Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Definitely a not-at-full-strength run - something of a token effort in the morning before departure, exploring some of the residential areas in the eastern part of Canela that I havdn't previously been to. Started to gain a bit of strength vs it went on. Never expected to catch up on a huge amount of sleep last night - the Christmas season here is a big deal, and prolonged, and Saturday night was the festival for Santa's arrival (or something like it), taking place in front of the cathedral half a block from where I was staying. (It ended about 11, which was evrlier than I thought it might have).

Next move was leaving town and heading back to Porto Alegre, in preparation for an evening departure for Iguacu. The organisers had said they'd be putting on an 8am and 9am bus. I arrived about 8.40 to see the 8am bus still loading, but it didn't quite have room for me (or a couple of others, Greg Balter being one of them). This didn't worry me as I wasn't leaving Porto Alegre until 7.05pm, but when the 9am bus hadn't turned up by 10 it was a bit concerning. We'd just given up on it and Greg had gone to get tickets for the 10.15 public bus (finding out that it was full and the next option was 12.10, fine for me but would have made things fairly tight with his 4pm flight) when it turned up.

The ears didn't appreciate the descent from 900m to sea level; it wouldn't have been a good day to be on a plane (or crossing an Andean pass).

As mooted yesterday, various forms of sport-watching provided a good opportunity to kill a few hours in Porto Alegre (not a city I'm too upset to have seen the last of). Contrary to expectations, the football derby did have plenty of goals, most of them at the blue end as Gremio won 4-1. Once they went three down Internacional apparently decided that if they couldn't win the game they might as well at least try and win the fight, whereupon the referee evidently concluded that the situation wasn't going to get any less combustible and blew full-time after 20 seconds of time added on when at least five minutes would have been warranted.

Perhaps it's not such a bad thing I got my WMOC long problems out of the way in the same year. My cold took a significant turn for the worse overnight, and I barely slept (which may or may not have been related), so it wouldn't have been a great day to have been attempting to race hard in an A final.

I was in two minds about whether or not to go out at all but decided I might as well at least see how it felt. It didn't actually turn out too badly - cruised around and enjoyed myself on most of the course (except its more physical bits - the eight-contour climb through partially felled area on the way to 1 felt almost as big as the Bon Accord wall), without any sense that I would have had an extra gear to use had I been trying to race seriously. Only a couple of tiny wobbles on 4 and 9. Caught the Swede who I considered my most likely challenger for fastest time today (like me, he had an 11th and a DNF) at 5, and got away on a route choice on the way to 7. Ended up having the fastest time by 8 minutes (though it isn't officially a "win" because people who don't complete the qualifiers aren't eligible for official B final results), which is a pretty good indicator that it was a race I had no business being in (even at considerably reduced capacity).

Course was quite physical but had very little in the native forest (just a couple of creek crossings). More surprisingly, the A final didn't have that much there either and their course profile wasn't so different to ours. Looking at their results, I think even at full strength I'd have struggled to make the top 10, with a position around 12-15 more likely (in today's shape something around 20th would have been more realistic).

Jenny won again. Other Australian top 10s: 7th for Paul and 10th for Ted in M60, and 9th for Ann in W70. Geoff's picked up a similar bug to me and was well down. Simon, I think, can also be pleased with 15th in M35 in his first attempt at this level.

So ends a week which started with promise but ended in frustration. The next stage of the adventure starts from here - beginning with an overnight trip to Iguacu Falls tomorrow night. The plan is certainly to keep up regular training throughout (except if trekking), but it may not conform to patterns as regular as I usually do, with long runs on days when I'm in one place for a couple of days and probably the odd rest day when the transport schedule doesn't allow any other options.

(I'll have about 7 hours to kill in Porto Alegre tomorrow - will be searching for a sports bar or equivalent, as tomorrow afternoon features the Brazilian Grand Prix followed by the Porto Alegre derby in football, a particularly high-stakes affair as both teams are in the pack of four within two points fighting for 3rd-6th and the last two places in the South American club championship - Fluminense, who I saw in Rio, are in that bunch too - and might even be close enough to challenge for the title if the leaders stumble. Don't expect a lot of goals - the season record of Gremio, one of the teams involved, is played 32, goals for 27, goals against 18).

