Training Log Archive: Arnold

In Ancient Olympia, Greece, on summer holiday.

As usual it’s stupidly hot here, though down from 45C last week to 35C now. I timed this run around sunset to avoid the worst - early morning would have been better, but I CBA to get up before 11 so this was the best alternative.

It did start to feel really hot after about 5km but I stuck it out, and am happy about that, especially as we’re on top of a hill so the run was all down, then all up again.

More pootling around Richmond Park, minus the shredded legs this time. Fitness as expected although my achilles hurt quite a lot

It was 18c and rain (actually quite pleasant), leaving for Greece tomorrow where it’s more like 44c. Be an interesting experience.

Pootle around Richmond Park, with my plan to do the "short terrain loop" quickly dispelled by the man eating bracken interlaced with leg shredding blackberry bushes. Ended up doing a similar-is loop but mostly on paths.

Super tired from work / not enough sleep, but this was surprisingly doable (even if very slow).

Some "running" with Tobi. He won't be beating me over 5k for some time yet.

Epsom Downs GLOSS race

#epicfail. Seemed like a fun idea to do the 30 minute drive to a nice little area with some views over a racecourse.

And the views were indeed nice as was the area, but I was utterly knackered from the last couple of weeks combined with what felt like stifling humidity so I thought my head might explode.

First 15 mins were just about fine, though slow and I got overtaken by Tim way earlier than I expected. Then I literally slowed down to a crawl, so much so that when I got to the finish of the main loop, I decided not to bother with the 3km ‘extension’ even though it looked quite fun. I just really CBA.

The alternative would have been a nice lie-in plus brunch at home with the kids and maybe a short park run later. It was the wrong call. Oh well.

At a conference near Windsor, so thought I’d check out the local area, where the Magna Carta was signed a few years ago.

A run of two halves. First half being:
- flat
- along an even towpath
- full of beans
- 4:43/k

Second half being:
- the very opposite
- not helped by getting properly stuck in brambles / private property / a building site
- 5:48/k

Both equally enjoyable.

Richmond Park Race, 5.6/100

Work is going a bit crazy at the moment, but this was literally 500m from our house so just about managed to drag myself out. As a bonus, it was absolutely throwing it down, so my kit was stuck to me even before I started!

Once I got going it was fine, as it always is, and certainly more pleasant than running in the previous months’ heat. I know the area inside out but as the map is a bit sketchy and the undergrowth high, some controls still needed finding.

Got one route choice wrong (two halves - both wrong), losing about 40s plus another minute maybe faffing around in other places. Felt like I wasn’t running that slowly, but Abi was about 10% faster on most legs, so I’m just getting old.

After some persuading, Tobi also went out on the short course and promptly won it, although Abi needed to help him on the first couple of controls given he hadn’t orienteered in ages. He did really well on the rest though and beat me on the run-in! He still says he doesn’t like orienteering but I’m secretly hoping he might change his mind.

Abi ended up 2 minutes behind me given she helped Tobi to start with (in her running time) but would have beaten me by a couple of minutes otherwise. There’s a rematch on Sunday.

ICE-O Middle, Raudholar, near Reykjavik, Iceland.
Orienteering country no. 51

Been looking forward to this and it didn't disappoint. Bit short but very cool terrain - basically open with a load of mini lava craters, mixture of loose rock and tussocks underfoot but very runnable unless you ended up on the wrong side of a crater.

Technique was at best a 7/10, got pulled off the line a couple of times and generally slightly sloppy so probably a couple of minutes lost.

Fitness more like a 4/10 and I really felt the previous day's climb in my thighs so plodded along and got passed by a speedy Joe Barrett halfway round.

Thought Joe might win but his 24 minutes were easily beaten by a Flying Finn, Lauri Nenonen, who took 21.

Afterwards, fun to catch up with a random bunch of orienteers from around the world including Barry Elkington, Cesare Tarabocchia, Michael Stockmayer and of course Pete & Gail Gagarin (yay! been ages and they look very well- apparently they booked a week in Iceland first and then discovered there was orienteering, what luck!)

The locals, led by Gisli Orn Bragason, did a good job on the organisation although they outsourced the mapping to Cesare (great) and the planning to a Finn called Ulf (also very good) so there won't soon be an Icelandic world O champion.

C • Cesare 1