Dynamic Adventure 2003

Posted on November 29, 2003 by lord_lordy

Saturday saw me up bright and early heading to the Chilterns for the first Dynamic Adventure of the winter. Format is 2 hour orienteer, 3 hour mountain bike and 1.5 hour night nav, all with an hour between (assuming you complete in the allocated time) all point based. The weather was pretty grim but I maintained positive thoughts ‘how else would I manage the best part of 7 hours training in this weather’…

I was racing in a pair with a friend who I was teaching to navigate — so for once I was gonna be following and have the joys of not marking up maps between sections. We set off on the orienteering event in a gale and pissing rain – lovely. All going well, managed all but 4 controls and only got lost once due to Rob taking a direct line through a wood rather than a longer but faster and easier to navigate route – think he learnt his lesson. Final checkpoint and we had 9 mins to get back … ‘how far is it Rob ?’ ‘About a mile’ came the response … ‘is that slightly more or slightly less than a mile since it makes quite a difference to the speed we need to run’ … he concluded slightly more so we started sprinting … 4 mins later we established it was slightly less and were able to jog in.

Next was the 3 hour mountain bike orienteering. This was excellent fun though it’s the mudiest I have ever been. Some of the decents were super slick in the mud and quite a thrill — hurtling down and at times having move wheels sliding down a slope perpendicular to your direction of travel (hope you get the picture). Here we’d chosen a none too ambitous route – all but 4 checkpoints with 10 minutes to spare. A mate managed to clear the course !

Finally – night nav – the highlight of the event and the rain had stopped. Rob managed superbly on this including running through a pitch black wood on a bearing and hitting the exit bang on – it’s great when a plan comes together. We went a little wrong towards the last checkpoint largely due to my encouraging him to navigate quicker and whilst on the hoof. This time there was no question that we were out of time and had an all out sprint for the last mile to finish 2 minutes over and utterly exhausted. Spag bog with pitta has never tasted so good ;o)

Fantastic day out. I can totally recommend these events for abit of an alternative training day. You can do it in teams of 3 so you only need one navigator. The next one I plan to do is in the New Forest on March 20th (i think). This involves no technical mountain biking and the running is more on forest bridleways rather than outright off road. I did the New Forest race earlier this year and it was great. If anyones interested we could look into fielding some teams.

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KIMM 2003

Posted on October 25, 2003 by lord_lordy

Friday night we headed up to Langholm in the Scottish borders for the KIMM (Karrimor International Mountain Marathon). The forecast for the weekend looked good – very cold but no real cloud or rain.

Saturday morning when matt and I got up for our early start (8:05am) the tent was frozen inside and out and whilst having a cup of tea we were told the temperature was -5c. Matt, the psycho, still wore shorts ! I was slightly concerned that though I’d been toasty warm in the night, on saturday night when I only have my race sleeping bag rather than it and a 3-season one I may be a tad parky. We were one of the first teams off and by the first check point on the C course we’d passed the pairs that had started in front of us and had clear hills for the first few hours. Running down a river bed after checkpoint 1 we followed an otter for about a minute without it realizing we were there – it was not more than 4 feet away – it was so amazing we even stopped for a minute to watch it further. The going was very hard, the terrain under foot was tough often difficult to run with rhythm even on the flats, we also had to descend a forest fire break which had lots of snow in it which was very cold in fell shoes. Around checkpoint five we were passed by two pairs in our class – a couple of young lads who were flying – they had started 35 mins behind us !! they went on to win the C-Class. Also a pair who had beat us by two places in the LAMM… one of them happened to be a doctor (this will be relevant later!). This latter pair had started 6 mins after us and were moving a little quicker however between checkpoints 5 and 6 we chose a different route and we got ahead of them, they caught us by 7 but again round to 8 we chose an different route and beat them to that checkpoint and round to the final one before they ran by us on the descent to the day 1 finish. Cracking day and we were 11th, the leaders were about 35 mins ahead of second place but then the next 12 were within 20 minutes of each other – so it looked like the chasing start day 2 would be really fun.

