Training Log Archive: miclaraia

I finished this race second to last. While I did have a few substantial mistakes, most of my lost time came simply from running slow. I finished the race and was barely even breathing hard. My long runs average at around 4'55/km, and this race I ran at 4'45/km. Looking back at the team trials sprint last year it looks like I ran at 4'20/km, which is my goal pace for a flat easy run. The only good sprint race I can find in my logs is the first race in Venice back in November, where I averaged 4'03/km. Even in October, when I was still recovering from my injured knee, I ran a faster pace than today.

So it seems like I need to work on is pushing myself to run fast in a sprint race. I think part of the problem in this instance was that I was focusing on slowing myself down these last few weeks in the forest, and didn't reset for this race.

I know that I am very prone to running at comfortable paces in orienteering races. In track or cross country, there are always people around me giving me a reason to push until it hurts. In orienteering I don't have that luxury, and need to find the strength within myself.

Anyways, here's the analysis.

1. Left the start pretty slowly, it took me 40 seconds to get up to a reasonable pace. I spent too much time looking at the entire course when I should have found the start, the first control, and taken off fast. I was down 30 seconds and not even to the second control.

2. Lost 3 seconds here, not bad.

3. Lost 10 seconds. I was looking ahead to 4 so I missed my turn off. I think it was about the same distance anyways so I'm chalking those 10 seconds to slowness

4. 20 seconds. I wasn't sure whether 4 was blocked off, but I assumed it was and I'd have to go around the building. I missed the thick black wall at the end of the building and lost some time doubling back around that.

5. 8 seconds. This one was actually pretty good, just a teensy bit faster.

6. 12 seconds. Another good route, lost a bit getting on the path near 6, there was a car blocking it. Still coulda been faster.

7. 17 seconds. Good route, just ran too slow

8. 4 seconds. I'm way too excited about losing 4 seconds, but so it goes. I went left around the fence, but I don't think it mattered much here.

9. 11 seconds. Didn't have this one planned out, but I quickly found a route and stuck with it. Wasn't sure if going left might have been shorter, but most everyone went right so I guess it's good.

10. 46 seconds. For those keeping score that puts me a full 2 minutes behind. I can't believe how bad I messed this one up. I came up to the underpass but somehow thought it was the earlier smaller one, despite the fact that there was a huge road going through here and the earlier one only a teensy curvy path. Goddammit

11. 16 seconds. By this point two people had passed me, so I knew I couldn't salvage this race anymore. Was also super frustrated about 10

12. 15 seconds. I went left, which was technically the shorter route, but I ran it really slow and lacked motivation so it was actually the slower route.

13. 4 seconds.

14. Right would have been shorter and less climb, and I remember thinking going that way, but the two people who had passed me went left, so I went left too. And I ran it 14 seconds slower than them.

15. 19 seconds. Very poor decision here. The path down the middle is shorter, but I thought I might save time going around right because of the zig-zag.

16. 19 seconds. I went right, left on the roads was faster. I lost track of wher I was too which didn't help much.

17. 18 seconds. I wanted to go right at the big junction, but I somehow missed the turn and ended up going left. Wasn't much longer anyways. Some other people I talked to did the same mistake.

18. 36 seconds. Guess I ran even slower than usual.

19. 14 seconds.

20. 10 seconds.

21. 6 seconds.

22. 9 seconds.

23. 4 seconds. With the end in reach I guess I picked up my pace a little, still not enough though.

Lesson learned: I have to run faster.

C • Keep your head up! 3

First exercise of the High Technical High Speed training day. In the morning there were three different courses, so we split up into groups of three. Each group started together and, after all three finished, rotated the maps and started again.

The path to the start control was 65 meters...of climb. We also weren't supposed to look at the map until we reached the top.

1. Nailed this control. Followed the vegetation and compassed down the hill staying between the reentrant and green.

2. I lost some time fighting through the green slash. The solid green would probably have been a bit faster.

3. Lost a bunch of time here. I ran right past the control and then was having trouble deciding whether to keep going or turn back. Eventually turned back, but I lost at least 2 minutes here.