Rest day today not preparing for a (meaningful) WMOC final, and wondering a bit what might have been - as noted in the comments thread, it turns out that there were enough blowouts elsewhere in the field that it might just have been possible to scrape into the last spot in the final with 40 minutes lost had I had a good run from there (though whether a good run would have been possible in such circumstances is doubtful at best).

Didn't do an awful lot with the day - Canela is a nice place to hang out but doesn't have a lot of actual tourist features (unless you have the transport to go further afield). Did go up to Gramado nearby (a seriously posh place by Brazil standards), partly to look at it and partly to take advantage of the washing machine and dryer in the place where Simon Rouse is staying (these things count for a bit when you're on the road for 2 1/2 months). This excursion also put me into the thunderstorm on the way home, which in turn gave me the opportunity to do some wet-weather gear testing (involving some pants I bought in New York which are the ones I intend to use in southern Patagonia treks). Also did exciting things like drafting an update of a few items in the OA operational manual dealing with things like procedures for amending rules, regulations and standing orders, and process for making decisions by e-mail (someone has to do it....).

I also made it through the first couple of steps in what promises to be one of the more significant challenges of the trip, that of successfully casting a vote in the Victorian state election. So far I've managed to download the form, find somewhere to print it, fill it out, and find an Australian citizen to witness it (a fellow WMOC participant I saw in the street; apparently a Brazilian cop would also suffice). Next step is to send it to the nearest 'early voting centre'. There are precisely none of these at any of the embassies in South America so it has to go to Washington, and forms can only be scanned and e-mailed from within Australia (presumably this is something to do with the law about what constitutes an electronic 'signature', but it's still annoying), so it has to be posted or faxed (the latter can be done over the internet, at least, which makes the immediately preceding point look rather ridiculous). If that is done successfully, the remaining steps are to get hold of ballot papers (apparently this will be done electronically, which surprises me a little, but they still have to be printed, filled out and posted), and send them back before election day and hope they arrive within 11 days afterwards (which, given that I'll be spending most of the pre-election week in remote parts of southern Patagonia, may be a stretch). Somehow I'm guessing that not many people who aren't active members of political parties in a marginal seat are going to bother.

22mm of rain in Canela in the three hours 7-10pm, and still pouring. The terrain was not exactly dry on Thursday and it certainly won't be any drier tomorrow (although the rain itself is forecast to stop by dawn).

The calamity referred to yesterday happened: I picked up the wrong map (and realised too late to salvage the situation). More soon.

Picked up the map at the start and was immediately confronted with one of the longest first legs I've seen - probably somewhere around 2-2.5k, into the green. Decided after the model event experience that a full frontal assault on the green first leg probably wasn't a great idea (although it sounds like that's what Magic did?), and went left on the tracks, some of which were rather less prominent on the ground than the map suggested they would be. Went into the green, picked up the relevant features, saw a flag, double-checked my control description, depression, and thought, "this looks a bit strange - there's no depression in the circle".

I realise at this point; I think I've picked up the wrong map. Check the descriptions printed on the map. M40-1. I have picked up the wrong map. Look at my watch; 19.30. Means if I go back to the start I'm going to have lost close to 40 minutes by the time I restart. 20 minutes would have been survivable, probably, if nothing else went badly wrong. 30 minutes, maybe, if enough others made enough mistakes. 40 doesn't seem plausible.

Utter a word beginning with F to myself. My 2014 World Masters campaign is over.

