Training Log Archive: Arnold

Cyprus O Fest, Day 4, Sia North, 4.6/240

Had a rough night stomach wise after making the mistake of eating a giant ‘meze’ buffet the night before, so really didn’t feel up for this in the morning. Plus, a 7.47am UK time start (9.47 local) and at that time it was 4C with a drizzle bordering on snow.

Went out anyway and proceeded to run off headlessly to control 1, losing 2 minutes on an orange leg. After that though, it was magically better: the sun appeared, the terrain was quite steep but really cool (mostly open runnable erosion gully stuff with lots of rock), I spiked all the controls and while I was only jogging, I made it through.

So I got round in a half decent time, behind the winner in 42 and my mate Borni in 47, but ahead of Phil in 52 and plenty of others.

After the run, we spent the afternoon skiing in Cyprus’ one and only resort - very small but lots of snow and very cool.

So overall, definitely worth the trip.

Cyprus Orienteering Festival, Day 3 (Sia South), 4.4/230
Orienteering Country no.47

A fun race on a pretty intricate 1:7.5k area - mostly open brush with some bushes and a lot of erosion-type spur/gully terrain.

Technically very solid, if a bit tentative in places - but it was the right approach as the map printing quality wasn't great so in some places it was a bit hopey-prayey. Physically not so good as I couldn't breathe properly especially towards the end - but the speed was still OK and I managed to win M45 by 8 seconds from my old mate Borni. 2nd on the course, 1 minute behind a Lithuanian M35.

A lovely little event of about 250 people, with low key organisation which seemingly relies on 2 people (Diana and Peter) doing all of the work, so good on them.

Pootling around the back end of Wimbledon while Tobi was playing basketball