Training Log Archive: Arnold

SN Trophy Mytchett.
Short Brown 8.8/295/20.

Nice course in a good bit of contoured woodland. Technically not the hardest because of all the tracks, but you did need to pay attention to the squiggles.

Didn't feel great physically but just about toughed it out. Technically was generally really good, the LIDAR map helping to find some very smooth lines and safe APs to keep speed high.

Did make 2x 15s wiggles and then 1x 75s mistake towards the end, but in my defence the mapping style there was very odd with yellow lines instead of paths and inconsistent path thicknesses. But I knew I'd gone too far so should have trusted my instinct and corrected earlier.

Came 3rd by 55 seconds, which I'll take all day long. With Tobi winning his cup match and Garnacho's worldie, a good weekend all round.

In Paris for work. Stayed further east than normal so went over to do a loop of the Buttes-Chaumont. Forgot that it is quite butte-y, as the name would suggest.

Nice to be out and after a slow start felt ok ish. Calves a bit tight but hopefully nothing major.

We don’t have a car and Claudia needed to go to school for a drama thing, so I Ubered her there (as bizarrely u18s aren’t allowed on their own) and ran back.

It’s further than I remembered and I wasn’t up for it initially, but got into it and felt fine, except for a weakness wobble on Kingston Bridge. But got over that and was a decent enough workout in the end. Helped that it is literally flat as a pancake.

South East Night Champs, Addington Hills
Long, 5.1/230/27

Advertised as “the best area inside the M25” and it never disappoints. It’s definitely bijou - maybe 800x500m - but full of fairly steep spur/gully terrain plus a bunch of micro terrain, so the 1:5000 scale is apt.

Hadn’t felt great all week but this was really enjoyable and while I wasn’t exactly shifting, it wasn’t embarrassingly slow either. Technically very solid, maybe 1 minute lost in total on a misread description + a slightly misplaced (I think) control but tbf I was chancing it.

My major issue was the interplay of the headlamp (not the most powerful) and the O glasses - this was my first race with both. Normally I can shove the glasses up on my head when I don’t need them, but here the lamp was in the way.

That plus the lamp tilting down a lot (needs tightening) plus some mist meant that I frequently really struggled to see where the flip I was going - and a lot of my concentration went on fiddling with the setup rather than the orienteering.

But overall, excellent fun and a decent run, so that’s good.

Note - took the Croydon Tram there and back from home and was on a schedule back for dinner, so downloaded, grabbed my bag and legged it back through the woods to the tram. Made it by 30 seconds = home 15 minutes earlier. Mini fist-bump.

MOCPA Open Day 2, Prilep, North Macedonia
Middle, Men Elite, 4.3/205/26
Orienteering country no.52

Have had this (annual) race on my list for a long time and pleased I could make it happen this year, even if only for 1 of the 3 days. As expected, the area (around Pisokal monastery) was really tough both physically and technically - the first part a steep, rocky, wooded / semi open slope and the second part an open area full of giant boulders. I never got into the map despite it being 1:7.5, with the vegetation being very tricky to read and the conditions making it easy to drift off line - held it together well except for two big mistakes totalling maybe 5 minutes; on both occasions I must have been within 10 metres of the control but just didn’t see it. Serves me right for not being more careful though, but then everything kinda looked the same so even going feature by feature was tricky.

Then the underfoot conditions didn’t help, a mix of brashings in the first part and high “pampas style” grass in the second, plus lots of small scratchy trees so my body looks like it’s been attacked by a vicious cat.

But a brilliant, brilliant day out and kudos to Michael van Baelen, a Belgian orienteer now resident in N.Mac., who basically organised the whole thing by himself.

As usual I didn’t have much time to hang around but did spend a night in Ohrid which is highly recommended.

Postscript: Soren Schwartz did the course in 33:57. I knew I was bad but I admit I hadn’t thought I was that bad.

Back to Sunday morning for this due to the clock change, and predictably very hard work, so much so I need a couple of short (& one longer) rest breaks.

Not helped by the - also predictably - mega slippery conditions after a couple of weeks of almost nonstop rain. Good training for orienteering, I suppose.

Twisted my ankle pretty badly, but luckily the tendons there are so stretched that I should be fine.