We started on the task of getting lots of food down us … successfully achieved I might add. Matt was a little worried about my race tent and how much condensation would collect inside it … no need to worry it was so cold it all just froze on the inside ;o) Wearing all my clothes in my bag (including two hats) kept me just about warm enough.

Sunday morning we were woken by a bag piper (nice touch ;o). We set off trying to run down some of the pairs infront hoping at least to get a top 10 finish. The first checkpoint was a classic choice of over or round – those infront tended to be going over so we went round… proved to be about identical in time though we started to catch pairs on the ascent to the checkpoint. To the next checkpoint, we chose badly and ran round rather than down and up (stupidly not noting how low the checkpoint was) and probably lost a couple of minutes. Following this we were running well and soon passed one pair (one of the pair had clearly ‘bonked’) that was us into 10th. Then coming up the hill towards checkpoint 5 we reeled in 3 further pairs and had the pair in 6th in our sites – we were running well and feeling very optimistic. We were contouring round steep ground when PING ! I go over on my ankle … a minute of very loud F***ing and blinding before I persuaded myself to put weight on it… hobbled for about a minute then decided I’d have to strap it. Progressively I could run better but we’d lost 3 places, up hill and flat was ok, in fact we almost re-caught the others on the next section, but on the next contouring section Matt engaged me in conversation and I think my concentration waned and BANG ! straight over on it again – jeez it hurt. Round to the final checkpoint we chose a longer route on tracks in order to protect my ankle. Luckily we’d put enough distance between us and those in 11th that even though I was more or less walking pace down the last descent we managed to hold onto 10th place.

Back at the event centre the pairing that we’d tussled with the day before had had a storming race running into 2nd place. One of them was a doctor so he offered to look at my ankle – it looked like someone had placed a golf ball in it – it wasn’t tender to touch – he said he’d not seen an ankle like it ! The swelling wasn’t in the normal place for a break or strain. He knew some other doctors at the event so wanted to get a second opinion … next thing I know I’ve got about half a dozen people round me with a couple of doctors fascinatingly prodding and poking me. He even took a photo of my ankle … so it may be famous in some medical journal.

Anyway… fantastic event … can’t wait for the next one.

If anyone knows some good exercises to strengthen ankles or a good support to wear when running – any suggestions appreciated.

See you Wednesday night … at least in the pub if not swimming. Luckily I’d planned to have some rest over the next couple of weeks.

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Stretton Skyline, 2003

Posted on September 14, 2003 by lord_lordy

Well actually a weekend report cause we made rather a good training weekend of it. Beautiful part of the world Shropshire and fantastic country for MTBing, running and I bet road biking. I can certainly vouch for the quality of the tea shops… I digress.

Drove over on Saturday morning, dropping into Much Wenlock for the first tea and cake of the weekend and to stock up on snap. We got to Church Stretton and was on the bikes by just before 1pm. We did a 15 mile road loop to warm up before heading up the first hill onto Long Mynd – the plan was to bike various sections of the race route. This was a tough climb but was followed by a long exceptionally fast descent – probably 3 miles worth. Excellent on a bike but on Sunday it would be the final climb. This took us down into Church Stretton for a cream tea – then back on the bikes to cycle up the descent route from the first climb of the race – this was an awesome ascent followed by a descent that in places was so bumpy I could see where I was going cause my head was bouncing so much (clear hint to apply brakes ;o)).

At the Youth Hostel we were greeted by about a dozen runners from Leicester over for the race. We asked about the bikes on the back of their car and their response started ‘We’re athletes’ … they then asked about the race, in particular whether there was prize money and what the course record was. We weren’t physched … clearly bullshitters since they weren’t sporting the narly faces of top fell runners.

