matthewcrane

Winter 2006/2007 shaping up nicely

2006-11-13T15:46:00.000Z

Last week was my first 'structured' training week of the winter. I actually ended up doing less training than in recent weeks, but established a lovely pattern for me to get used to...

Mon: circuits
Tue: track
Wed: terrain run/orienteering
Thu: long/terrain intervals
Fri: steady run/cycling
Sat/Sun: long run/competitions/orienteering.

(By the way, this is me in action at the Compass Sport Cup - I'm often complimented on my fence-jumping ability)

Anyway, it's not exactly anything wildly unorthodox and as long as I stick at it and fill it out with plenty of extra miles on harder weeks, it should hopefully see me fitter and faster next year. The main difference to recent winters is the introduction of measurement (I guess this is what is known as an example of a key word). Track training and monthly time trials in Sheffield or on the squad course will provide this and it'll be interesting to see if it helps.

The only reason for any doubt as to why it might not help is that, right now, I seem to be fitter (faster?) now than ever before. This is on the back of 2/3 months of `what do I feel like doing today?' training and a grand total of 4 interval sessions since July. I surprised myself in the 2nd running (my 1st) of the GB Squad Time Trial where I set a decent time and was 2nd to Jamie Stevenson WORLD CHAMPION. Results here.

But I can definitely improve in the tough stuff as shown at the Twin Peaks where I was easily beaten by Oli Johnson on both days. Results here.

I've discovered that I can get away with doing a mountain marathon (my report now exists here) the week before a time trial, but I still can't get away with a heavy night out before an orienteering event (as my time of 30mins for 3.8km at Loxley Common on Saturday showed).

What's the point of this posting? I dunno. Maybe it's that while I'm sure structured and finely analysed training does work wonders (indeed, this evening, Sheffield's orienteers are getting together to plan what we can do as a group this winter) so does enjoying training. So I'm gonna try and do both.

Victory in A class at the Original Mountain Marathon

2006-10-30T17:15:00.000Z

Here's Neil and I looking very manly after our recent adventure in Scotland competing in the Original Mountain Marathon. GG has talked about it in his blog and I've written a report for planetfear which will soon be up (which saves me writing it again on here).

Results are here

Things I'm particularly proud of include being the only team on any course with a day2 run-in time of 00:01. Clearly having the 2nd place team breathing 94 minutes down our necks spurred us on. Also I feel good enough today to go for a jog. Special thanks go out to Potnoodle for supplying our energy for day 2, McDonalds for providing cutlery and Morland brewery for providing courage.

So now that's out of the way I can get my hair cut.

2 out of 3 ain't bad...

2006-10-16T11:21:00.000Z

Meatloaf was on the money with this succinct summary of my last 3 races. Alas, it was the 1 which I most wanted to do well in, that I screwed up...

British Fell Running Relay Championships - 14th October

There was a lot of hype surrounding the Dark Peak team - winners for the past 2 years, 2 international orienteers on the navigation leg (that was Oli and myself btw). Rather embarrasingly, we lost a couple of minutes on a particularly tricky "wall" (beside a path), some more time on a route choice (seemingly paths are quicker to run on than marshes), some more time in rhodedendrum (sp?) bushes in full view of the spectators, and some more time because I thought I was going to have a heart attack. No really. Having a cold last week meant I felt a little dodgy, but I thought I'd be able to run through it.

Phil had got us off to a good start on leg 1 coming back 8th, Rob and Tim probably didn't do as well as they could have and came back behind the Dark Peak veterans team in 11th, Oli and I passed the veterans at the map pick-up point, then passed them again on the way to the finish (hmm) but somehow pulled up 6 places, and Lloyd had a good run at the end to bring us back 4th. I was in a boo.

Results

Compass Sport Cup Final - 15th October

So I was still not in the best of moods before this race, particularly as I had to get up at 5.30am for it and it was miles away. Also, I still felt a bit under the weather and I didn't want to get that heart attacky feeling back again. So I made sure that everyone knew that I was feeling crap and in a boo before I started so that it wouldn't look so bad when I didn't do very well...

So it was somewhat embarrasing that once I started running I felt awesome and I managed to do the 10.2km in 47.15 and take the victory. Maybe if it had been hilly or tough I'd have died, but I had no problems with my speed. Losing a minute right near the finish was frustrating but the rest was fine...

Except that I have a big scar on my face and now everyone's looking at me. It was on 8-9, I was running along and... thud...ow...what was that?...my face hurts...(look behind me)...barbed wire!...(feel face)...blood...lots of blood...(look behind again)...2 alsations running towards me...put map away and run for life...cool there's Oli... It certainly got the adrenaline flowing and I was lucky not to lose an eye or slit my throat. But I was unlucky that I now look like a prick.

GG's map (I didn't do much radically different - it was 22 and 23 I messed up)
Results

Walton Chasers ended up 6th out of the 10 clubs competing, which I guess is a little disappointing, but it was good to be back in the final again after some time away.

Hope Moors and Tors Fell Race - 8th October

20miles, 3500' climb and before I got a cold. And probably why I got a cold too. I thought it may be good OMM training, but I was only out for 2 hours 33 mins and it was mainly pretty runnable, so it was probably nothing like the OMM at all. Still, I don't think I've ever run such a long race so well and I got the record by 11mins and I managed to make Neil scared of doing the OMM all in one go.

Results

Me Crane in Ukraine

2006-09-26T18:55:00.000Z

Well I've just got back from a GB training camp in the country they named after me. I can't say I was particularly looking forward to it, not least because I haven't been thinking about orienteering too much recently and also because I'd heard tales of woe and sickness from people who'd been out to Kiev before.

But as it turned out it was probably one of the most enjoyable training camps I've been on. And that's probably because I wasn't so het up about how I got on in the trainings. Ok, I wasn't happy the whole time, especially the mornings after overindulging on the old "sports drinks"... But I was still able to train well, and when I was feeling fresh my shape was pretty good. I even managed to win the Yellow Jersey doing a 6.6km middle race in 32.32 (GG was next). However the Swiss and Finnish teams were out there and 31mins seemed to be the optimum time. But I haven't got the coveted Australian o-top in my possession cos BJ won it in a sprint race at the end of the week. I was 6th though and 3rd Brit - and the 40 secs I was behind David Schneider (who won) was all lost on the 1st control... So maybe sprint's an option for next year. I dunno. Things to think about. The main thing is that it was fun and staying in a massive city and getting the metro to trainings certainly put a different spin on things. Hopefully someone will be in room 1809 at WOC and enjoy the message BJ left outside the window...

