Training Log Archive: Arlaharen

Southern Championship Long in Lydney Park, Forest of Dean
Rank: 6/19, +19'07"
I knew that this was going to be a long and though competition since I have not been doing any long sessions for a very long time. I figured it was best and just try to approach this in normal pace and just take things as the come.

I started going really wobbly to first and ended up to far right and lost 45". I was a bit to far up on 2nd but OK. 3rd would have been 20" faster going through the green but I was a little bit afraid of the green in the beginning of the course since I didn't have a feel yet for the mappers vegetation standard.

The long leg to 4th had me clueless... I dared not attack the control straight on since I was unsure of the vegetation and running speed in the standing green and also was a bit uncertain about how tricky the control would be from that direction so I chickened out and went with a route choice on paths to the left. Could have micro-optimized the route and bit and saved some 20", but otherwise it just seemed really easy and fast going straight to the control. So lost 2'.

After that solid orienteering until 15 with only minor mistakes on 9, 10 and 12. 15 was a real mess and I guess that I was starting to get tired at this point. Misread the path junction and ended up looking at the railroad and after that overshoot the control and had to turn back so almost 2' where lost here.

OK on the next controls until I ended up running zig-zag on the long leg to the 21st control. My initial plan was to go right the same way I came up to control 4 but ended up going in the wrong direction from the control and got stuck on the wrong side of a green area. I tried to come up with a new plan and decided to go straight over the big hill instead. But I managed to run way to far on the path on the top of the hill and ended up close to the lake and probably ran one of the longest possible routes to the 21st control. Lost 4' on Crane here and almost 3' to Ptr and Erik.

After this leg I was really feeling very tired and had to walk up the hills and also started doing crazy navigational decisions. Small mistake on 24, +30", and 26, +30". But really made a mess on 27 and 28. 28 Was also placed in a really strange place and I could not quite get the gps-route to match the position on the map. The control might have been placed in a hole some 40-50 m west of the mapped hole.

Eventually got to the finish....

I had a good 3' lead on Ptr after half the course but could not hold him off in the end.

Results:
http://www.ngocweb.com/schamps2010/splitsd2.pdf

Map with route

C • Cold in sweden? 2

Event: Southern Champs
 

NGOC Middle distance in Mallards Pike
Rank: 3/35, +2'48" (Matthew Crane)
I started a little bit sloppy with the map reading and all the ditches confused me a bit to first (checked out another control before mine) 2nd and 3rd no probs. A bit sloppy with direction going into 5th and lost 20". Ran good on 6,7,8 and 9th even though I came we to far north to 9th and had to run a long way south before I found it. My initial thoughts were that it was in the wrong place and it was confirmed by the gps-route. This caused a not so optimal route to the 10th control and it probably would have been better to go south instead of north on that one. After the long grueling climb to 10th I was apparently not paying enough attention to direction and missed 11th badly. Climbed way to high up and had to relocate and go down to get it, lost 45".

I was holding back to much to 12th and should have gone full speed all the way to the second path since it was very clear and obvious but a lot of non marked paths on the way there made me a bit uncertain of my location all the time... annoying. After that quite a good flow in the orienteering all the way towards the last control when I started to relax a bit to early and drifted of way to the left of the control and lost 20".

All in all a good start considering this was the first training with a map in several months. Direction and sense of run distance needs to and should improve once one gets to do some more training on maps. The physical part can obviously be a lot better since I constantly feel that I have to push myself instead of just doing orienteering.

Results:
http://www.ngocweb.com/schamps2010/splitsd1.html

Map with route

Slow lunch run with the boys from work. Just cruising to get some circulation through the muscles and especially the calves. A bit stiff bit they loosened up after a while.

Went to sthlm for some meetings so I had to cancel my participation in the lunch training.

To and from Hjulsbro

When the boys ran the test course I decided to run fast but not so fast as to jeopardize the weekends training races in England. I ran 2 shortened laps so that I could ran a little bit in the company of the boys and watch how the battle unfolded. Ptr got away with the victory after a raffling 2nd lap. The snow made the course really slippery in some parts and it was generally a tough day to try to break any records...

Core strength exercises in Bäcksskolan. Made 4 laps this time. Modified some exercises so that I would not put unnecessary strain on my calves.