afterwards and legs feel nice and loose.

Cough of the last few days has turned into a cold. I really hope it clears up before Saturday ...

Cyclones orienteering intervals. Good fun: hillier and more technical than last week. Probably a bit too technical in places, meaning the pace dropped too much.