A new beginning?

This blog was supposed to be a record of my efforts at training for various events, mountain marathons etc... It failed. Partly that is because I just don't blog very often and partly because my training could be said to be sporadic at best. Non-existent would be more accurate over the last 3 months.

However, last week was somewhat of a watershed moment.  I actually got out and did some stuff.  So in the spirit of a record of my efforts, here is a summary of what I got up to last week.

Wed - British Army Orienteering
I took part in the Military League South army O event last Wednesday.  I am pretty new to orienteering, but it combines both a physical and metal challenge.  My navigation skills have improved considerably over the last 18 months since joining SEBEV.  I did the light green course, which is about 4.8 km.  Not a huge distance, but the navigation is pretty technical and that level is about right for me given my novice level.  I was pretty pleased with my efforts only going very wrong once and realising it early and back tracking.  It was a busy course, so there were a couple of occasions where nav was just following the queue to the control, but I got round in 42.45 mins.  I finished 7th on the course, just 4 mins off the winners time.  I got a bit tired towards the end, so if I improve my fitness I reckon I could be up there in that category.  My O mate reckons I should move up a category, more distance, more complex, so I guess I will finish further down the rankings if I do. Results here.

Fri - local run
Bouyed by my efforts on Wednesday I went out for a run from home, doing a figure of 8 route mostly alongside the river Thames. I have yet to map it, but I was out for 33 mins, so I reckon it was about 4 or 5 km.  I felt pretty good, and pleased that I had just got out.  Pretty good route on mostly hard surfaces, which given how wet it has been recently is probably a good thing.  It would have required wellies otherwise I reckon.

Sun - local walk
After a unplanned session in the local pub, my wife and I decided a walk was in order.  We had originally planned something more epic as training for our south downs way trip in April, but decided something local and shorter was in order given the late start, horrible weather and wobbly feeling.  However, my estimate of a couple of hours turned into a 4 hour walk.  We headed off upstream along the Thames, before heading inland along the Chilterns Way and circling back round the back of Caversham and heading home.  We didn't take enough food for the trip and the OH got hungry and had a sense of humour failure half way in.  I really need to work on my estimation skills to avoid that again!  Despite the cold and wet it was quite a nice route, shortened at the end so we could get home and dry quicker.  I need to map that as well to find out the distance.

Summary
So, not a bad effort to start off my training again.  And while training is great, sometimes just getting out and having fun is better.  So I am going to try and do fund training rather than just slogging around with some distant goal in mind.  Also I think this weekly summary blog is probably better than trying to write something after every session. We will see...