Little Races and stuff

Ok, so it's been a while since I last updated, and it's probably good that I've not been "living it up" as much as it may have sounded on my last story. That was all good fun and everything, but I needed a bit of time on the old straight and narrow. I've been running every day without particularly caring how fast, how long, or where... which has been quite refreshing. And I've done a few races to keep me ticking over. Going back in time

17th September - WCH district event - Oldacre
5mins drive from my house and an area I know, err, well - losing wasn't really an option. But GG was there and looking to steal the glory. But I had a pretty strong run and GG made a few booboos so I won fairly convincingly in the end which was nice.
Results

16th September - POTOC local event - Chatterly Whitfield
No results from this yet, and maybe that's a good job cos I didn't run very well. It was nice to try out a new area not so far from home and bits of it were pretty good. POTOC looked to be doing a great job attracting newbies. Personally, I didn't enjoy the litter and yobs and I had trouble finding a few of the flags. Still, it got me out of the house.

13th September - OD Sprint Series - Burton Dassett
This was a showdown against GG. 19 controls, match play, half a pint per control. Surely a sprint race on his favourite training area would somewhat favour the guy who came 9th in the WOC sprint... Oh no. I had other ideas. He lost 13-6 to me and somehow wormed his way out of the forfeit. But it's still there and he isn't getting away with it that easily.
Results (and a bit of analysis)

10th September - Totley Tormentor Fell Race
17ml, 4500' climb. I set off at a decent pace and got a bit bored of the sight of Neil's hungover backside but fortunately he died just before the finish a little more than I did and despite Dave Taylor nipping through I finished relatively happy with a nice run out on the fells copping bits of abuse here and there (but not as much as Neil). And Neil got disqualified for not having any emergency kit which made me laugh and laugh and laugh.
Results

29th August - WCH training race - Rowley Park
3.6km sprint race in 10.02. Probably the fast mpks anyone's ever done in an orienteering race. I thank you. Yup, I was fairly going for it and the "terrain" (football pitches) did kind of aid my world record. It's funny though how the straights on the athletics track on the map appears to be 150m long...

The other news is that I've moved house. I'm now back in da hood (Sheffield) for the forseeable future and am officially the thickest person in my house (being that I'm the only "Mr" - my housemates Bown and Middleditch are both Drs).

Wedding and White Rose

2006-08-29T14:59:00.000Z

2 more days and August is over. That's what I'm telling myself. Then I can go back to normality: working, training and generally being a little more sensible. Not that I'm going wild over the next 2 days. Oh no. No chance of that. My head (and I suspect liver) is frazzled as I near the end of a 3 day hangover and it feels like I'm entering a period of deep sleep.

As Westlife said, "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun." Now I'm looking forward (strangely) to an Autumn of getting back into training for next year and finishing off (probably makes it sound nearer than it is) my PhD and making plans for what to do after that (exciting!).

So the "weekend":
Thursday
I rocked up in Sheffield having decided against doing the fell-race we agreed to. The plan was to have a curry with Oli and chums (just like the good old days) before heading to the pub. Oli called round with some Russian friends of his. These Russians, or more accurately, their bringing of vodka, would prove to be my nemesises for the next 2 nights...

Friday - the Wedding
And so it came to pass that Oli's big day started with me very hungover. But it was a gorgeous day and a merry band of us, including the man himself, headed out into the Peak District for a most enjoyable saunter. I ended up hammering it up Stanage Pole cos I thought it'd be rude not to. The ceremony and photos were all very nice and all that and all the brides and bridesmaids looked suitably attractive in their get up. Looking round it truly was a who's-who of British Orienteering - with a few Russians (tssk) and Swedes thrown in for good measure. Anyhoo, we then went off for the reception. My attempt, with Middleditch, to fix the length of the best man speech failed, but apart from that I had a brilliant time. On the way to the toilet once, I was collared by the evil Russians, who eventually let me go to the toilet, but not after having 5 (?) shots of vodka. I came out of the toilet and lo and behold Whigfield's finest, Saturday Night, is blaring out and, what's more, there are 20 girls (and no boys) on the dance floor dancing to it. It's not often a chance to make a hero out of yourself comes along and I most definitely pulled it off. At least it felt like I had at the time.

Saturday - White Rose
Here are the results from the White Rose. Now you may notice that I'm not on them. That's because I didn't run. There's no way that I could've. Middleditch and myself rocked up to the event campsite at around 6pm and promptly cracked open a beer. That was the first time I'd been outside on Saturday other than getting from the house to the car. From there the evening took off and I proceeded to make a repeat of the night before. I got so carried away that I even agreed to do the KIMM with Neil. Dammit.

Sunday - White Rose cont.
So I finally got out of the tent at 1pm when my sister arrived down from Newcastle. Now I haven't seen her all that much recently, and she'd just made a 2 hour drive to come and see me, but unfortunately it wasn't the exciting afternoon it should have been. I was unable to do much for obvious reasons. After much phaffing, we spent a lovely afternoon in Scarborough. Unsurprisingly, Neil got far too excited about his sprint map for next years British Champs, and I needed to have a kip in a coffee shop (upstairs, behind a sofa) but other than that we managed to have some fun. Sunday night wasn't fun: it rained, my head hurt and I didn't drink anything.

Monday - White Rose - Relay Gold!
I thought I'd better do some orienteering by this point. Actually, that's not true. Jenny Johnson put me in a relay team with Rob Baker and Nick Barrable and entered us. We were against Oli, Neil and Mat Dickinson. There was no backing out. But it wasn't going to be a normal relay. It was a Harris relay which is far too confusing to explain but basically involves the 3 of you doing a score event at the same time. You had 1 hour. Me, Neil and Mat had no watches. So Mat bought us some classy ones for £3 (total, not each!) in Scarborough. An accuracy of nearest minute was going to have to be enough. Apparently getting all of the controls would be "very unlikely". Anyway, 48 minutes later, my team had got them all and we'd won. At first I thought that I'd sort of enjoyed it, but wasn't sure, but I decided that I definitely did enjoy it when Oli's team finished and Oli was in a big boo. He had reasons to be upset though, and as his close friends, we did our best to remind him of them and rub them in. I won a mug.

