July 14th 2012. Lausanne, Switzerland, the day before WOC Sprint. I’m pretty sure
that I won’t be running WOC next year. With 2015 on the horizon and three
consecutive WOCs under my belt I need a year off to refocus and prepare myself:
spend some time developing my forest technique so I can be a multi-discipline
runner come our home games in three years time.
I’ve heard that the sprint in Finland is going to be a forest race so it
might be a good one to skip. I can come back in Italy in 2014 to get me back in
the zone before Scotland.
July 15th 2012. WOC Sprint result: 11th, 1.1 seconds away from a top 10
result. Aw man, so close. Probably my worst WOC run technically but it was
a tricky course and everyone struggled. Yesterdays plan scrapped. I’ve got to
go to Finland, to have another crack at getting it right. If it’s a forest
sprint then I’ll have to get good at forest sprinting.
July 8th 2013. Sotkamo, Finland. WOC Sprint result: 9th. Job done.
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| For some reason only the British flag displays on my results. |
July 9th 2013 (today). Vuokatti, Finland. How did that happen then? You might argue that
not much changed. If I’d been 1.9 seconds slower yesterday – one hesitation to
check a route, or one missed micro route choice – I’d have been in the same
frustrating 11th place asking the same questions as last year.
But those 1.9 seconds feel more significant than that. They
feel that way because they were the result of me executing a season-long plan
to improve on last year’s result. In March I sat down with a few people I value
the opinions of to plan out my training up to WOC. My conclusions from these
conversations were that while yes, I can
get faster, there are probably bigger gains to be made from improvements in
sprint technique. It would take a huge
effort to improve my 14:36 5km pb by 30 seconds or so, but I can easily see
where that time could be saved in cutting out small mistakes. The problem I’ve
had in the past is that I’ve put a lot of focus on demanding physical training
which means that when I turn up for technique training I’m unable to run at
race pace. Then when I turn up to WOC with nicely tapered fresh legs I’m
running faster than I’m used to and technically it all gets a little scrappy.
So for the 14 weeks from the JK to WOC I slashed my mileage and prioritised
sprint technique. Rather than getting
faster I just looked to preserve the speed I had. Morning runs dropped from
15km+ to 5km. The only long runs I did were classic races. I ran a sprint
course at least once a week and almost always felt fresh for it. It didn’t
always feel like the right thing to do, particularly in the last few weeks
before WOC when I started to doubt my shape but on the day it turned out right.
An improved position compared with last year, much closer to the winner than
previously and in the second half of the course I was running as fast as anyone
– so the speed was still there!
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| Split times for nerding over. Note the low numbers in bottom half of right most column. |
Of course there is still room for improvement. The margins
in the sprint race are so tight that you can always see that next step. But I
know that I can find those improvements. I have a plan.
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| Crossing the line in the lead with a satisfied feeling. That feeling turned from satisfied to thrilled when I found out Tessa had taken 5th and when Scott stormed home to an incredible silver medal it was sheer joy. What a team! Photo courtesy of Martin Ward/British Orienteering |
