Training Log Archive: tommig

Starting in 250th position thanks to Owain Jones' incredible 1st leg run. I was utterly terrified before going into the change over area, but having gone through the start process I calmed down, remembered that nobody is expecting me to keep up with these people, and concentrated on my own race. It was great to have club mates on "BOK Hill" looking after my mental state and reminding me that I am actually orienteering pretty well at the moment. Owain came down the run in like a freight train. It was hard to see who was coming through for all the bright lights, but then I saw a silhouette that was moving twice as fast as the others and figured that must be Owain. He handed over to me and I was off! I ran my heart out over the bridge and down the otherside, and got great support from BOK Hill. A little way on I realised that the pace was just too tough and I would never make the distance if I tried to keep up with people! So I concentrated on my own race, and am pretty happy with my route choices and nav to about 11. The first big mistake came on 12, where there was a sneaky gaffle and all the tracks leading to a middle control that leg 1 went to, but legs 2 and 3 didn't. Very clever planning. I hit the leg 1 control, and corrected in the wrong direction to find the other gaffle. From there again the next few were fine until 16 where again I went for the wrong gaffle having been on course to hit my own control. messed up 19, again, had been close but other people distracted me. and on 20 I had a stumble as I hit a wrong control on the way. I did regain confidence and kept pushing, but was very tried and brain no longer working. Practically cried when I looked at the next leg, and couldn't decide how to attack it. eventually went left round paths and in along a veg boundary. 25 was last big mistake, got led off down some tracks but recovered relatively quickly. A bit confused on final control as I mis-read the final fence description as a crag description. Ran the last few legs with my light off as I had promised to tell Jane whether she needed a light or not. Handed over to Jane ahead of BOK team 2, although Ifor was catching me significantly.

Not my best orienteering performance of the year, but still. very proud to have finished, and really enjoyed running with Owain, Jane, John, Simon, Miffy and Erinna. We were briefly disqualified after the organisers lost the data for John's emit brikke, but having enquired we were reinstated. We finished in 1103rd which is great considering that John is in his 70s, and Miffy and Simon are newcomers to big relay orienteering.

Event: Jukola 2017
 

Good exercise, was doing well until right near the end. A few little wobbles but always in contact with map. Got over confident and came into penultimate control (small hill in middle of green) thinking it would be really easy... eventually had to bail out and come back in from veg boundary, found it OK that time. Lesson? Good attack points... maybe a 5 minute loss of time there.

Mass start sprintervals with 6 gaffles.... Paul, Phil, Matt, Jane, Erinna and Me. Orienteered this one well, beat Phil to 2 and 3 but he took better route to finish. Enjoyable but a bit of a scrappy area in places. Getting tired in the heat.

Same again, loveliest bit of forest so far. Got tired towards end and walked into finish. Very happy with nav.

Final Jukola training, walked this one as just too tired. Total balls up of 2nd control, thought I was looking for a spur, turns out it was a re-entrant. No wonder I couldn't find the bloody thing!! Ran into Erinna and Jane in the same bit of woods, I think one of them found it first and I followed them in. Then walked the rest on my own as they ran on.

I had asked Ilpo if he had any friends in the local O club, Keski Karjalan Rasti, and whether they could spare us some old maps. Little did I know that they would go out and put out controls, just for us to run on. Karelia, and Kesälahti in Finland is such a warm and hospitable place, I very highly recommend visiting it.

Ran a talk-O exercise with Jane and Erinna, with two maps. So we took it in turns to run, navigate and follow. Always one of us without a map. Enjoyed the legs I navigated very much, often coming straight onto the control, which was a good confidence booster. As a trio we did pretty well, the only control we messed up was a really vague one in the middle of a fairly featureless area. Everyone struggled with the same control... a fun exercise!

Made a hash of control number 4, despite being about 3 metres from Chloe as she punched it... then just wandered around rather than making a plan to look sensibly for the control.... lost 3 minutes on that one. Otherwise I was pretty happy with my navigation, and not pushing too hard to save energy for the Ultra-Sprint!!

Amazing fun to run on Ben's map in the garden! Old Daniel won in a very dubiously timed 1:10, then me running as non-competitive barefoot and without a map from memory at 1:30 including wiping out on the last control and nearly taking out Erinna at the drinks control. The rest of the results are on the BOK website, first prize for initiative goes to Erinna for just going straight through the hedge in bare feet and bare legs....