Training Log Archive: Lizzie

WOC done for another year. Sigh.

Overall think I have to be pleased with my results. Obviously the sprint was a highlight, and I know I can go even better. Just need to work on my route choice decisions when I'm in oxygen debt.

Long was a disappointment. but again, I know I'm good enough to get in that top ten on my day. Same with the Middle.

Relay went as well as it could given my tired legs. Reassuring that I can stick it with those top girls. Might give last leg a go in the next couple of years?

So all up I think I did as well as I could, and can rest satisfied that I gave it everything. In the future I think it's time to bite the bullet and choose only 2 distances to contest. I've shown I'm competitive in all of them, but to get the results I know I'm capable of I need to have enough energy and strength left in my legs to give it my best come finals time

warmup around quarantine, once I'd recovered from squirting hand sanitiser all over my face. (sounds stupid, but the bottle was really hard to work! Amber did it too!)
Slow slow warmdown with Kate. Didnt want to, but flights home would have been 3x as bad if I hadn't.

Then went to the toilet and managed to squirt the hand sanitiser in my eye this time.

Much like last year, mass start was surprisingly slow. So I hit the forest in 2nd place behind Emma K. Then it was a road race to the first control. Stuck with the leaders ok until 5. But then hit the hill and my legs had nothing. No way I could stick with the pace of the leaders, so dropped back and just kept my own pace and race.
No real mistakes, just dead legs. Some big splits so payed to keep attention to your own map rather than the runners around you! 10 was a classic example, think only Finland and I had that split on 1st leg!

Absolutely dead for the last 1/3 of the course.

cruised around open medium at Swiss 5 days just to have a look at the long final terrain. Turned out it was an orange course at hardest. Legs still felt screwed from races earlier this week, seriously need to get blood tests and iron checked when i get home. suspect it's rock bottom.

Oh, and i think i won the course. Or maybe Toby took 1 min out of me. But we were both walk/jogging. Take that swiss 13 year olds....

Oh man. I don't think I realised just how much I annihilated myself in the last few days. Barely made it through breakfast this morning. And have made it approx 20m from my bed since.

About to attempt a trip to the supermarket, cos I'm starving. Wish me luck!

C • Good luck. 4

WU at prestart. WD with Maja afterwards. Which was good. We both had bad runs, and both calmed down quite a bit on the warm down!
And 2nd WD with Vanessa and Suzanne.

Heart was more than willing, but my legs and brain just didn't come to the party. Had no plan to the first control, but got it cleanly enough. Then things started to turn to pie. Found myself looking on an unmapped hill at no.2. Off on 3. Stupid mess of 4. 5 was an easy control. A roundabout route choice to 6, no idea if it was worth it, but my brain seemed to think so at the time.
Then legs turned to custard (to accompany the pie). Bearing went wrong and ended up towards 16, easy enough to relocate and get 7, but a big time loss.
Managed to run parallel to the track rather than out to it to get to 8. Was just bleeding time everywhere!
Legs died on teh way uphill to 9 and it was a real mental challenge to keep going. 10-11-12 were actually fine, and runnable. But I was still losing time just on tired running speed.
Took a long track option to 13. Not too bad a option i don't think, except that I made a mess of things from my attackpoint and lost another couple of minutes!!
14,15, just super slow and angry at the world. Not in a good headspace at all.

And 16. oh. 16. I don't even know. Let's not go there (I almost didn't). I came off the track within sight of the building at the track jn (although the gps doesn't say so, and it doesn't fit where I later ended up...but there was 100% a junction and a building where I crossed the track!!) Then bearing up onto the spur...and there was all this extra clearing! Figured it couldn't be the patch way down the hill, cos I came off the track at the junction - so I went around the bottom. And before I knew it, I was back on the previous track, but at the junction right down the bottom of the hill! WTF?!

Yeah, was depravingly screaming at myself and the forest by that point. But I finished. That's the main point.

I want to shoot whoever put 5 races in 4 consecutive days at this WOC. Never again.

