Training Log Archive: broccolisaIn the 7 days ending May 7, 2017:
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Sunday May 7, 2017 #
Orienteering race (Intermediate) 1:14:26 [0]
Meech Valley South
Another unseasonably cold day! Instead of hail, this time there was snow on the drive down. No matter – I’m learning orienteering folks are hardy souls who are up for a meet regardless of the weather. Temperature reached a high of 4 or 5 degrees.
Gear: Baseplate compass since I’ve officially lost my thumb compass. New SPI waist belt + 1 SPI water bottle – this worked great! Minimal bouncing that was quite tolerable. (I learned my lesson from last weekend and tried this setup at training this week, so I knew it would work.)
The pre-meet email said to be prepared for wet feet. Indeed! I’m happy to say I don’t even care about that anymore – if my good old running shoes can take a soaking and keep on ticking, so can I. Except, hopefully minus any actual ticks… of the six-legged kind. So yes, soaking wet feet within the first few minutes, but it’s great because after that who cares about the rest of the puddles/streams/etc.
I found this course hard! By far the hardest one I’ve tried so far. I felt like I wasn’t using my compass accurately, was following wrong bearings… and ended up pretty lost (in a minor, frustrating, time-eating way, nothing panic-inducing) a few times. Ended up encountering some other people on the same course between controls #9 and 10. #10 was my worst control – the people I ran into were also stymied about its whereabouts, and then another person ran by who knew where it was. I’m hopeful that if I had been on my own I would eventually have found it, but it would certainly have eaten up even more time than it did. Then from 10 to the end I tended to keep running into the same people, which isn’t as fun as I’m sure there was some influencing of choices there.
I was so discombobulated out there that I didn’t even try to plot my route on Route Gadget afterwards! I have no idea where I actually went most of the time :D There was once where I could swear I came across an old beaten down wire fence that didn’t appear on the map. Either I wasn’t at all where I thought I was, or, the fence wasn’t on the map – who knows!
In chatting with a few of the more experienced people afterward, it sounded like this Intermediate was on the challenging side, in some ways similar to a Short Advanced course. So, I didn’t feel as bad after that. But, it definitely tells me I’m in no way, shape, or form ready to try an Advanced yet!
Next time, I want to force myself to s-l-o-w down and be more thoughtful about my route choices and execution. This sport is known as “cunning running” but I tend to forget about the cunning part in the desire to just run around and try to have a fast time. But it’s true what they say, in this sport slow feet + fast brains can definitely beat fast feet + slow brains!
And: With any luck, next time I’ll have a GPS watch on board. I think this will be a great learning opportunity at home after the meet, in being able to compare my plan and where I thought I went, with where I actually ended up going!
Regardless, I’m definitely looking forward to the next try.
Another unseasonably cold day! Instead of hail, this time there was snow on the drive down. No matter – I’m learning orienteering folks are hardy souls who are up for a meet regardless of the weather. Temperature reached a high of 4 or 5 degrees.
Gear: Baseplate compass since I’ve officially lost my thumb compass. New SPI waist belt + 1 SPI water bottle – this worked great! Minimal bouncing that was quite tolerable. (I learned my lesson from last weekend and tried this setup at training this week, so I knew it would work.)
The pre-meet email said to be prepared for wet feet. Indeed! I’m happy to say I don’t even care about that anymore – if my good old running shoes can take a soaking and keep on ticking, so can I. Except, hopefully minus any actual ticks… of the six-legged kind. So yes, soaking wet feet within the first few minutes, but it’s great because after that who cares about the rest of the puddles/streams/etc.
I found this course hard! By far the hardest one I’ve tried so far. I felt like I wasn’t using my compass accurately, was following wrong bearings… and ended up pretty lost (in a minor, frustrating, time-eating way, nothing panic-inducing) a few times. Ended up encountering some other people on the same course between controls #9 and 10. #10 was my worst control – the people I ran into were also stymied about its whereabouts, and then another person ran by who knew where it was. I’m hopeful that if I had been on my own I would eventually have found it, but it would certainly have eaten up even more time than it did. Then from 10 to the end I tended to keep running into the same people, which isn’t as fun as I’m sure there was some influencing of choices there.
I was so discombobulated out there that I didn’t even try to plot my route on Route Gadget afterwards! I have no idea where I actually went most of the time :D There was once where I could swear I came across an old beaten down wire fence that didn’t appear on the map. Either I wasn’t at all where I thought I was, or, the fence wasn’t on the map – who knows!
In chatting with a few of the more experienced people afterward, it sounded like this Intermediate was on the challenging side, in some ways similar to a Short Advanced course. So, I didn’t feel as bad after that. But, it definitely tells me I’m in no way, shape, or form ready to try an Advanced yet!
Next time, I want to force myself to s-l-o-w down and be more thoughtful about my route choices and execution. This sport is known as “cunning running” but I tend to forget about the cunning part in the desire to just run around and try to have a fast time. But it’s true what they say, in this sport slow feet + fast brains can definitely beat fast feet + slow brains!
And: With any luck, next time I’ll have a GPS watch on board. I think this will be a great learning opportunity at home after the meet, in being able to compare my plan and where I thought I went, with where I actually ended up going!
Regardless, I’m definitely looking forward to the next try.