The Good.... WUOC Sprint
The Bad.... WUOC Middle
The Ugly.... WUOC Long
I'll start with the Ugly and work towards the sprint.
Day One of the World Students was going great, then I got worried that it was going well and this happened... or something like this anyways resulted in something like this....
The fail
So after that I hit the wall.
My report on my AP log can be read here and the map is here. Needless to say I was very disappointed with the run.
After the Long Distance, there was the Sprint. This was the race I was looking at all year after my MP at the Irish Champs... and also the reason I've been battling it out on the hills of late.
I was completely pumped for this race, but pumped in a calm sort of way.
I ran pretty cleanly for the entire race and was planning ahead and had good control flow. It really hurt. The worse bit of the race was that I had prepared mentally for the final hilly, grassy section. I was caught by suprise and suffered, I suffered badly!
Report from my training log is below.
I walked this...
The hills....
I really wanted a good race - this was kinda the race I was aiming for all year so I'm pretty happy that I avoided any massive fuck ups the have plagued all my international races. I would have liked to have no run the long yesterday and ran all out today but DIT wouldn't have liked that :P
Started off by going on the twenty min walk to the quarenteen... 3mins later we arrived! A ploy by the organisers maybe?
Warmed up and was pretty pumped. Let the nav decide the running speed and keep it cool, while flooring it....
Running out of the start, I found it difficult to realise which direction I was going in but got it sorted and picked a clean route, fell on my ass as I went over the contour. Kinda shocked me a bit as I wasn't expecting it at all - difference between spikes and stupidly light racers.
Two was straight forward, vaulted the fence, avoid the bus going past. 3,4 both easy route choices. The route to 5 reminded me of the WC in Finland last year, I cut the bridge tight, catching my singlet on the railing. (its still in good nick, slight dam).
5-6 was the shortest leg on the course, I ran by it, realised it was mine and had to back track, dropped 5sec I reckon. I didn't expect it to be so close at all.
Off to 7 around the building, heading to 8 I came back on myself. Leaving 8 was the fence crossing. As I came up to it the Finn who started behind me vaulted it cleanly - I, been ever so slightly shorted had to put my foot on it so I didn't polax myself.
10 involved another fence jump.... It looked small, but as I neared it kept changing size. Almost missed the jump but got over it in one piece.
Hitting 10 I was 1min down on Nick - he was monstering it!
Took a shaky route to 11, weaved a bit but caught the guy who started in front of me leaving the control. 12 was straight forward, leaving the control the Finn had caught me. I raced him to 13, punching at the same time. At 14 and 15 the 3 of us punched it together.
Leaving 15 my brain was fucked. I should have taken a split second to look at my map but I didn't so I took a fucked up route - going up and over 2 nasty spurs. Lost ~15sec maybe. Contoured around to the control and looked UP at control 17. It was a 40m long leg with 5 contours in it. Nasty stuff. Contoured around to no 18. Then ballsed 19 is well, dropping another 15-20sec. I should have run down thw spur but I ran down the wrong side of the fence, was forced to climb again before contouring around to the control. Hammered the run in. Beat someone by 0.5sec.... happy with that :)
Finished 47th which is my best international result by far. Possibly with a near perfect run I could have been top 30 but perfect doesn't happen in O.
Happy with the days efforts.
I'm slowly getting to where I want to be . . .
Map with route here
Started off by going on the twenty min walk to the quarenteen... 3mins later we arrived! A ploy by the organisers maybe?
Warmed up and was pretty pumped. Let the nav decide the running speed and keep it cool, while flooring it....
Running out of the start, I found it difficult to realise which direction I was going in but got it sorted and picked a clean route, fell on my ass as I went over the contour. Kinda shocked me a bit as I wasn't expecting it at all - difference between spikes and stupidly light racers.
Two was straight forward, vaulted the fence, avoid the bus going past. 3,4 both easy route choices. The route to 5 reminded me of the WC in Finland last year, I cut the bridge tight, catching my singlet on the railing. (its still in good nick, slight dam).
5-6 was the shortest leg on the course, I ran by it, realised it was mine and had to back track, dropped 5sec I reckon. I didn't expect it to be so close at all.
Off to 7 around the building, heading to 8 I came back on myself. Leaving 8 was the fence crossing. As I came up to it the Finn who started behind me vaulted it cleanly - I, been ever so slightly shorted had to put my foot on it so I didn't polax myself.
10 involved another fence jump.... It looked small, but as I neared it kept changing size. Almost missed the jump but got over it in one piece.
Hitting 10 I was 1min down on Nick - he was monstering it!
Took a shaky route to 11, weaved a bit but caught the guy who started in front of me leaving the control. 12 was straight forward, leaving the control the Finn had caught me. I raced him to 13, punching at the same time. At 14 and 15 the 3 of us punched it together.
Leaving 15 my brain was fucked. I should have taken a split second to look at my map but I didn't so I took a fucked up route - going up and over 2 nasty spurs. Lost ~15sec maybe. Contoured around to the control and looked UP at control 17. It was a 40m long leg with 5 contours in it. Nasty stuff. Contoured around to no 18. Then ballsed 19 is well, dropping another 15-20sec. I should have run down thw spur but I ran down the wrong side of the fence, was forced to climb again before contouring around to the control. Hammered the run in. Beat someone by 0.5sec.... happy with that :)
Finished 47th which is my best international result by far. Possibly with a near perfect run I could have been top 30 but perfect doesn't happen in O.
Happy with the days efforts.
I'm slowly getting to where I want to be . . .
Map with route here
The Middle is best summed up by Nicks email to the O Group...
"Today saw the competition turn back towards the forest. It was the
middle distance and the team were hoping to carry some of the good
from the sprint into the hilly forest of Gustafs. The weather was
showery which made the already long wait in the quarantine that bit
longer.
Colm was the first to head out of the Irish. He never really got it
going as the hilly, tough, and technical terrain was not his cup of
coffee. Again showing that the hours of technical training on the
curragH is only really suited to the curragH. One large mistake plus
some smaller ones saw him drop from a potential top 80 finish to an
87th place.
Niamh was the first and last of the irish girls to head out. She
started off slowly and safely, but on the first long leg was thrown
off by a indistinct track which caused major problems for many other
athletes. She managed to keep going and finished in 62nd place which
she was not totally happy with. We had to keep a safe distance. On a
positive note she is feeling that her preparation on getting back on
track for her main goal in 2 weeks, the world champs in Trondheim.
Nick was a last of the Irish to head out, never really got the body
and legs going during the warm up and knew it would be a tough battle
out in the forest physically. The first few controls on the first hill
were met with some wobbles but was still fighting heading towards the
final part of the course. A large mistake on the third last control
ended any hope of him getting a respectable and similar result to the
sprint race.
The Irish team has now finished there competitions for the week a day
early as we do not have a relay team in both classes to compete in the
relay, which is a pity as the relay is the often the most fun and
interesting race to run. Hopefully in two years a large enough team
will meet the "selection criteria" to be able to run this great
competition.
On behalf of the runners, I would like to thank Neil for his work (or
lack thereof) as team manager. His enthralling and informative team
meetings have prepared the team for each of the days challenges ahead.
However his team's staple diet of potato salad has been met with mixed
success.
Nicolas
No comments:
Post a Comment