Later in the pub as we were polishing off our sticky toffee pudding at the bar washed down with our 3rd pint (trust me this is ideal prep for fell races) – we noticed these ‘Athletes’ order Sambucas…. suffice to say we saw none of them at the race.

The race started at noon – clear skies and hot meent it could be a tough day – I decide to carry a small pack with a platypus in it. The first hill is a long steady and runnable – I got myself into the lead group of about 10 and made excellent progress up onto the Long Mynd. Following this there was a very long descent – I was very please as my downhill speed has clearly improved – I actually passed some people !! (though some passed me as well !) This first hill is a really gentle intro because following it is a sequence of 3 hills which are very steep involving fast walking up often with hands on knees for aid ;o) Off the first of these steep hills I managed to make up several minutes by chosing a long sweeping descent passing the 4 guys in front who has chosen a shorter sharper descent.

Following these three hills there is a long long run back and a long 3 mile steady ascent back onto the long mynd. This ascent is massively tough – on fresh legs you could run strongly up it – at this stage of the race most runners are reduced to long periods of walking. I tried to push along on this but it was only the last mile that I managed to pick up the pace and pull away from the guy behind me. Ended with a long fast descent and a time of 3:05:55 and 10th place. The race distance is 18 miles with 4500feet of ascent. Winning time was 2:36

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Race The Train, Wales 2003

Posted on August 16, 2003 by lord_lordy

Race the Train is an off road running event trying to beat this old steam train. The course is just under 15 miles and involves mostly offroad running, some roads, a few short and very steep pulls together with a fair bit of running across steep hillsides either on single track or no track.

This years event had 800 people finish !! At the start I managed to get ahead of Angela by a nifty piece of footwork just before the gun getting a shoulder ahead … about 200 yards on she was off like a bullet and i only saw fleeting glimpses of her pulling ahead. We both found that once we got off the road and onto slightly rougher terrain we started to pass people and make up ground. Angela went past the leading lady at about the halfway point and pulled away on the return leg (which had by far the trickiest terrain) and ended up winning the ladies in 1:40:07 and 47th overal. I managed to beat the train coming in in 1:43:54 and 76th bloke. The winning time was a pretty amazing 1:21 ! It was a real fun event with an evening ‘do’ which included a top band and some excellent dancing … so good we were scared to get involved.

On Sunday we managed to get some good training in – up at 6am (to my horror) for a quick dash up Cadair Idris – fantastic morning and a great run – bit of a slog up the final scree (especially if you decide to ditch the fell shoes for road shoes due to sore feet ) and a great descent. A 10ish mile round trip in just over 2 hours. 9 slices of toast later and we were on the bikes for a 50 miles circuit round through Bala where we stopped for a cuppa and some grub – awesome lemon meringue pie ;o)

Fully recommend this event for next year.

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SLMM 2003

Posted on July 5, 2003 by lord_lordy

Not a tri for me but did travel up to The Lakes for the Saunders Lakes Mountain Marathon.

I competed in the Kirkfell Class (B-Class). The conditions on the first day involved cloud down to 650m which meant that strong navigation skills were required for good times. We had a great run – we had an early start time and before long were out on our own – great running in the mist on a bearing with no-one around. The later checkpoints were tough involving close navigation on pretty steep terrain. At the end of Day 1 we were in 4th place only 3 minutes behind first place and only 30 seconds behind 3rd place. In the chasing start on Day 2 we managed to pass the 3rd place pair before the first checkpoint – they looked pretty wasted on the hills so we thought we’d leave them for dead over the course of the day. Not long after checkpoint 1 we passed the leaders but hadn’t seen the guys that had set off second. Conditions had cleared so you could see other teams ahead – we pushed hard but couldn’t catch the leaders – in fact it turned out they blew us away being a full 19 mins quicker on day 2. And the team starting in 3rd chased us down and ended only 2 mins behind us. We held onto 2nd place and were well chuffed ! Distances raced were approx: Day 1 31km 1,500m ascent, Day 2 25km 1,000m ascent.

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