Talent Squad Weekend 9-10th March
March is a good time for the top juniors to be considering their race preparation for the British season – JK, British and Scottish Championships all coming up in the next 2-3 months. Maroc Talent Squad made the most of terrain on their doorstep with an intensive technical weekend based around Ballater on the 9/10th March.
March is a good time for the top juniors to be considering their race preparation for the British season – JK, British and Scottish Championships all coming up in the next 2-3 months. To that end the Talent Squad weekend was planned to have a series of short technical courses – as far as possible in areas that the members were unfamiliar with… A tall order when staying in Deeside – but one which was accomplished by using some small areas and tucked away forgotten corners of some of our larger maps.
The warm-up was a 2.4km course on part of Allt Cailleach – but on the east side of the Muick, an area unused since the 6-Days in 2005. The course started straight into an amazing rocky slope with crags and boulders in abundance (and a large stag!).
Second was a mass-start 3.4km middle distance course on the west part of Allt Cailleach – with gaffled controls. The usual fun of a mass start – even with only 5 juniors on it – people heading off in a 45º spread – all to the same first control…… After much chopping and changing of the lead Josh cruised in clear with the other 4 involved in a charge to the last control and finish to decide bragging rights.
After this we moved to the Habitat Bunk-house in Ballater who had kindly allowed us in to eat lunch in the warmth. After a short recovery period (long enough to watch the rugby!) we were out again onto Craigendarroch Hill for an exercise on height judgement (and climbing snow covered slopes….). Suffice to say that the course of 3.1km took approximately 60 mins to finish…… Craigendarroch is steep and rough, but worth it just for the experience of running through the stunted native pine forest on the summit slopes, there are also great views – when the cloud is higher.
A healthy (both nutritionally and size-wise) dinner was followed by a discussion of errors and how to reduce them – probably the most important part of getting good results at junior races.
Sunday dawned with fresh snow on the ground and more showers (blizzards?) during the morning. The group – bolstered by Ewan McMillan - set off for a warm-up run to the training, 5km along pleasant tracks along the south side of the River Dee.
The training was part of the full club training session at Inchmarnoch, using the map from last year’s Scottish Champs – new to some of the talent squad and still fresh for the rest. The courses were all done on contour only with control flow and having a mental picture of the control site being emphasised.
The weekend was a great success with all enjoying themselves and doing a lot of good quality training. Thanks to Sarah for organising the accommodation and planning most of Saturday’s sessions and to Esther for arranging access at short notice. Many thanks to the juniors who turned up and made the coaching a pleasure – Josh Dudley, Ewen Kerridge, Ewan McMillan, Jenny Ricketts, Callum Roberts & Alistair Walker.