Training Log Archive: BorisGr

NAOC was a whirlwind and a blast! It was so much fun to share a house with such an awesome group of friends, new and old. I wish we had more time to spend with all of them! (The weekend was busy: racing, wedding reception, announcing, picking teams for the sprint relay, board-related meeting, team-related meeting, checking in on juniors, hanging out with friends who came from overseas to see us, two 10-hour drives.)

I really, really enjoyed announcing, especially at the sprint relay. Nevin and Meghan were great to work with. There are things we can improve on, but it would be great to reprise this team at NAOC 2018. And I now have a pretty solid dream of doing English-language announcing side by side with Per Forsberg at Tiomila. What do I need to do to make that happen for real?

C • thanks 18

US Sprint Relay team selector and assistant hard at work, courtesy of Dan Weintraub: https://www.flickr.com/photos/igniferroque/2935020...

C • I'm glad you were able to lend Barney a hand 1

C • Dan Wientrab from Williams ... 2

Morning elliptical at the gym.

My exercises:
- one-legged standing hip drop
- step back lunges
- squats
- planks
- dead bugs
- side planks

C • What to do to rebalance? 2

My physical therapist filmed me running on a treadmill in his office. It was immediately obvious to even the most causal observer that I should not be running. The entire right side of my body caves inwards with every step to compensate for the weakness in my core and stabilizing muscles on the right. So no more running again for a while.... This has been a long process of recovery, and I don't really see the end in sight.

C • Recovery 7

C • Consistent strength work fe... 1

A lot of lunges, squats, and leg raises. Some very obvious weaknesses became apparent.

At the gym at work. My attempts at racing are over for the year. Time to do some real rehab and start preparing for Yukon 2018.

Our juniors are awesome.

C • Juniors 8

NAOC Long Distance - Burnt Mountain. Green X course.

Right from the start, two things were clear:
1) This was going to be one of the most fun areas to run on in the US.
2) My body did not recover from the middle distance, and my right side felt very weak from the start.

I decided to focus on orienteering and not worry about trying to move quickly. This meant that there was a lot of jogging and some walking, but the controls all seemed to be right where I expected them to be. This was the case through the end of the long leg, when I started feeling a lot of pain on the right side. I jogged the next two controls, and still had good focus - I had a 3-minute lead on Niels Lyng-Olsen at this point. But then it all unraveled on the way to 12. I made a parallel error and then just took ages to recover, spending most of the time walking. It ended up costing me 9 minutes - when is the last time I had a mistake like that? WOC 2007? I jogged the next leg and then walked it in, deciding that there was really no sense in running hard, as any running felt painful and pretty uncomfortable.

Still, I loved the course and the area and would love to see a Billygoat here in a couple of years, when my body can hopefully handle one.

Route Gadget: http://www.vmeyer.net/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?ac...
Check out Niels' route on the long leg to 9! He smoked me by 2 minutes on that.

C • Awesome 6

Long - Green X - Splits

Event: North American Orienteering Championships 2016
 

This was NAOC, and a middle distance WRE, so I approached the race as seriously as I could given my lack of fitness and preparation. I did a long warm-up and took the time to walk and jog around the warm-up map, which made me think that the woods would be pretty green.

NAOC Middle Distance.

26th out of 55 - just barely in the top half of the field; 14th American. WinSplits shows me as having made just over 3 minutes of mistakes, which is way too much for this race.

I was the first starter, which I think was a sizable disadvantage in terms of terrain tracking up. But none of that is enough to explain away the fact that I am simply to slow to be competitive these days. Although I felt like I was racing a little too rushed and never quite in synch with the map, there were a few legs that I felt I executed well, but I still managed only 3 top-20 splits.

Still, I really enjoyed the course and felt that Glen Tryson did an excellent job with the area he was given. I had a lot of fun, and really enjoyed the control-pick nature of the course.

There was nothing I or my countrymen could do to stop the Canadian dominance on this day. Still, while this would not really change the results for the purposes of the BK Cup, it is disappointing that rules dictated for Thierry to start at the very back of the field, as opposed to separately from the Regional Championship field. The result was that Damian got a massive ride for most of the course, all the way to a North American title and a guaranteed WOC position. It is entirely possible that he would have won anyway - he raced extremely well the entire weekend - but this outcome leaves a slightly unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth.

My route is on RouteGadget: http://www.vmeyer.net/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?ac...

My middle distance results at NAOC:

2010 - 8th
2012 - 4th
2014 - 9th
2016 - 23rd

Not a good trend...

C • Putting on my data analyst ... 1

Middle - Blue - Splits