4. Bummed about the mess up at 3, so I booked it to this one and had the 4th fastest split.

5. First half of the leg was good. I stopped and looked for the control too early on the way down, mixing up the little hill halfway down the spur with the one next to 5. Guess I wasn't thinking.

6. Followed a trail almost all the way.

C • Booking it 2

Second leg, map A

1. Could see the green patch from the start, easy peasy.

2. Knew that dropping down into the ravine and then climbing back up the other side would lose me a bunch of time, so I made sure to cross early.

3. Might have been better to cross once lower down than have to cross twice.

4. Lost focus on the way to 4 when I saw a different control on the way. Wasn't sure exactly where I was on the side of the hill. Definitely shouldn't have happened.

5. Frustrated about 4, but no problems here.

6. Still frustrated from 4 so I didn't really consider my options here. I knew that there was a trail from around 4 all the way to around 3, which would have been fast running and avoided lots of unnecessary climb. I nailed 6, but could have done the leg more elegantly.

Third leg, map B

Kinda still frustrated about my shoddy times from the last two exercises, so I wanted to see if I could compete with the swiss if I tried. Only really made things worse though.

1. Should have been an easy control, but I started doubting myself when I hit the reentrant. Would have found the control no problem had I just run down it, but for some reason I thought it didn't match up right.

2. Frustrated about 1, and didn't think my route through. I started going high, then changed my mind and decided to attack from below, then wasn't sure about which reentrant to enter, even though it was a huge and obvious one. Should have stayed high and trusted myself.

3. Frustrated about 1 and 2 and now wasn't looking at my map much anymore. Was way off my compass and not lining the contours up properly.

4. Really frustrated now and kinda just running. I should have tried to avoid losing climb and contoured more aggressively.

5. I began realizing somewhere around 4 that my being frustrated was causing me to not look at my map, so I began forcing myself to look at the map more than necessary. Lesson learned: if I'm frustrated I have to vent by looking at my map, or else I'll just snowball into more and bigger mistakes.

6. Yeah still not happy about the previous messups, but finally got back into the flow of things.

Had a little chat with Daniel Hubmann during my warmup. He's a cool guy!

Everyone had lunch together at a local Italian restaurant. Had some delicious yet outrageously expensive penne bolognese. Such is life in Switzerland.

This afternoon was a relay training exercise. People started together in groups of 8 of similar ability with the slowest starting first and the elite men (not me) starting at the end. The course was described as being heavily forked yet very fair. We were all equipped with SI-Airs for this morning's training and this one, so punching was swift and flawless.

I though this day couldn't get any worse, but it did. I was still in the middle of my pack twisting my way through some thorn vines by three when my loaned SI Air card flew from my finger and buried itself under the leaves. The leaves on the ground were deep, so I thought I was never gonna see the thing again. I spent a few minutes looking around as others came through on their second loop of their various forks, when I had a brilliant idea.

The SI-Air cards flash and beep when they come within 30cm of an SI unit, so I took the unit from the control and used it kind of like a metal detector to sweep around looking for the stupid card. After seven agonizing minutes of lost time I finally found it, returned the unit to the control and finally headed back out on the course.

What a day.

1. Nailed it with the pack. Was a little surprised, pleasantly, by all the trails that were suddenly on the map again.

2. Lost some climb by dropping to the trail, but it was worth it because trails are a lot faster around here.

3. Nailed the control, but lost my friggin SI card.

4. Easy control so I was comfortable booking it to the trail and aiming towards the very visible river bend. The pack was long gone, but because of how the forks worked I still had people around me running the same controls.

5. Maybe could have stayed on a straighter line. Nevermind I remember now that I was avoiding some unmapped green slash by going way right. And I dropped my SI Air card again crossing the river.

6. Easy peasy

7. Everyone around me at the time went straight, but I really didn't want to have to cross over 4 ravines, so I took the trail right and then crossed the big ravine. Made up some time on the people who pulled away when I had to stop on the way to 5.

8. Hmmm. I remember being unsure on the trail about whether I was too far or not far enough, but I should have been able to guestimate from the distance to the trail bend.

9. Might have payed to go back to the main trail, much less of a detour.

10. GPS is definitely not right on this one. I took the trail around and followed the ditch up. I ran pretty slow on the trail looking for the ditch, and I could have just aimed off earlier and been confident in hitting it.

