So this orienteering year is coming to an end (last Scottish league event this weekend, and not a great deal after it) and it’s been a pretty crap year for me, with the odd highlight. I’ve spent most of the year with some form of niggly injury and I have concluded that they are rubbish! So lately I have been having a fair amount of physio in an attempt to get rid of them, get a half-decent winter training in allowing me to run well in the ‘domestic’ orienteering season next Spring.
I have ‘sprinted’ well this year after taking ibuprofen to help protect my left leg, which has had various injuries, mostly related to each other. I was 35th at the JK sprint in M21 (47th on course) and I was 26th at the British Sprint champs. I ran well in the JK Long race too, not terribly fast given my fitness but was good navigationally and tactically. The middle races I ran (JK and British Middle) weren’t the most inspiring but were ‘ok’. In none of these races was I feeling anywhere near fit though!
So next year… My goals are to fix my injury problems with physio, pilates and not being stupid by the end of this year (I will probably manage the first two, not so sure about the third). I want to be able to run faster, both on and off road. I’m not too bothered about on-road running but it’s the easiest way to train for me (there are other options but they involve on road stuff to get there) so I will do a bit with the aim of doing some 5k Edinburgh Parkrun events, possibly the Great Winter Run (5k round Holyrood Park, last year in 19.36) and the Great Edinburgh Run (39.51). These were both personal bests on hilly courses. I also need to get some longer hill/terrain runs in, whether with a map or not. At the moment I’m not too bothered about doing specific’speed’ training as I don’t particularly enjoy it. I want to get a stage where I’m running pain free and enjoying orienteering. If I get to that stage and realise I can actually be vaguely competitive I will think about doing more! At some point in the future I want to run another marathon (3hr27 in London 2002) but not next year, I *may* do a half marathon next Autumn if I’m in good shape, i.e. below 1hr30mins shape. My plan is to (try to) run a sub 3 hour marathon at some point.
My orienteering goals next year depend on how my training is going, although the UK Cup races seem like a decent place to start as they are a bit more accessible for me next year. The JK is kinda far away, but well, it’s the JK… The events are provisionally as follows:
- 27/28 March – Middle (TBC) & Long (Trossachs) – nice and local!
- 9/10/11 April – JK Sprint/Middle/Long – SW England
- 17/18 April – British Sprint/Middle – NW England
- 1 May – BOC Long – Cannock?
- 3 May – UK Cup Sprint
After that, who knows, I don’t plan at the moment to go to any ‘holiday’ events next summer as I have other plans with frinds (sailing, yay!) so I might as well focus on being fit and healthy for these events, as well as the Scottish Champs at the end of May.
That’s enough rambling from me, this blog wasn’t intended to be a personal ‘about my life’ blog, but it seems I don’t have much to write about apart from that, so I’ll probably write up my races and things too to pad it out 
Oooh, and I have a training I organised last night to write about, which I pinched from another blog, oh well!