What goes up must come down...

2006-08-21T11:15:00.000Z

Urghhh. I've just had possibly the most fun 2 weeks of my life and have just got home and feel, well, tired I guess. And sad that the fun has ended. For now anyway...

Was it really only 2 weeks since the WOC banquet? My my how time has flown. I could write pages and pages about everything that's happened since then, but I won't. For my own benefit (i.e. so that I remember all the fun) I'll do some bullet points:
(NB, some stuff is omitted for various reasons eg. memory loss and tact)

WOC banquet
-Dressed as an Aussie
-Made some shapes
The day after
-"Completed" my breakfast challenge (+mushrooms-soya milk)
-Fell asleep in a team meeting
-Looooooong journey home
Dull mid-week at home
-Killed myself on a 2.5hr run
Oli's stag weekend preparations
-Took 24 cans of Carling, some golf clubs and a rope up onto Kinder Scout
-Pub quiz (lost)
Oli's stag weekend
-Cable skiiing (got round the 1st corner once) - arms sore
-Mountain boarding (fell off badly twice and gave myself whiplash) - head/neck sore
-Pub - head pain eases
-The Chin-Challenge
- complete legendary "3 minute crossing" in 2.56 including a can of Carling at the finish - ahead of Oli
- Big Bapz Mapz surveying team (Northrop and myself) produce a fine sprint race
- threw cheese off Mam Tor for everyone else to chase
- my team took victory in the strawpedo competition
- "the team" hit Castleton hard
- took a long time to get back to Edale
- beer, snus and 2 strawpedos knock me out
- try to walk back to Sheffield in my pants (fail)
World University Championships
-Loooooong journey out
-Awesome terrain
-Cocked up the long (dunno where I came - 30-something-th)
-9th in the Middle (best result for 10 months: good but not quite what I was after)
-Cocked up the relay
-Team did awesome
-Much much much banter
-The Banquet (victory for team GBR! - Village People and Spice Girls outfits go down a storm and we nail the dance routine)
-Looooong journey home

I do and I don't want to see photos from it! I'm sure stuff will filter through. Fortunately I don't have too long to wait before my next dose of fun - Oli's getting married on Friday then we're all heading up to the White Rose (3 day orienteering event in North Yorkshire) - I probably won't orienteer much.

Happy to be thirty-ninth - or sad not to be on the podium?

2006-08-04T18:53:00.000Z

No prizes for guessing the answer to that. It all went horribly wrong for me today - I think I'm a bit ill in the stomach, my legs were heavy and I didn't cope well with being caught by Michael Mamleev early on. I was unable to fight for the 2nd half of the course and bumbled round the last few km into 39th place. I felt a long way off the best in the world today but more importantly, a long way off my own best.

But it was a WOC personal best result for me and it'll be piss easy for me to improve on it next time. And Jamie got Bronze!!! Sweet. I'm not gonna let myself be down for now cos Jamie got the Bronze!!! Sweet. And it's the relay tomorrow. Exciting. Then it's the banquet. Carnage. Then it's Oli's stag do. Punishment. Then it's the World Students. Confident. Then it's Oli and Jen's wedding. Romance. Then I can be in a boo about WOC and think about the future and all that.

Thanks to everyone who supported me during WOC - it means a lot.

Waiting nearly over...

2006-08-03T09:24:00.000Z

It's been quite a long week for me since I qualified for tomorrows Middle final last Saturday. Fortunately the waiting's nearly over and I'm still excited and confident. The race will probably be the most technically interesting of the week and I expect a clean run will be heartily rewarded. My shape has been really good in my midweek training runs, although my stomach is a little dodgy - possibly as a result of my breakfast challenge and eating too much at eat all you can buffets every night.

The British Team has done really well so far - 7 top 2os including 2 top 10s. It kind of puts the pressure on a bit, but has shown me that great results are truly attainable and obviously the team spirit is high. In the words of Per Forsberg, "hmm we shall see, that's for sure", let's hope I'm not "too late now".

So my final preparations for today will be a little map geeking, a jog round the sprint course, a picnic with the GB specators and 2 Indiana Jones films. I've been able to do some decent training during the week - on Monday I ran Open2 in the WOC tour race. I ran pretty well, although I lost interest in the course a little. Results are here. Yesterday I raced round the Middle model pretty successfully. Besides training and spectating, I've kept myself quite busy this week: I haven't been very satisfied with my progress in Pro Evolution Soccer 4 (with GG), but my performances in Worms have improved markedly (against GG) and we won £1million on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire (with GG and Alison) last night. My Scrabble rating has dropped a little though. My breakfast challenge is nearly over and it's all going to schedule. I think I'll be left with a rather odd combination for Sunday which may not combine very well with a hangover.

Through! [big sigh of relief]

2006-07-29T13:15:00.000Z

Well I made it through to the middle final on Friday. I don't think I've ever been so nervous. If I'd not made it through, WOC would have been over for me already, and it's not even started yet (really). And I'd have absolutely loved watching everyone else running this week...

As it was, I used the nerves to my advantage and concentrated doubly hard so that there was never any danger of me making any mistakes. I don't think I could've been much more perfect. It was humbling to be still 2 mins down despite being at my technical best, but it didn't feel like my legs were very happy out there. Maybe it was tension. Still, a run like that in the final should see me in the top 20 and I'd be hopeful that I'd feel a bit better. I should certainly be more relaxed. So I'm quite excited about having the chance to run in a WOC final for the first time and I've got all week to be excited, so that's good.

8th in Men's C.
Results
My route is here

It was a great day for team GBR too, especially us blokees who did it with ease - Jimbo up in 2nd and JD also 8th. The birds (Sarah, Rach and Helen) also all got through, with Rach cutting things as fine as she could coming in 15th from 1st start. Must've been a long wait for her!

All's good at the team hotel. My breakfast challenge is coming along quite nicely although I'm a little concerned as the other day the chef said they had no baked beans. If need be, I could bring my own tin I reckon. I'll keep asking though. As I don't have a race for 6 days now, I think tomorrow could be a good chance to hit the cooked breakfast. I'm not sharing with Oli, I'm sharing with GG. But he's brought a PS2 with him so I don't mind.

