Training Log Archive: Keith

Event: Sothern Champs, Hambleden
 

Southern Champs M21E
Hambleden

Felt sluggish at the start, and then the map was all skewed going into 4, got stuck behind some trees and then actually saw the control and thought that can't be it... but it was. Don't know what the heck i was thinking on 10, ended up going much to the right and losing height. On the long leg went slightly west of the line and high. it was good running, but maybe a tad straigther or slightly east will probably be quicker. Then stupidly ran to another control at 15. A few other small things. maybe 4 mins of errors all up.
On looking at the results & map, my route to 6 was quite poor and cost me time too.
Physically felt better after the first few and felt goodish on the flats and straights. Struggled on the hills and walked most of them. When i lived in hillier climbs, i would say hills were a strong point, need to build in some hiller sessions now my fitness is getting back.

Nice forest, much whiter than mapped.
The resource who spent hours writing 8 pages of details (so that relevant snippits were hidden by irrelavant garble) would've been much better off moving some water points onto the actual course so i could have had a drink!!!

winner craney 86 min

warm up and a wee warm down

C • Irrelevant garble 4

Event: JOK Chasing Sprint
 

JOK Chasing spirnt
Prologue Shotover woods, oxford

hmmm, dropped a minute on the first control, rough on 4,5,7, bad route to 6, not a great race. Struggled on hills.

Chase

Started 11s behind mr nicholas and kept in sight of him until 9, we went down and up to 8, which seems a poor route. Then slowed down a bit through 11, 12. Had a guy behind me through the last ones. Was hoping he wasn't going to contest the finish, but he did, so then had to run real fast, Even thought about employing tims blocking tactics, but then got to the line, felt like spewing. Struggled on the hills again.
Gained one place.

Various warm ups and warm downs.

commute

Ahhaa back to english pre event insturctions, I need to block half an hour in my diary for these ones:

"Out of bounds Areas:
The following areas are out of bounds: ....
Any fields marked as out of bounds...
All other areas on the map are inbounds"

how i long for portugese event organisation...

Lunchtime cruise, standard short loop

Portugal was really good. Great mapping, good terraine, slight sunburn, chilled out yet efficent event organisation, villa with 5 bathrooms, tennis court, pool (table and swimming), fireplaces would go back for sure.
Happy technically bar day 1
Just need to get fitness up a bit for JKish time, still got a few weeks.

Day 4, Long, same map as midle yesterday.
A bit of a slog, challenging, but not overly technical. quite a few small wobbles and in ciricle problems. Probably some sub par route choices too. Was feeling pretty tired today, forgot to take gels,and it was quite marshy. So just pleased to get round.
51st

warm up only

Day 3 Middle WRE
Herdadeds de Entre Ribeiras E Coutadas
Really fun race, quite technical, a bit flock hillish, with added scrub and other light veg. A few wobbles and bannanas, 3, 7, 15, And stood around on the hill at 18, trying to find it (30s), bad route to 19, slow decent from 20 (down steep rock face). Also feeling a bit slow. But generally quite happy with my run.
39th

Night sprint - Portalegre
Got a bit flustered at start, didn't take the control descriptions (all the other days they'd been at the maps...) Pretty hesitant to 1, and a bit all over the place. Apart from this pretty good. Bad route choice to 7, 30 s. Then at 11 knocked over the control so went back to pick it up, and slightly poor route choice (20s). So pretty pleased with race all up. I took a number of good route choices, wasn't overly tricky, but sufficent. I didn't have any car incidents like others. Speed felt OK, particuarly on the downhills and across.
26th winner 16.10