Training Log Archive: veinbuster

First try at orienteering (excluding the MTB-O which was mostly choosing a trail). This in the chunk of York Regional Forest at the north end of Kennedy Road.

I started after everyone because I heard that beginners were to wait for further instruction. It turns out that was only meant for people on the beginner course. I might have wasted a minute, but it let everyone else scurry off so that I could go my own pace. My plan was to choose my own path and resist the temptation to run at all.

First control was exactly where expected. Going to the second control I saw 2 parallel paths and took the leftmost. This took a turn west, so I cut over to the right path - perhaps 10m away through a few trees so no harm done. Followed the fence to control 3, then through the woods to a trail that held 4 and 6. I saw a control to the right when I met the trail, so headed to it to get a clear bearing - Bash warned me it was 6 before I arrived, so I turned to get to 4.


Along the trail to 5, then into the box for D, F & G. I had a 3 minute pause in here trying to explain to someone how to use the compass to go east (to control E, which I didn't want). I then took a minute to reorient myself to my own plan and got on the trail to pick up A or C. I was targeting C when Bash came along on her cool down, but overshot and climbed up to A - no hard done other than maybe taking 7 minutes to get my last control when I could have got it in 3 minutes.


Back up to the main trail to find my way to 6. I got to the trail a bit east of where I expected to, but after standing to reconcile that deviation from my expectations had an easy path to 6 (which I had seen before) and back to 7. Then a pretty straight bush walk to g & e. f followed nicely and the path to d came pretty naturally. However, while explaining my plan I tried hard to miss the control completely - and without some discouragement from Bash would have overshot and found myself backtracking after going another 5 minutes or so too far. The key lesson for me is not to get too cocky about where I should be looking and look all around - I had basically cut my field of vision in half.

From here there was a clear trail to a fenceline and then an obvious trail with the last two controls.

I hadn't watched the time at all, but was pretty happy with my navigation. I would probably take the same approach in the next race and take my lumps with an overtime penalty. Then I might speed up a bit on some stretches of clear flat or downhill movement.

My legs could have managed another half an hour at this pace in this terrain. More clmbing would reduce my time limit.

It was a fun event. I expect to do more, with no expectations of placing.

Day 1 soloflex and free weights

Deliberate rest day. Cleaned up a bit more winter before the next freeze. A bit of house maintenance. Played guitar.

River walk with Mrs

Sufferfest: the hunted individual

Solid FTP efforts.
10 minute attack to solo breakaway
20 minute climb
10 small finish pack attacking to break away

Power avg-181, max-325

Day 3 soloflex

Dips really strong today

Beautiful hour and a half clearing snow, though I did quit before the stairs, patio and deck. Glad I got rid of some ice on Monday.

Sufferfest: there is no try

4 increasing duration intervals, each 4 steps up in power
8 min TT increasing power every 2 minutes
4 decreasing duration intervals, each 4 steps up in power

Relatively short recovery periods. Warm up was short. I stretched the cool down to see the heart recovery trend.

Power: avg-185, max:370

Day 2 soloflex and free weights

2 1/2 hours of ice smashing. It was nice of the sun to come out for a while to help out.