Week 17th - 23rd July: Solitary Confinement

2006-07-23T17:34:00.000Z

This week I've been home alone with not much better to do than do lots and lots of training and lots and lots of partying. But I haven't done lots and lots training or lots and lots of partying. That's because next week is WOC and it wouldn't be very sensible of me to do lots and lots of training or lots and lots of partying. Oh what a hardship. Instead I've been getting good practice at increasing my boredom threshold (which I was already quite proud of) which should stand me in good stead for 10 days sharing a room with Oli in Denmark. Probably the most exciting thing to happen to me this week was washing half a tin of beans down the drain, blocking it and then getting a lesson in plumbing via text from my Dad in France.

Here's a photo from the Sheffield Telegraph:

(I hope there's no confusion in that I'm the one on the right, not the one in the middle)

Training highlights (this isn't all the training I did by the way - just all that's "worth" mentioning...)

Tuesday was the Walton Chasers handicap run and BBQ. Picture it: WOC runner returns home for impressively quick burst round home area, wiping the floor with everyone. Unfortunately things don't quite work like that in Chasers because of one man: Robert Little. The course was a taped 3km (with around 60m climb) on tracks. Rob and I started together on scratch. It was nip tuck all the way as we ran pretty much side-to-side, but Rob got me at the end. It was a lung-busting effort though and took me a long time to recover. Still, a time of 8.30 wasn't too bad! (I have a slight feeling it may have been a little less than 3km) The BBQ was far more pleasant.

Results

Saturday I did a Middle course as a race. The Chase really isn't very nice this time of year and I do know it quite well, but having Nick Lightfoot plan it and hang it made a big difference. I lost a bit of time but only due to being pushed round by the undergrowth and some errors in the map, but my technical processes and physical shape were fine - good job too!

So, I'm off to WOC on Wednesday afternoon. Hopefully I'll get to update this here blog while I'm there...

Week 10th - 16th July: bacon, carlsberg, lurpak, whigfield, aqua, brian laudrup...

2006-07-17T17:43:00.000Z

Yup, that's right - this week I've been familiarising myself with all things Danish.

The Great Britain WOC team spent most of last week out on a team training camp based in Silkeborg. Having only one discipline, the middle race, to think about means that that is all I need to think about for now. Which is fortunate, as my brain isn't designed for multitasking. So, every session was on 1:10000 maps and lasted for no longer than an hour. My training went well - I had no physical problems and I was flowing quite nicely. I also made a few mistakes which, of course, is fantastic as it means I have generated a bit of learning. Aside from the training, the GB team spent most of the first part of the week psyching up for our visit to Labyrinthia. Despite being the most naturally gifted at all things mazish in the team, I was only about 4th finisher, well behind the winner - BJ. As far as I'm aware, Jamie Stevenson is still in there.

At the weekend we participated in the Danish and Finnish Selection races. Obviously, I only ran in the middle race on Sunday. The terrain was gorgeous, probably more so than it will be at WOC, which made for a fast and close race - yet there were still tricky controls tucked away in re-entrants in light green. I tried to treat the race as a proper practice for WOC, but it did still feel somewhat like an end-of-camp session and there was obviously more riding on it for the Danes and the Finns. I spent some time getting into the map on the first 2 controls, probably too much (and I was well into the forest before realising that I was looking at the wrong side of the map), then sped along nicely until the 10th control where I was on the same time as Jamie. After that I kept a smooth even pace, but in hindsight probably should have pushed on a bit more to the finish. I lost 10-15 secs on 2 controls near the finish (14 and 15) and dropped a few places, but was fairly pleased to be less than a minute behind Jamie (who was the "open" winner) and just over 2 mins behind the fastest Finn (Jani Lakanen).

Results

So now I'm on the run-in to WOC. This week I'll be chilling out at home and doing a few short-sharp sessions before running a final training weekend on Cannock Chase planned by my coach, Nick Lightfoot. Before that, I'll be working on my plan of action for the WOC week. I have some tough choices to make, not least concerning breakfast in the Hotel Radisson in Aarhus where we'll be staying for 10 days.

Here is the menu:
Freshly baked bread:
Organic bread and rolls
Rolls
Rye bread and dark bread
Danish pastry
Knaeke bread
Hot dishes
Scrambled eggs
Soft-boiled eggs
Crispy bacon
Fried potatoes
Fried sausages
Grilled mushrooms
Grilled tomatoes
Warm liver pate
Pancakes with mapel syrup
Cheese
Organic cheese
Bla kornblomst organic blue cheese
Cheese with cumin seeds
French country Brie
Cottage cheese
Others
Honey
Nutella, chocolate spread
Marmalade, jams
Diet marmalade
Herring
Smoked salmon
Cold Cuts:
Ham
Cooked and smoked turkey breast
Salami
Pork salami
Pork roll with onion
Cereals:
All Bran flakes
Cornflakes
Coco Pops
Oat meal
Muesli
Chef's Bircher muesli
Dairy products:
Milk
Low fat milk
Organic yoghurt
Yoghurt naturel
Yoghurt in cups
Fruit and vegetables:
Fresh fruit cuts
Fruit sald
Fruit basket
Dried fruit
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Hot and cold drinks
Freshly brewed coffee
Ronnefeldt luxury tea
Orange juice
Apple juice
Special orders
Poached and hard-boiled eggs
Omelet
Fried eggs
Baked beans
Strawberry compote
Soya milk
Espresso
Cappuccino
Warm milk

My challenge, and I've chosen to accept it, is to sample everything on the above menu over the 10 days we're there. Except the mushrooms. Depending on my races I'll vary the size and variety of my breakfast, and I'm leaving the pancakes until the morning after the middle final when I've planned to have a pancake eating competition with GG.

Bring on WOC!

Week 2nd - 9th July: End of an era

2006-07-10T18:40:00.000Z

For almost 2 years until now I had been living a life of luxury: family-style banter, comedy on tap, rock anthems belting through the house, a shared love of Neighbours and Big Brother, running/cycling/orienteering training partners and as much homemade arts and crafts as you can shake a big stick at. Yes, life at the Winskill's house has been very good to me. My landlords: Helen (orienteering-MTBO-fellrunning-yoga-massage-knitting-pottery-soapwatching extraordinaire) and Phil Winskill, were however forced to terminate my tenancy after Helen became pregnant and I beat Phil in a fell race. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

So I've gone back to square-one if you like, and am now back in Stafford with my parents for the summer. I'll be moving into what I've titled, "The house of love" in mid-September (with Rachael Elder and Alex Rothman). In the mean time, I'll be able to train on Britain's answer to Danish WOC terrain minus the bracken (Cannock Chase) and hopefully get on with my PhD... Having said that, I'll not actually be here in Stafford all that much: 2 trips to Denmark (team camp + WOC), Oli's stag weekend, Slovakia (World Students) and Oli's wedding weekend all fall before the end of August!