11. Should have gone over to the trail rather than running parallel to it.

12. Really slow going up this hill

13. Easy, but slow on the uphill

14. Easy peasy.

15. Been to this control already so I knew what to do. I should have stayed on the trail all the way though, lost some time by leaving too early.

16. Solid.

17. I think I should have traversed the river bank longer and then attacked straight up the hill. The vegetation was pretty nasty and slow on the other side.

18. Been there done that.

19. Wasn't looking forward to the final climb but gotta do what you gotta do.

20. There was a guy in front of me! I kicked in the afterburners and caught someone for the sake of not being last.





9.

C • Dropping SI cards... 3

Three back to back trainings this evening. The first was a reduced map with only the trails missing, the second a contour only map, and the third a quick and easy three control sprint to finish it off, also on a reduced map.

I decided at the beginning that I would focus on going slow. I need to do things right here in training so that in a competition the habits I built up take me cleanly through a course. I was able to slow myself down this evening and it payed off because I only made a few small mistakes and nothing major.

First Map

1. Was a little uncomfortable because I hadn't done any orienteering in a few weeks, but I took it slow and easy and hit the control straight on.

2. I didn't look at the leg closely and didn't have a good plan or an idea of what I was looking for in the circle. I should have stayed high and dropped from the knolls.

3. Vegetation was a little unclear on the edge of the field so I attacked too early. The dark green on the map was a line of pine trees, but when I hit that I thought it was the next patch of green with the vegetation boundary. The trees also had a field of vines next to them, so it made perfect sense at the time. I'm glad though that I quickly bailed back to the field after an appropriate distance rather than wander around aimlessly.

4. Attacked from the knolls in the reentrant, clean and safe. Could probably have followed the form line, but after screwing up three playing it safe was probably a good idea.

5. Ran on my compass and would have hit it no problem, but there was a trail in the middle that messed with me a little. I stopped unsure if I might have missed something before eventually continuing on my bearing and hitting it straight on.

6. Knew where I was the entire time and nailed the control, couldn't have gone better.

7. Followed the contour and nailed the control

8. Ran along a trail and then up to the form line ridge.

9. Ran along a trail below the dark green. Probably could have followed it all the way to 9, but I left it early to orienteer through the marshes. Definitely lost a lot of time with that decision, but I nailed the control.

10. There conveniently was a deer trail along the top of the ridge all the way to the control.

11. Up to the top of the hill.

12. Ran along my compass and picked up the rocks near the control.

13. Was a little too far right and had to double back because of the dense green.

14. Down the spur



Second map

1. Easy attack from below.

2. There was a bunch of dark green and dense green slash in between 1 and 2. I didn't know where I was along the ridge when I left the trail, so when I got to the top I lost some time relocating.

3. Ran relatively straight and nailed the control, but had to swerve a lot because of green slash.

4. Dark green and green slash, my favorite. Nailed it though.

5. Could see the control almost immediately after leaving 4.

6. Ran on a trail below the ridge to avoid some dense green and attacked up when I saw the end of the ridge and coincidentally the control.

7. Over the ridge and followed the contour.

8. Followed a trail initially but then fought my way through the green to the field to better attack 8.

9. Followed trails most of the way and then used the contours and the train station zero in on the control.

10. Compass and contours.



Third Map

1. Followed a trail from the road that passed north of 1 and attacked when I saw the patch of darker green.

2. What I thought I did was follow a trail down and around the big spur, which got me really confused because I never hit the fence and olive green. I should have been able to relocate off the yellow/green slash, but I was just running not thinking. Relocated when I hit the field and doubled back to get 2 and 3

C • Mistake 3

I wanted to do my usual long route today but I was short on time between Flumserberg and strength and conditioning this evening. Did a 90 minute route instead and did a short tempo for the middle 25 minutes. The tempo portion felt really good, I was going almost race pace but my body was handling it like an easy jog.

Weather was incredible, it was snowing and cold up on the mountain, and then I did this run in a t-shirt. Got the best of both worlds over here.

I noticed my left shin was really inflamed on the way to the mountain this morning, so I elected not to run again this evening. Did a double session of core instead.