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!

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!