Last week
Monday was my 2nd fell-race of the year: the Hathersage Gala Fell race. Last year I came 2nd to Phil after he passed me with an impressive leap over the fence at the top of Higger (and he ran faster than me down the hill). This year Phil went for it from the B of Bang and I struggled to keep with his pace at first. Finally, I caught him at the top of the hill before he executed exactly the same manoeuvre on exactly the same fence to pass me. "Oh no, not again" I thought and sprinted past him before the next (higher) fence whereupon I executed a technique taught to me by Mr Middleditch: cross it slowly. Then I ran as hard as I could to the finish and was pleased with the win. They had extended the route, so my time of 29.53 is a new record! Whoop-de-doo.

Results

Thursday I did the final race of the SYO sprint series. Northrop was having his stomach pumped in A&E, Johnson was at a "gig" (some small group from the USA called the Chili Peppers I think), Baker was somewhere else and Sprotty planned it so I didn't have much competition. Good job too as I proceeded to completely screw it up. Still, it was a good burn-up for me and I just about won and in doing so took the series.

Results

This weekend was spent orienteering and tea-shopping in the rainy Lake District. Bilbo generously put up Oli, Jen, Middleditch (he even did some - but not much - orienteering) and myself, as well planning us training, hanging bog roll and letting us take up his (20th) 26th birthday - legend! Firstly, a twisty course in Summer House Knot got the better of me as I ran from #10-#15, although I was fairly accurate otherwise. Secondly, we did a gaffled head-to-head relay simulation on Haverigg Dunes: hopefully Oli got some good relay practice while I was disappointed not to see the nudists. Thirdly (yup, 3 sessions in a day), after egg and chips, we did a middle race in Millom Park: tough, Scottish-esque, hilly and technical and amazingly me and Oli were within 3 seconds of each other over 38 mins. Both running well! Sunday the rain set in and we did a mainly downhill long course on Silver How. I ended up racing most of it and was pretty pleased with my shape.

Week 26th June - 1st July: Riding the wave

2006-07-02T18:06:00.000Z

Well it's been a fun week of nice weather, football, sprint-racing, fell-running and picnicing.

Wednesday saw the latest installment of the SYO Sprint Series and my unbeaten-in-sprint-races-in-Sheffield-ever (rolls off the tongue doesn't it) record was severly under threat: a fairly straightforward, flat-out course and Oli and Neil as competition. Locke Park, Barnsley was the venue - this was to be my first ever visit to Barnsley and, after encountering the scummy youths that live there and thrive off ruining orienteering courses, will probably be my last. Controls were stolen, taken on bike rides, thrown in a bowling green and even burned.

An amusing organiser's report appears here

On the plus side, they didn't start their rampage until after I ran. Oli's run was blighted by the little scrotes and Neil had an off-day. That meant I won fairly convincingly, although only 1.41 mins ahead of novice, Ben Carter.

Results

Thursday I decided to do my first fell race of the year: the Blackamoor Chase. Here's my in depth route description: up a big hill, down a bit, up even more, flat for a while, big downhill, unnecessary big climb again, scary downhill. Ah fell racing. Not a big field but up against Oli and local fell-racers Dave Taylor and Lewis Bantom. Race plan was to hang behind the leaders and if I was fresh at the last hill make my move. As ever, that went straight out of the window as I found myself with a bit of a lead at the top of the first hill. Put myself through quite a bit of pain from then on, but managed to take the victory. Legs felt surprisingly good and pretty pleased with it all, although Oli wasn't 100%. Couldn't be arsed to hang around for the prize-giving, but found out the next day that it was the South Yorkshire Fell Championships! Sweet. The first non-orienteering title that I've ever won!

Results (will be here soon)

Saturday I went up on Kinder on Saturday, had a pub lunch (at the Little John, Hathersage for a change), watched the England game (got very angry, tried not to be racist) and had a cup of tea with my Mum who was up in Sheffield doing some peace activist stuff.

Sunday I went orienteering with Oli on Hagg Side. The map was from 1987. It was about 10km. We took 111 minutes. I was tired. At one point we literally crawled along a ploughed gully in impenetrable forest which wasn't on the map. A true adventure. Then we swam in Ladybower and, with Neil and Jen too, had my first picnic for many a year. Then we skimmed some stones. I was the best.

Elsewhere this week, an interesting bet I'd made with Ben Carter many weeks ago reared its head. It related to the size of the Giant Squid in relation to the Blue Whale. I thought they were about the same size (in length obsviously, not weight/volume) and Ben thought the whale was about twice the size. The Guardian wall charts provided the answer and caused a slight argument between us and the bet has since been declared void. Here's our email conversation:

MC: And the size of the giant squid is... 15m!!! Get in. Anyhoo, I am in uni today and up for crossword at 10.30am.
Later
PS bring your £1.

BC: And the size of the blue whale is.... 30m. Get in. Please bring your pound to coffee.

MC: Maybe you need to write a computer program to work this out, but in pure maths they taught me that 15/30=1/2 which, I'm sure you'll agree, is at least 1/2. So I'll get my pound off you at coffee by 10.45 at the latest.

BC: I agree 15 is half of 30 but as I remember it you claimed that the giant squid was near a full length of the said whale and (so the bet came about) definitely over half. While 15/30 is in fact a half, it would need some decidedly dodgy pure maths trickery to claim it was any more than that. Don't forget you're wallet.

MC: The way I remember it, I indeed said that the whale was of a similar order of magnitude to said squid, and shocked by such revelations, you said, "No way, it's not even half the size" at which point we made the bet, which I have clearly won. I'll accept 2 fifties if you haven't got the change.

BC: Oh no no no, you are much mistaken. It was definitely you that first brought upthe measure of a half. With popular disagreement to the claim of being aboutthe same size, you dropped the estimate to 'over half at least' - still not15/30 (as most competent mathematicians would agree). At which point I offeredmy pound wager. Maybe in the future we should keep a written record of any such ambiguous bets. If you're pound can include change for the coffee machine it would be good.

