Training Log Archive: Vector

Finished watching all of WOC. Was nice to see Team USA out there sometimes, plus all the other amazing orienteers. Found myself really rooting for Alex and Emily Kemp with how close they were to breaking through! Men's Long was really fascinating, including that super long route choice.

On the down side, I was a bit disappointed that the male WOC TV announcer referred to a Latvian orienteer on the men's Long as a "distraction" when he was shown on the footage as well as some other comments about others ("loser" was another one). Just being in WOC is a huge feat in itself, it is the "World" championships, not just the top-5, and now I'm even more curious about the Latvian runner and what his story is as I'm sure just about every athlete competing has something interesting about them that could be mentioned. I didn't see it as a distraction at all and I think the sportsman-like thing to do is to treat every athlete competing with respect. I get that we don't have time to show footage of every athlete, and the top runners will get more attention and deservedly so, but I don't think it's very sportsmanlike to call a fellow orienteer a "distraction" or "loser", but maybe that's just me. When I worked media relations for SLOC at the 2002 Olympics, we took an approach that recognized the value and "fire within" every single athlete and we tried to bring their inspiring stories out no matter who they were, what country they were from, or what their ranking. I think that's a good attitude to have all around including in this sport.

C • Me, too 6

Hip strength

Core strength

Forest run. 90+ deg, 90+ humidity, face full of spider web x4, emerged from forest and attempted to jump gap in fence over knee high chain between gates, toe got caught, crashed down, but remembered mid-air a tidbit from my Korean military martial arts instructor "ROLL!", so I rolled thereby averting injury and got back up and ran off...guy that walked by said "You want it bad, bro, you want it BAD!" :)

Of course I would have to get sent TDY to a ruthlessly hot & humid non-O place right smack in the middle of my training plans...really wanted to run the Labor Day training courses near WY before the mid-Sept events. Going to have to make the best of it. I think my nav skills are still ahead of my physicality anyway, so I guess I will work on endurance and hills.

Started day going to the Fort Collins Temple open house w/ the family, my son & daughter's 1st time in a temple, very special day. Then on to WY.

Ran the Bisbee Hill training streamer course in Medicine Bow Nat'l Forest, WY set by Mikell. Very nice course with a few nice challenges. And the weather--oh my gosh, PERFECT! 65 degrees or so, a nice breeze. Startled 2 Moose (Meese? Mooses? pl version?) near #14 w/in 50' of me which subsequently startled me & so we all went running in opposite directions and I ditched #14!

Started out feeling way out of breath but got better as it went on. I definitely feel different there than I do back home at 6,000' in Colorado. But I think I felt stronger today than a month ago at the Natl's.

As for the navigation, I had a couple bad moments that cost me a lot of time, but the rest of the course went well for me. #4 really got me confused so I stood around looking at the surroundings for a bit until I finally figured it all out.

Nice hiking and boulder climb w/ the fam after o-practice. Cracker Barrel for dinner...ate like a savage after not having eaten anything substantial the whole day! I forget to eat sometimes.

Intervals 60/60

Cool down run

Warm up

Core strength & flexibility

Hips, legs and core strength & flexibility

Been watching WOC this week on the Live Event Center. I probably have quite the measure of O-bias, but I definitely feel like watching this beats the heck out of watching several other sports. However, I've come to realize the best TV-O experience comes from reviewing the map before watching the TV broadcast to make the most of the GPS tracking footage. So I started thinking that because of that the TV coverage might only appeal to people who know how to orienteer, but then I considered how there are literally millions of fans of other sports (like football for example) who have never played the sport in their life but know so much about the rules of the game they could be commentators themselves. I've never really made much of an effort to be an O-fan up to this point, so I'm having an interesting experience looking at the sport from a fan's perspective as opposed to an athlete's. I played tennis all through high school, but was never really much of a tennis fan. Come to think of it baseball is the only sport I've played where I've actually been a big fan. Overall I'm really impressed w/ how well WOC is covered and I can only see it getting better and better as the sport and technology continue developing over time.

C • Nice 3