Well That Was a Turn-up for the Books

So, after about eight years out of the orienteering game, I stepped back into the ring. I've kept my membership live in the hope that one day I would be lured back. That luration - not a word - was today as the orienteering quite literally came to town - or more accurately, my neck of the woods, Flaxley woods. It would have been rude not to...

It's been so long I've forgotten what the map symbols mean, what the map scale is, what the contour height is - and I forgot to check all that, caught up in the excitement [sad bastard] but hey, oh, I gave it a go. I decided on the Green course with its full technicality but shorter than the blue or brown. Flaxley woods are rough as a badgers ar** when you go off-piste and I didn't fancy being out there all day.

So, I set off and it wasn't long before I had completely lost my way. I was flapping around like a headless chicken by checkpoint 2. Yes, the second checkpoint of fifteen! - I thought, this is going bloody well, as I threshed around in the bracken... I probably spent the best part of 15-minutes not finding the control. Mind you, I wasn't the only one. It was like a police search over a crime scene - but with less organisation and no actual crime - other than impersonating an orienteer. Thankfully, from there I got going and actually navigated pretty accurately for the rest of the course. If I'm honest I've never been any bloody good at it, but it is fun - in a sadistic, evil sort of way.

It was a bit of a surprise to see I was actually 8th of 34 finishers/41 starters! I'll take that. Till the next time...

Training has been the usual mix of treadmill sessions, zone 2 and some Zwifting. The highlight was a new PB on the virtual Col des Aravis climb on Zwift and a solid tempo nee threshold run yesterday, almost culminating in a PB on the A4136 climb segment - and I wasn't even going for it. Honest. I was on tempo/threshold run and didn't see any chance of bettering my recent best time. I didn't want the mental disappointment of trying and failing, so I just took it steady - but still with some effort. It did not feel quick. It was with some sadness, as I analysed the Strava data, as you do, to see I missed my PB (set in 2015) by just 2 seconds. On the plus side, I know I'm going to smash it sometime soon.....