WOC this way

2006-06-26T07:51:00.000Z

For an orienteer of my prestige ;o) it seems somewhat surprising that I've never run in a WOC final (or won a UK Cup race). Since I sneaked my way (without cheating in the sprint I hasten to add) into the WOC team in 2003, I've put a lot of work into my orienteering and reaped many rewards along the way, but the golden WOC ticket twice eluded me, when really it shouldn't.

I don't think the team's been announced yet, so I shouldn't really say what I've been picked for yet. But I haven't been picked for the long, sprint or relay. Perhaps after what I acheived last year I should have hoped for more than one run at WOC this year, but I'm really happy to have turned around some recent poor form and put the ghost of last years test races behind me. Nah I'm well chuffed, and feel good about having one race to put all my energies into.

I wasn't especially looking forward to the test races. I never do. Most people do get in a boo at some point, in recent years me especially, and there's obviously quite a lot of tension and thoughts of "ooh he's looking good, maybe I'm inferior" (not in a gay way). Also it cost me a good 350 quid (+ the 130 quid I wasted on Jukola) on top of missing 5 days of Big Brother and several World Cup matches. That said, I was quite confident of doing quite well. I just wasn't looking forward to it that much.

As it turned out, I really enjoyed the weekend. Having Sprotty, Nobthrob, Baker and Johnson around meant there were plenty of people I could try and get into a boo, throw petty insults at and stick Brande stickers over their stuff. Also I beat Neil 3-2 at round-the-clock darts games. I was quite relaxed about the whole "getting in the WOC team thing", which does sort of dominate procedures a bit at the WOC selection races. Funny that. I was relaxed as, so long as I did my best, I wasn't going to be that bothered if other people did better and I didn't get picked (although I kinda thought my best would be good enough). Anyway, the biggest boo I got in while I was away was when I lost 10-0 to GG in table football. 10-0! GG! I hope I don't have to go through that ever again.

Sprint Race
Pretty easy. I didn't take a compass - it's my new thing in urban/park sprint races. Possibly as I don't care much about them, but I think it genuinely helps me focus on getting the right lines in the terrain and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I felt pretty sharp and only made a handful of small (5 sec) errors (mainly near the start), so I was pleased when I finished. I even remained pleased when I ended up 7th and only 7 seconds off 4th. And I was pleased that I remained pleased. I was also pleased that my now infamous Craft trousers (a replacement pair of course) gave my ass yet more attention. This time I had a yappy rat-like dog throw himself at me near the 10th control. Brilliantly, Dave Rollins caught the moment on camera - hopefully it'll come soon...

Middle Race
I suppose this was the one that mattered to me the most, but I was pretty chilled about it and didn't put myself under any pressure. I enjoyed sarcastically wishing GG good luck, finding a dead pine martin at the start and being accused of doing my warm up out of bounds, when I wasn't. The course was easy, but you couldn't let your attention slip. I made a handful of small (10 sec) errors but was basically as perfect as I could have hoped. My legs felt quite light and I think I could have put on a bit of a spurt over the last 2km, but I decided I didn't want to take any chances, and I was probably doing well enough. I was surprised how well everyone else ran, and once again just got pipped by a couple of people, but 3rd was pleasing and I figured would give me a ticket to Denmark.

Long Race
So the pressure was off this a bit, but I kinda figured that I'd need to run well to get a 2nd run at WOC. The first half felt like the Matt Crane of old (I can't really qualify that statement, but I haven't felt that smooth in a race for a while) and I ran through Rob, Mike and Ant quite nicely (admittedly partly due to Rob running off the map). I've not studied splits properly yet but I think I was up in 2nd at the half-way mark despite a couple of 1 min (?) errors (at numbers 9 and 15), and I felt good in the legs still. But I became a bit of a pussy at the end, and getting a stick in my eye in the green near the 20th control was the final straw and suddenly I started making small mistakes and struggling up hills. I'm sure it was in the head, as I think I'm quite well trained for 80min, moderately hilly, runnable, orienteering courses. Oh well. 7th wasn't what I was after, but I was less than 2 minutes behind Oli in 3rd, and I felt there were very good patches to my run.

Jukola withdrawal

2006-06-14T12:03:00.000Z

Here are a selection of things I said in my last posting and in my training diary:

"memories of crawling round Ogden yesterday afternoon drenched in sweat"
"I ran back-to-back legs and didn't really drink much water before it"
"his fresher (albeit somewhat older) legs proved too strong for me in the end"
"I'd died off rather dramatically"
"my legs had decided they were going to sit on a sofa ... they certainly didn't want to go running again"
"Trains but crawling"
"deteriorated a lot on the last hill"
"first hot weekend of the year and I suffered perhaps more than I should"

So what happened next? Not really rocket science is it? That's the beauty of hindsight though of course. So I woke on Tuesday with a bit of a sore throat, which kind of explains my poor form at the weekend. I've since had a difficult decision to make with the Jukola being this weekend. I was due to travel out today, but have decided to stay at home and relax in Sheffield and make sure that I am fully recovered in time for the test races. It would be foolish for me to make the same mistake as I did in Estonia. Hopefully Vasteras will cope ok without me - obviously the team will be weakened but it's still a strong team nonetheless and is more than capable of being right up in the top 20 or so.

Week 5th - 11th June: Warm weather training

2006-06-12T08:05:00.000Z

Woo hoo it's summer! When I woke this morning with sharp cramping pain in my right leg and left foot and memories of crawling round Ogden yesterday afternoon drenched in sweat came flooding back to me, I began doubting whether or not I was glad it was summer. Then I remembered that I had 2 ice-creams yesterday, picked up a tan to die for and have been watching all bar 2 of the World Cup games so far. Chav or not, I've even got a stylish England flag on my car (I did have 2 but one blew off as I speeded back from Castleton on Saturday afternoon in time to get to the pub for the game).

Since getting back from Denmark I had a couple of easier days before doing the footpath relay for Chasers on Saturday. I ran back-to-back legs and didn't really drink much water before it. Running from nr Grindleford to nr Peak Forest in the open was draining but I think I coped ok. It was a tad unlucky that I had Malc Fowler start my second leg 30seconds after me. I held him off for a bit, but his fresher (albeit somewhat older) legs proved too strong for me in the end. Getting met at one of my road crossings by Neil and Carol Lawford of WCH with some electrolyte was a Godsend. Anyway, I was back sat in the Dam House with ma homeys at 1.50pm so even had 10 minutes of build-up before the England game. Lucky I didn't arrive at 2.04pm.

