Through! [big sigh of relief]

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

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...

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

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

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.