So yeah, pushed myself to the absolute limits today. Very disappointing to work so hard for this WOC, but just not be in a fit state to give my favourite (and i believe potentially best) distance it's best shot.
As stink as it feels now, I'll learn from the experience :)

Checked out the WU map. Limped around the field to warm down

Middle Qual.
Pretty much a down hill race, with a couple of steep uphill legs. Spiked no.1, almost spiked myself on a barbed wire fence on the way to 2. Luckily saw it 1m away and slowed down, so the marks aren't too bad!
Small miss on 3, then slow mission up the hill to 4. Bearing wrong to 6, and actually hit the rock right next to 7, relocated off 7.
Long leg to 9, kept the bearing ok. Got caught by the Simone train as I hit the green and detail. But then...I turned right and hit the control (lost maybe 20-30s), Simone and the train turns left! That's right, I out navigated Simone to a control! ...unfortunately I then got my direction wrong on 10 and the train came back through...
11,12 pushing the pace trying to catch back up the train, but they were gone. 13 I hit the gully fine but control must have been just out of sight. Ended up going round ina 20m radius circle around the control minder! Relocated off the ride and ended up in the same gully as first up, but this time with the control in it!

Lost my head band somewhere around 14. And boy, what a killer of a finish chute! Replacing my hill intervals with AJ intervals out of necessity this year was fine, until I hit that chute!

10th equal with Maja. Qualifying felt super sweet after yesterday's disappointment :)

Managed to smash my sore toe again. The nail is a goner...

Will attempt to update with race reports on Weds (rest day). Or if things turn to shite tomorrow, perhaps on tues...

Talk about a mixed experience so far. Some pretty awesome highs yesterday, and a definite low today. Missing out by 8s hurts, but to be fair I only have myself to blame. If I'd held it together like I know I'm capable of I'd have qualified comfortably.

Chiin up and tomorrow's a completely different prospect.

C • 9th 2

Small warm up. And token warm down. Only made it around the soccer pitch twice. Legs stuffed!

Long qual. Pretty fast openish forest, with tracks to use when it wasn't open. Despite the very sore legs from yday, they felt ok once I got going. Navigation was all good for the first half and was feeling confident.
Missed a track on 7 which cost me 20-30s but ok.
Then route was fine to 9, but got confused by a larger than mapped clearing towards the end. As a result I ran straight past the control (must have been looking left at the clearing when the control was just to the right). Hit the track behind and stupidly ran left without fully thinking it through. Saw a hungarian(?) get told where she was by another competitor. not cool. then realised where i was myself and did a 180 back down the track to exactly where I first hit it...and could see the control! DAMN IT! (still beat the hungarian there, just saying). 2-2.5min mistake.

10,11 ok, then wrong direction on 12 and lack of confidence. Another min gone.

Happy with 13, but perhaps took the wrong exit choice, costing me 20-30s. Then pushing it through the last few controls. Perhaps didn't plan 2nd to last control well enough, ended up in waist high raspberry bushes. Just pushed through - but that's where I lost 15th place!

So yes. Not too displeased with the run, but 16th place by 8s...that hurts! Fast, pretty open terrain, small mistakes were costly. Shows you have to push the whole way, which I did. Unfortunately one too many mistakes today, and perhaps some tired legs from yday's efforts.

Garr missing out sucks. Don't want it to happen again!

Event: WOC 2012 - Lausanne SWITZERLAND
 

went for the x-talons thanks to the rain overnight. Didn't fancy slipping all over the show...plus Helena went for x-talons, and she knows what the game is.

Uh. Not sure where that came from?!

Such a cool area, but such basic courses! After all the hype about multilevels and how they were going to map it, barely mattered! Lots of left or right 50/50 route choices where once the choice was made it was just hell for leather running.

Didn't want to leave anything for chance, so gave it everything. And now I can say that I won a race at World Champs :)

short warmup in quaruntine, then a nice jog along the waterfront to the start. Very pretty :) And felt a bit like running along wellington waterfront...but swiss ;)

Holy Crap, most physical sprint ever!

Happy with my race until the spectator. Then the course really hit the hills... Didn't see the stairs in the uncrossable wall on the long leg, so took the longer, slower upper route. Which just killed my legs. From there it was survival mode, small errors crept in from oxygen debt and I was so relieved to hit the downhill towards the end!

No idea where I was in the standings when I came in as everyone was ignoring the little kiwi in all the excitement about some swiss woman winning on home soil...

10minutes later I found out I was top ten. That was nice. Bit of an understatement there...

As an aside, was pretty surreal and quite cool to be starting right at the back of the field with the big names :)

Legs screwed. After one day. Not good!

cruise around sprint model with greta. Completely unrelated to either WOC sprint. Thanks organisers. Atleast now I know how to sprint around football pitches...