Sunday I went to Honley Woods District event with Oli, Jenny and Neil. It was a gorgeous area, but was pretty hilly and I made a few mistakes and felt that I'd died off rather dramatically over the last third of the course. But of course it was hot for everyone and Oli and Neil both finished saying similar things. In the end Oli beat me by 2mins, with Neil a minute behind me. We'd all had fairly scrappy runs - I reckon I lost around 3mins - but Oli was probably the strongest at the finish. Results
I had a go at some moaners on the event bulletin board and got accused of being a 'semi-professional orienteer'. I wish.
After a delightful lunch at Rosie Whitehead's we zoomed off for yet more training at Ogden. I think my legs had decided they were going to sit on a sofa and watch either the Grand Prix or Holland v Serbia. They certainly didn't want to go running again.

It was a shame to miss the Harvester as it sounds like it was pretty good fun. And now Sprotty joins the list of UK Cup race winners (quality stuff!)...grrrrr. But with Jukola (1st leg for me!) next weekend and selections the weekend after, a relaxing(?) weekend in Sheffield was probably ideal. Still, I'm glad SYO won (never thought I'd say that) and by a huge margin too. EUOC take the relay league but I wouldn't swap our JK win with them for that.

Training
Mon 5th 45min o-tech/trains – Vesterskov with Jamie and Rob
30min easy
Tue 6th 45min o-tech/steady – Horbylunde middle course
60min cycling
Wed 7th 90min o-tech/steady – Sletten/Sonderskov. Classic course
60min cycling
Thu 8th 30min easy – Rivelin taking in Alc-O
Fri 9th 65min steady – Stannington/Rivelin
Sat 10th 45min easy – round Bradwell checking out footpaths
65min fell-race – footpath relay
Sun 11th am - 55min o-race – Honley Woods. 8.0km, 350m climb, 23 controls, 53.08 mins, 2nd place
10min easy
pm – 50min o-tech/easy – Ogden. Trains but crawling

Week 29th May - 4th June: WOC homework - Danish Excursion

2006-06-08T12:00:00.000Z

Just got back from a wee cruise over to Denmark with my pal and training partner Rob Baker. If I was Thierry I'd write pages about the terrain and handy hints, and if I was GG I'd stick a load of maps up. But I'm neither. Rob was a pleasure to have around despite a couple (and the rest) of 'forgetful moments', deciding that Aarhus is pronounced 'our house' and spending the whole week singing Madness and having a habit singing non-existant backing vocals to songs on the radio.

Good things that happened:
1, Jamie stay with us - was a good laugh, made us raise our game in training, brought lots of food over, brought a car over, booked the campsite, spoke Danish...
2, Helen and John Palmer were there - did the washing up, gave us something other than orienteering to talk about (golf)
3, Got hire bikes with baskets on the front
4, Went into Silkeborg to 'hit the town' on Tuesday but got tired/bloated/bored so bought a video, watched it and went to bed
5, Drove from Stansted to Sheffield in 2.20hrs without being overtaken.

Orienteering:
I felt really at home in the terrain - it was quite like Cannock Chase. But not the same - it would be dangerous for me to think that.
Physically I was quite tired when we got out there (end of 2nd hard week in a row) and the hills and leafy vegetation are very sapping. But I recovered a bit as the week went on, and by the end was cruising along nicely through the forests. It should be easy to train for relatively runnable forest, path runs, relentless hills but never more than 50m climb... Cannock Chase! It suits my physical strengths nicely.
Technically I was pretty good - doing the basics well - maybe I wasn't 'on the edge' in any of the sessions but maybe that's the way I should be all the time. I learnt you can go a long way round on route choice but that sometimes straight wasn't as hilly as it first looked. The green (even the light green) was much much slower than the white. The white was very variable (open-beech-4mpk-sexy-stuff / leafy-nettly-tussocky-beechy-oaky-stuff / coniferous-brashy-no-vegetation-stuff).

Next up:
Jukola 18th June - heading out with Oli on Wednesday 14th June for a bit of training in Vasteras.
WOC selection races 24th/25th June - heading out with Jenny on Wednesday 21st June.
Busy busy busy. Recovery will be the name of the game in between all this funness. I can start training specifically for WOC after the test races. I think my shape's good enough now to get what I want out of these races anyway. This weekend I'm running a footpath relay in the Peaks for Walton Chasers on Saturday, and thinking of going to a district event near Huddersfield on Sunday.

Training:
Mon 29th 25min o-race – York 1st by 1second!
25min easy
Tue 30th pm – 30min easy – roads
eve – 75min steady – Rivelin with Northrop.
Wed 31st am – 40min foxdal intervals – 45x15s on Longshaw/Blacka.
20min easy
eve – 35min steady – Rivelin
Thu 1st Jun am – 70min cycling – Moscar/Bradfield.
eve – 30min o-race – Eccy Woods Spring Cup. 1st by miles!
20min easy
Fri 2nd 105min steady – Onesmoor trig
Sat 3rd am – 65min o-tech/easy – Sonderskov
pm – 35min o-tech/sprint – Skade Bakker
Sun 4th 95min o-tech/hard – classic course with Danes
20min easy

Victory in the Sheffield Spring Cup

2006-06-02T08:02:00.000Z

Last night was the much hyped show down between myself and Neil Northrop. The winner of the final Spring Cup race in Eccy Woods would end up being the winner of the whole series. Simple as that. A 'who can do the longest warm-up and start last' game ensued, duly won by Mr Northrop.

Colin Best had planned a very twisty course with quite a few path options but finding the right path was hard enough. I had as clean a run as you can expect in Eccy Woods this time of year. The map isn't perfect so I just decided I'd leg it and not concentrate too much and rely on local knowledge. I probably lost a couple of minutes, but if I'd been orienteering properly, I'd probably have ran a couple of minutes slower. Neil made a few mistakes and in fact ended up 3rd behind Mike Sprot who had a 'clean but steady' run. Neil hid his boo quite well from me, instead trying to con me that he'd hurt his ankle. Mat Palmer's laughing gave the game away.

I guess if I tried any smugness against Northrop he'd just remind me that he's won 4 UK Cup races to my 0, so I won't bother.