Contemplate going straight back but thought this will be worthwhile as a training run/experience anyway. 3 was through the green, not as fearsome (mostly) as the model event green, but still low enough visibility not to be able to read the shape of the ground, and I tried to attack from above (a risk I probably wouldn't have taken had I still been in the competition). It didn't work, I drifted right when I thought I'd drifted left, and blew maybe 5 minutes. Dropped another 1 or 2 on the exit from 3 thanks to recent logging (so recent there was still active felling just down the road) which obliterated a track and confused me while I was in an easily confusable state. At this stage I spotted a Belgian M40 and asked him what heat he was in (on the off chance that he was in the heat I was supposed to be in and I might be able to memorise the controls - if the two heats had had similar course layouts, I might have been able to get across and do their 1-2-3 in 20-30 minutes and then continue), but he wasn't in the one I wanted.

The course got a fair bit easier from there but unsurprisingly I was suffering from a significant motivation deficit, especially when it came to running up hills (I'm still not quite 100% well but am reasonably sure that today's lack of hill strength was at least 90% above the shoulders). It rather summed the day up when a thunderstorm opened up in the last 10 minutes of the course.

The upshot of this is that I'll be kicking the proverbial dew off the grass in the B final, where I won't even be eligible for an official result - I guess this becomes my second training run for Oceania, the last hour of today being the first. (Strangely, according to the program, the B final is the same length as the A, and has more climb). I've been in this sport for 36 years and it never stops finding new ways to catch you out.

C • 40 minutes a bridge too far? 3

First WMOC long qualifier. A smooth run technically with no wobbles bigger than a few seconds but not as strong as I would like to have been. It wasn't terrain where I expected to need a lot of strength (gently rolling and mostly very open pine forest), but deep needles on the forest floor meant the ground was very soft in places, which made its presence felt, particularly going uphill. Much nicer running conditions today - cool dry southwesterlies on the back side of the low that produced all the rain in Buenos Aires.

I expected the best people to be in the low 50s and they were. Once again I'm in the tougher of the two heats, although (barring calamity) at 13 minutes inside the qualifying cutoff it's hardly going to make a huge difference. (The other heat has an astonishingly large number of no-shows, so at most 10 finishers - fewer if there are any more DNFs/DNSs tomorrow - are going to miss out from there).

Woke up with a bit of a tickle in my throat. I was a bit concerned, given that I've had a few runs go horribly wrong in the developing stages of colds in the last two or three years, and perhaps it did contribute a bit to my lack of strength, but not enough to have a massive impact. In any case I have enough time in reserve to be able to back off tomorrow if necessary.

A reasonably predictable set of Australian results today, with those expected to be near the top comfortably in qualifying positions, Simon Rouse inside the cut with a bit to spare, the Scowns on the edge and the remainder further back than that.

There was a bit of discontent with transport issues today (always the most challenging as it's the most distant day), but it seemed to work reasonably well for me - but then I was anticipating that things wouldn't work 100% smoothly and left extra time to deal with that (as it happened, I didn't quite get onto the first bus I aimed for but was on the next one 10 minutes later). I have some more sympathy for the car drivers who have been suffering from a lack of signs - supposedly it's illegal to put such signs up, but no-one seems to have told any of the election candidates yet (Brazilian political parties don't seem to be in any more of a hurry to clean up their signs after polling day than their Australian counterparts).

WMOC long model event. Had this not been my first chance to get out into non-sprint Brazilian forest I might have given this a miss - there were two rounds of overnight thunderstorms and it was pouring around 8-9am, although it had eased to light drizzle by the time we actually got out there.

I was certainly glad I went out. 80% of the area was pine forest (a similar mix to what I'm expecting in Q2 and the final), some of it very open underfoot and some of it a bit rougher but still nothing untoward, and that section didn't teach me very much except that any blue feature has lots of water, distinctive trees are distinguished (as in central Europe) chiefly by the orange and white flags at their base, and when you send 1000 people around a set of controls with only one logical route early on it's going to get muddy.

