Training Log Archive: Larry

Easter day 4

Toughest race of them all, especially after 3 days competing. in the morning felt like i'd recovered really well from the long, but by the end of my warm up I was hungry and my legs had that 'made of party balloons' empty feel to them. luckily during the banter at the start Simon agreed.

Once we were all in the start blocks, Simon, Craney and I saw Shep take off on a right angle to the start, which surprised me. One of the start team mentioned that there were different courses. This confused me, did she mean Shep could actually be going to a different first control to me? I'd have to wait and see. The seed of doubt had been planted though, and it took me a while to get myself sorted on the way to the first. Took my time making my decision to the second control, going around in the valley.

This paid off and I saw Craney at #3, which I had a small miss on. I was dissapointed with that, I feel like that was the most technical control in the course.

The first set of loops was full of runners when I got there. On the southern controls I planned to run past (my) #10 on the way to #9, which went really well, dodging green and using the tracking out of #10, but then on the way back to #10, I had forgotten where it was! good fun rocks.
Craney, Simon and I had come together in the loops and the two older boys seemed to be dropping me effortlessly. I was shattered. When we made to the second set of butterfly loops I was honestly expecting to be on my own, but once again, I was with Craney for one loop and then also with simon by the end of the loops (#19). It was awesome orienteering, fast, technical, and head to head racing. as we left those loops on the longer legs it was getting harder and harder to see Craney and Simon and i was pretty much on my own to #22. Went past the spectator control where Rob Preston was yelling "choke!" at me. But I didn't although I had some small wobbles in the last couple of controls.

EDIT: Stoked to be second at Easter, although I would have liked to be a bit closer to Simon. Still, I'll just have to be content going home with the points jersey ;)

C • choke 3

Day 3 1 Hard (1) - Splits

Easter day 3

After the last two days I'd felt as if I'd been navigating on the ragged edge a bit, and didn't think that strategy would work over 15km so went into the race a bit more relaxed. Evidently this was a bit too relaxed, because after cruising to the first control while taking in the rest of the course and finding good gel locations, completely switched off on the way to #2, losing 3 minutes. started to get going better once out on the long leg, but was always playing catch up with the map a bit (especially with those unresponsice SI units), and second guessing my route choices. Didn't really feel fully connected with the map until towards #13. Cramped up while pushing really hard to the finish in the last 8 or nine controls with some nice splits, just getting ahead of craney at #19.

Day 2 Course 1 - Splits

Easter Day 2

Was excited again to get some sweet sandstone action. Got my start wrong so ended up 10 minutes early at the start, lucky it wasn't the other way around. had a solid start but evidently wasn't moving very quick yet. slight miss to 7, probably 15 seconds. lost another 15 seconds on 8 just being a bit wayward on my bearing, but corrected nicely to spike it again. from here on was clean but started to tire on the hills. Wasn't sure about my routechoices to 9, 13 and 15 but the splits look good.

Another nervous wait to watch Shep and others come in. The splits look cool between shep and I. It looks like we had pretty similar runs, starting off steady and running hard late, but nothing after control 14 seperated us much!

Course 1 day1 - Splits

Event: Easter 2014
 

Day 1: Sprint
Had been pretty pumped for Easter all week, more excited than most races in the last 12 months. For the Sprint though I was just aiming to get through unscathed (no injuries or mp's) and enjoy it, but still going for it of course.

Little bit touch and go in the first few controls but connected with the map really well, only proper time loss was not avoiding some thicker grass and brambles on the way to 8.

First individual win at a NOL since 2011

8 hill intervals of 40sec on Mt ainslie old tip road. wif jog back down.