Picked for World Students

2006-05-30T12:54:00.000Z

I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a selection that I've been in before, but seeing Northrop being left out was a big shame. He's a big boy though and he'll bounce back. I guess I wasn't that surprised to be included, but as a veteran of World Students (this is my 3rd) I know how exciting it will be and we've got a stronger team than ever this year. Plus it gives me a fall back if I screw up the WOC selections again! Not that I will of course ;o) I'll probably end up running the long, middle and relay, but we'll see. My previous best WUOC results are 12th in the middle in 2004, 16th in the middle in 2002 and 4th in the relay in 2004. Relay and individual medals are definitely do-able this time...

Selections

York City Park Race - 1 second victory!

2006-05-29T15:17:00.000Z

Phew! That was close. Drama unfolded on the streets of York this afternoon. At a little after 11am, Neil Northrop finished in a new fastest time of 24.57. 53 seconds later, Mike Sprot finished in a time of 24.50. 1 minute and 59 seconds later, I finished in a time of 24.49. The gathering hoards must've found it hard to contain their excitement.

It was a really fun run round the streets and snickleways of York with some pretty tricky controls and plenty of fast running and granny dodging. Physically, I felt strong and pretty nippy, but technically I was occasionally a bit wobbly. I even tried to run into a caravan park at one point and got re-directed by some local scallies. I was adrift in 3rd place it turned out with only a couple of controls to go, so I was pretty pleased with my strong finish that, as it turned out, got me the win.

But a little after I finished and the ANALysing began, I got in a bit of a boo because it turned out almost everyone else had saved time on me by crossing a high wall. Fun though sprint races are, this kind of ambiguity pisses me off, and the discussions after can be a little tedious. Had that wall been 10metres high, as it could well have been off the map, I'd have been laughing and feeling smug about spotting it. It turned out it was a good 20 seconds quicker to jump down it. At the start of the same leg, the best option was to climb up a crag (passable) which was a good 1.5m high. I lost some time dithering, trying to decide if it was allowed or not, before cimbing it.

So Sprotty and Neil both did the wall thing, as did Rach (2nd) in the women's race. Baker and Rob Palmer got to the wall, but had morals and took the extra penalty of running all the way round. Jenny and myself spotted it in advance and did the right thing. We both won. Karma.

I'm reluctant to use the word cheat. Ah screw it: cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat. To be fair though, Sprotty and Northrop were both running very well: the splits generally didn't seperate us much. Was class to see both the men and women's top 3s being from Sheffield.

Anyway, sausage and chips (a 3rd pub lunch in a row), and remembering the fact that it was a fun day out and I didn't actually care at all, snapped me out of my boo.

5.2km, 19 controls
1. Matt Crane 24.49
2. Mike Sprot 24.50
3. Neil Northrop 24.57

full results

Week 22nd - 28th May: Back in the groove

2006-05-28T16:38:00.000Z

Taking it easy last week was a good idea. I managed to get in a reasonably hard week of training, did some quality orienteering, felt good running (way better than in any of my runs in Estonia) and I'm feeling positive about WOC and have been making some plans for that. Pub lunches have been order of the weekend - Little John (cumberland sausage) on Saturday and met my Mum in a pub in Monyash (lamb roast) on Sunday - took the dog out for a nice walk. All good.

Tomorrow I'm off to York for the York City park race. While sprint racing isn't really my thing any more, it'll be good to see how I'm going against speed merchants like Baker, and orienteering supremos like UK Cup Champion Northrop.

Friday, I'm off with Baker to Denmark for some training. Jamie'll be coming across and we'll meet up with some of the Danish team as well.

Camera's still being crap so can't put any photos up: that's why all my stories at the moment are boring - sorry - I didn't ask you to read them!

Training:
Monday: 45min steady - Rivelin
35min circuits
10min easy
Tuesday: am - 60min cycling - Ringinglow/Dore
eve - 35min o-race - Rivelin Spring Cup: 4.3km, 200m climb, 12 controls, 36:25, 1st - results
20min easy
Wednesday: 100min steady - Back Tor/Margery Hill with Northrop.
Thursday: 40min foxdal intervals - 90x30s - paths in Rivelin
20min steady
20min football - won 3-0
Friday: 65min steady - Loxley/Stannington
Saturday: 115min o-tech/hard - Burbage/Longshaw long-o. 18.8km, 660m climb, 39 controls, 114:44. Awesome training.
Sunday: 70min steady - Monyash

Yay Birthday!

2006-05-23T22:22:00.000Z

Well I'm a little bit "under the influence" but it's been a magic birthday. Currently enjoying a Greek lager (thanks Dad!) watching Max and Paddy. I may be 25 but I've had a proper kickin day down with the kids - cycling, crossword, orienteering, pie and chips, pub quiz... it doesn't get more hard core than that.

I won today at Rivelin, 5 minutes ahead of Neil Northrop. I figure that that means I'd've done around 4 or 5 minutes faster than Neil at Rowney on Sunday if I'd run...

Would be funny as if Neil wins the UK Cup but can't win the Sheffield Spring Cup. Well, that's my aim anyway.

Maps and photos to follow (if I get my digital camera working)...

Week 15-21st May: Maxin' and relaxin'

2006-05-21T14:55:00.000Z

Aims for this week were:
1, snap out of my post-EOC boo
2, convince myself that I can run
3, convince myself that I like orienteering

So I went on some of my favourite runs - nice and steady so I wouldn't feel like crap - and went to a District event at Crich on Sunday. It worked.

Best thing to happen to me this week:
predicted that the first goal in the Champions League final would be after 36 minutes, and in doing so earned respect and admiration from my peers.

Worst thing to happen to me this week:
Neil Northrop told me that he gets horny between 4am and 5am every morning.

Quote of the week:
"Check it don't wreck it" - Bonnuh off Big Brother

Race summary:
21/05/06
Crich District Event
Brown Course
1st - results
6.81km, 325m climb, 51:12 mins
Song in my head: "I Wanna Rock" - Twisted Sister

Didn't push too hard but was a tough area so got quite tired. Only 1 proper mistake (11th control), but was trying to pull away from Ben Carter and Andy Llewellyn at the time...

Training:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 55min easy - Burbage with Baker
Wednesday: 50min easy/steady - Stannington/Rivelin
Thursday: 70min steady - Loxley/Stannington/Rivelin
Friday: 70min steady - Wyming Brook/North Lees Pool/High Neb
Saturday: 60min steady - Grouse Inn/White Edge/ Curbar
Sunday: 50min o-race - Crich
20min easy