Training Log Archive: Thompass

Map

Mistake on 3, drifting slightly off in the final steps because I misread the little hills. Then on 11, was running and reading very carefully but the compass let me down this time. Should have aimed right to hit the yellow. The place that I left and came back to is where I thought the control was, dropped down to hit the green and lo and behold I found the green. Compassed towards 12 to relocate and keep going. Another bad entrance into 16. Pretty much knew exactly where I was, was gonna round the spur and hit it, then got confused by the contours and dropped to another rock that looked like it could be the correct one. Should have trusted myself because would have been peachy clean.

C • Where R U? 4

Map

There's a trail on the way to 5, decided to go along it and fix my problem afterwards.

Map

My map and Oskar's map had a different control before 1 so I was in the right spot but didn't see the streamer. Happened to see Oskar leaving the place he put the streamer so didn't lose much time. Pretty good nav, a bit sketchy but the compass was pretty strong.

Running between two wood sculptures, got a little lost for the culture and the extra distance, days off have been huge and felt very strong.

Post JWOC

Post JWOC

Two blunders, one minute and three minutes, dropped off the end of the train and lost hella speed, I got on another train eventually and could have relatively saved the race but got the wrong forking and didn't fix. First mistake from leaving the train, the second from over-relying on the train. It wasn't even a bad race it was two bad controls, which is pretty much exactly what happened yesterday. Work work work work work for next year.

GPS

That's where this puts me after this year.
There was possibility for improvement in the long but I dropped the ball on the final control to take me back a few notches. Good signs though, I had a few bobbles vs being pretty damn clean last year and was still on track to beating my placing. Need to iron out the creases that showed up in several of my races.
The middle quali was a good confirmation that my navigation and fitness were getting better. Much better than past years, into the A-Final good stuff.
Then came the loss of focus in the final that I also experienced during the long. Strong race for most of the forest, was floating in the mid to late 30s, then fell apart when I was losing contact, which culminated in the big mistake at 14 that finished me off.
The story in the relay is that my job was to stick to the trains and keep damage control to a minimum, pick off spots when risk was low but generally just stay in the race. Queue me leaving the train to 8 because I thought we were in a different reentrant. Lost a minute and lost more time because I was now alone and pace dropped heavily. Made up time to a German-speaking train with Peter and came through the arena with Greg telling me to keep it clean from then on. Queue me staying in the train and arriving at the wrong forking, and the pit the control was in was covered by the number of my control. Didn't have a clue where I was or where that pit was, fumbled about, and the train is long gone. Finished majorly pissed and disappointed but am back on track and looking forward to training.
Finally, the sprint. Massive improvement, obviously, isn't very hard when you have three shit years of sprint races. Technical, but I read it very well and was going quite strong, in 36th place at the 19th control. Lost 20 seconds on poor route choice on the next one, down to the 50s we go and finished there. Was very happy with my race and that's great progress, cards fell in my favor this time around.

TL; DR: Good sprint, good middle quali, decent long that ended in shambles, loss of focus in middle final that I'm not too fussed about, and massive disappointment in the relay, which is even worse because Adrian and David had clean, strong races and we definitely could have made a run for beating the best US result for the second year in a row. But we didn't and it happens.

Great first 11 controls, was navigating well and felt very good about the race. Didn't commit very well to a route to 12, ended up taking a bad compass and then committed to a bad route once I realized my mistake. About 45 seconds lost. Then came up the shoot and wasn't sure if I was allowed to cross so backtracked a bit then went across. About 30 seconds lost. Then a nightmare into 14, lost 2 minutes. Three controls completely dismantled my race. Need to work on keeping the nav clean when I'm getting tired, clearly the culprit of my poor race. Hey ho on we go.

GPS