It’s been a busy summer / autumn thus far!
Earlier on this year, after spending most of the spring out with a calf injury, both my knees ‘went’ at about the same time and things got a bit depressing on the running front. After my usual physio left the practice I went to I set off in search of someone new and did not go back to the same practice. I guess it was partly my attitude towards the whole thing, combined with a near on 4 week holiday to the US, but it all resulted in no training and no racing, and pain whenever I tried to walk/run. So on return from my holiday I decided to make amends and went back to FASIC. Nearly a month later and after religiously sticking to my ITB/adductor strengthening exercises I was almost pain free and have been doing some shortish runs mixed in with some cross training (bike and cross trainer). I’ve run in a few orienteering events which has felt amazing!
In other news I was heavily involved in the Park World Tour event, I organised a lot of the IT behind event including; timing sytems, lightgate finish, live results (at my new site o-results.net!), big screen overlays, radio controls, commentary. It was really amazing to see some of the top athletes praise our efforts, not only mine but Scott Fraser as organiser and Graeme Ackland as planner (as well as all the others involved in the event). Øystein Kvaal Østerbø (1st) and Graham Gristwood (2nd) wrote about the event on his blog. I would love to see WOC come to Scotland in 2015, we would do an amazing job of it. I jogged around the men’s course both days, some of my first runs back, which I enjoyed immensely.
I was also involved in the timing of both the ESOC weekend and JEC last weekend in Fife. It was amazing to be involved in a race in the town where I went to University. I spent 4 years there wishing there was an O map and now there is! I ran the short course, probably slightly harder than I should have, and enjoyed it so so much. I had a clean race but lost around 1minute on a route choice I knew was bad but I wanted to see the bit it went through (normally private property so I never went there!), I ended up with the fastest time on the short which proves I can still do this orienteering lark but I want to be competitive on the long course. I ran the Green course at Tentsmuir on Sunday which was amazing, to be back running in a forest with a map in hand is just where I want to be. My calf has been a little sore after these runs but that’s to be expected after months of doing nothing about it, I have spoken to my physio again and am confident I can overcome that hurdle soon enough. Onwards and upwards!
I’ll start writing more about races and doing maps/gps tracks again when I’m feeling a bit more competitive and have some more time, watch this space.
As part of my o-results.net venture I’ve set up a site to showcase my skills as a developer and this will be where any technical blog related stuff will go, it’s called eyecow.net – I love the design! 