Training Log Archive: the kempster

finally made it home!! wow, it feels like i never left!! :P i'll have to log the suisse o-week races later when i get used to using this type of keyboard again. i don't think that i'll be able to do any training until canadians though because on the last day of races i fell, banged up my knees, and took a chunk out of my shin. unfortunately this happened on the way to the 8th of 18 controls so i kind of had to limp and hop along the rest of the course. popped into the first aid tent afterwards and got some stitches and a cool anatomy lesson on leg tissue. it's painful to walk on and my mom won't let me do anything remotely close to training anytime soon... ooh shucks. it is good to be home though which makes everything all better :)

C • Orienteering after injury 2

due to reasons i never really figured out, we ended up back on the etappe 5 map to run the race for etappe 4 on the day of etappe 6. holy macaroni. i had a solid race going until control 6 where i just lost contact with the map and it took me a while to convince myself that i had not, in fact, gone down the hill far enough yet. then on the way to control 8 i fell and left part of myself behind. ouch. i hobbled along to 8, and that kind of ran to 9 but partway i stopped to check out the damage which was a bad idea. right away i knew that i'd for sure need stitches so the rest of the course was kind of included me going into shock while trying to not get lost. there was still half of the course left to do but thankfully it wasn't extremely technical so i could freak out and orienteer at the same time. i bobbled 15 but i was such a good girl and bailed out to the trail right away and then back in and nailed the control from there.

overall the whole week was boatloads of fun. it's just a bummer that there always seemed to be that one control during each race that i just totally screwed up. that doesn't usually happen but i'm still happy with my final placing. a fantabulous week indeed. :)

C • The reason 2

real woods again!!! a lot of people really didn't like the map, but i didn't mind it at all!! it was kind of green and it was not uncommon to fall into a hole every once in a while. i ran the first two thirds of the course super dee duper well and something happened on the way to control 11. i was heading up the re-entrant just as i had planned but then i didn't climb the hill high enough and i thought i had seen the trail but really it was just an elephant path that had red markings on the trees. hmph. i tried to relocate a couple different times but it took much too long before i found a swamp and managed to find the control from there. after that the rest was alright but the minutes per km is just depressing.

okily dokily. this race sucked. it was wayyy up this mountain so the views were absolutely spectacular but we were out in the open the whole time and the sun was so incredibly hot and we only got water at about the 500m mark. i basically shrivled up and died out there and got really sore feet cause the last part was completely downhill. i tried the technique of running and relocating... that failed. on the way to control 5 i didn't look at my compass enough and ended up wayyyy to the left and then i relocated wrong and it was just a mess. it was yucky. the butterfly loops were interesting, but out of the three times that we went to the middle control, i only hit right on once. i just kinda wondered around in the general area, although by that point i was a delusional... there was also way more than just 160m of climg... geez. :P

alright so somehow we had to hike 4.5km up this mountain with 700m of climb, and then run a course with another 300m!!! holy macaroni it was so epic. i think that this was by far my favourite day though. i almost had a perfect race. i mean it was thatttttt close. we started out with a really fast open section which was a piece of cake, but then we got sent into the most technical rocky area i have ever been in!!! i drastically slowed it down though, read every detail, and tried to avoid running on the limstone as much as possible cause that was a hazard!! controls 5 to 12 were in this area and i spiked them all except for control 11. that one just went kaboom. the control was on the side of this hill and i knew exactly where i was climbing up the hill, but then for some reason i felt like i was too low when instead i was too high. it was just silly and i wasted a bunch of time running around until i relocated off a knoll thingymadooer. definitely my best day out of the whole week cause somehow i came third.

for this race the elite got to wear a gps and then get a printout of our actual route at the end. the result is quite interesting :P i ended up actually running 7698m, climbing 421m, and descending 686m. holy macaroni. there was one super dee duper tricky section from controls 4 to 6. i was really careful going in and nailed the first control. then i got sloppy and nearly messed up the next one, and then i just plain bombed the last control. my goodness... i ended up inverting the controls and everything was just all mixed up. :S the rest of the course was fine after that, there were just crazy steep downhills and because of the rain it was all muddy. in order to avoid slipping and tumbling down the hill, i just sat on my bum and slide all the way down :P

Event: Swiss O Week!
 

ermm so not the most fantastic sprint preformance ever... beforehand i decided that i would try my very bestest to read ahead as much as possible so that i would have no surprises once i got to the control. that worked until i started missing intersections cause i was too concentrated on the next leg. oopsy doopsy. i think i'm going to have to practice that technique a bit more.