The remaining 20%, though, was the native forest, and this was freak-you-out territory - essentially subtropical rainforest with all that that entails, vaguely reminiscent of NZ native bush but with probably even more understorey. Occasionally it opens out into bits where you can run for 20-50 metres, but it's very easy to be pushed offline, especially as the low visibility means it's very difficult to sense the shape of the contours. I can foresee big parallel errors here (and relocation will not be easy), with potential for double-digit blowouts. Couldn't really tell the difference on the ground between the three shades of green either. I think, even without errors, this type of terrain is 15-20 minute/km territory. Part of me is hoping that there isn't much of this except for quick in-and-outs and providing part of the equation for big route choice legs, another part of me is thinking that I'm not going to win a running race and something that makes running a smaller part of the equation is potentially to my advantage. Fine navigation into controls was made easier today by the noise, but presumably there won't be crowds gathered around discussing things on Saturday...

The opening ceremony was later in the afternoon; had to be moved indoors (and the march cancelled) because of rain which was a pity. It featured the usual mix of speeches from various dignitaries, mostly short (thumbs up to the Mayor of Canela for enthusiasm), then what will surely be the WTF moment of the week when the Star-Spangled Banner was played as the "IOF anthem", then various traditional dance displays by local schoolchildren (I'm afraid my boredom threshold for these is reasonably low). Still, it was done well and the turnout was good, and the locals were commendably enthusiastic in both their own anthem-singing and in celebrating the Brazilian gold medal in M35.

(In the absence of an IOF anthem, perhaps they should have used the tune of God Save The Queen, as it is the only tune which is the national anthem of two IOF member countries.)

Walked around the small sprint model - which will, I think, be almost as relevant to the green parts of the long final (the course length, 7.9 for a 65 winning time, suggests there will be a few) as it was to the sprint. The natural forest, as an orienteering experience, reminds me a bit of NZ native bush and probably won't be a lot faster than NZ native bush - even the white patches don't seem much faster than 10 minutes/km. (Most of the long areas are pine forest which will be much faster).

The landscape of the Canela area itself actually reminds me a lot of the hill towns of the Gold Coast hinterland; the likes of Mount Tamborine or Springbrook (though Canela itself is a much larger town than those places are).

WMOC sprint final, 13th. As expected, a very different race to yesterday and a different result (at least for me - Nick Barrable was an equally convincing winner on both days). This one was in the park around a major waterfall - partly cleared picnic grounds, but a lot of it (thick) forest with an extensive track network. There wasn't a lot that actually made you go into the thick forest - one short leg (9-10), and some 50-metre in-and-outs - but it made for some interesting route choice. Quite hilly too.

Technically this was a decent run. Two minor hesitations, on 1 (where I didn't see a side track I was expecting to, but got out of it with maybe 10 seconds lost) and 9. Didn't feel as if I had a lot of strength on the hills, but the humidity made it a strength-sapping day; glad it was a 19-minute race and not a 60- or 70-minute one. (It should be less humid later in the week, on the back side of the same system that's given Bariloche the snow mentioned in the comments thread and Buenos Aires its second triple-figure daily rainfall in five days).

The placing looks nominally good - I was even in front for 15 minutes - but being over four minutes down on Nick Barrable is a fair indication that, once the pure fast runners fell away with the more challenging navigation (although only a few controls were difficult), there isn't a lot of depth in this field. I certainly won't be 13th with a run like this next year. (Actually, if things are repeated exactly, I might be - a qualifying run like yesterday's in Gothenburg will probably mean ending up in the B final). Have a reasonable feel for the field now, though - enough to think that top ten is the benchmark for an acceptable result in the long, and top six a good one. (The placegetters are too far away unless one or more of them blow up on the day).

Jenny Bourne had an impressive win in W60 - 47 seconds ahead of the field - but our other high qualifiers couldn't repeat their placings of Sunday. Kevin Paine was (a distant) 4th in M85 but I don't think anyone else got beyond the fringes of the top 10 (haven't seen final results in M55 or M60 yet, though).

Update: Now I have and it's a bit better than I first thought: Ted 4th in M60, Geoff 7th in M55.

C • Ted van G 1