My new ankle injury and common sense told me to take the day off. The left ankle is pretty swollen. It's hard to go down stairs, especially since my right knee still hurts going down stairs.
Orienteering race (Foot) 1:02:01*** 4.9 km (12:39 / km) +180m10:42 / km spiked:10/12c slept:7.0 (injured)
OCIN Flying Pig XXIV - 2022-I ran M-Green again today. At 41 F and breezy near the lake, it was cool at the start. However, I felt pretty good while running.
S-1 I took the trail around. It seemed most efficient for me and was dead easy.
1-2 - When running the trail on leg 1, I should have used the time to plan leg 2. I missed seeing the road option until I'd already committed to going to the circle at the road crossing. I came down a reentrant taking me in the direction of #4, crossed and went on and off trails to the trail bend NE of the control. I messed-up! My bearing was too far to the left. I ended up at trails south of #2. Figuring it out, I recovered but I feel I lost close to 3 minutes.
2-3 - I went mainly straight. I started to get into the wrong reentrant, but when it ended so quickly, I knew I needed the next one to the west. After that, I basically spiked it.
3-4 - I cut across the reentrants and went left of the green. The woods mapped white SW of the control didn't look good so I took the trail to the parking area and then the trail north basically to the control.. I almost caught Kendra Stritch at #3 but I didn't know who she was nor when she started.
4 - 5 - I mainly went straight. Seeing the reentrant south of #5, I headed there. Kendra was not wasting any time and stayed ahead of me. I gained ground on her going downhill, but climbing the reentrant, she was moving faster. We left from the the ditch intersection south of the control. She got there before me.
5-6 - Kendra went straight through some unmapped green near #5. I went around on the right side but I didn't gain any ground on her. Though she seemed to be walking, she was getting closer to the control at about the same pace that I was. Coming from my direction, I saw all of the reentrants. Kendra may have been checking out the one NW of #6 as I went right to it and passed her.
6-7 - I think that I went fairly straight; a little to the right. After crossing the trail, I must have dragged my left leg across a log. I'd been favoring it because of my injured right knee, so my left leg was more tired. As I was falling, I tried to recover but my left foot got stuck on something (another smaller log?) and I went down hard. I could hear 2 snaps as my left ankle was hyper extended with the toes pointing away from my body. I lay there a few seconds. A woman in red clothing came by and checked to see if I was okay. I got up shaken and not feeling so great, but I was okay. I walked off the pain and then jogged. The light green on the map was old deadfall and not so bad to get through. I was just on the right edge of it. The woman who'd helped me paused at the trail apparently looking for the same control that I was looking for. I didn't stop and went on to it.
7-8 - Straight. I could see the big reentrant near #8 from far off. Where I was slow was climbing.
8-9 - I went up the left side of the reentrant at #8--the wrong side to be on, but I got on the trail and hit the road quickly. I intended to go to about the second intersection before turning east and using the white woods. Seeing an open area much closer to #8, I went in there, and through the light green woods--maybe I was drawn to the trail option on the north side of the leg, that I didn't see until after leaving #8. I'd actually looked back and saw Kendra on the road. What I did wasn't bad, but it required more climbing--I came through the east-west reentrant that was immediately south of the start triangle. I got to the control through some light green after the road crossing, and through the field. I saw that Kendra was approaching afrom south of #9 and punching as I was closing-in, but I wasn't sure it was her.
9-10 - Kendra went down to use the trail. I stayed high and ran to the spur. I closed-in but didn't catch her before #10.
10-11 - I'd planned my route to #11 before punching #10. I planned to stay high and drop down to the control. Kendra went straight across the reentrants. I passed her but she was only a few seconds behind me at #11.
11-12 - Kendra beat me to the road. However once I saw the leg was downhill across the parking lot, I opened-up my pace. I haven't been running fast for a long time and I was worried about what more I was doing to my right knee slapping my feet hard as I ran down the hill. I saw the trees the control was under from the top of the parking area. People were cheering a lot. I didn't know if Kendra was gaining.
12-F - I pushed pretty well at first, but again was worried about something popping on my right knee. Earlier, whenever I've tried applying some torque on it, the result was sharp intense pain. It didn't happen. As I got closer the cheers were getting louder. I thought Kendra was gaining on me again. I moved into another gear to finish without getting passed. It turned out the several juniors were catching-up to me. Kendra finished soon after but I'd made-up about 30 seconds on her in the last 3 controls and the finish. That's about the same time that I'd lost to her on leg #9. Overall for the weekend, Kendra's total time was better than mine--that probably reflects how badly I'm climbing right now.
Hiking (Street & Trail) 12:00 [1] 0.44 mi (27:17 / mi) +21m23:43 / mi (injured)
East Fork State Park – west side. Hiking from the event center to the start to retrieve my jacket. I'd walked up with it earlier before my race.
All-in-all, it was a pretty good day. My navigation could have been better but I ran okay. The terrain was more open and runnable so that meant making quicker decisions than I've been having to make in recent races. Max didn't think he'd had a good day but he ended-up 3rd in his category. Peggy ran pretty well to day too. Our drive back took about 9 hours, when including the lunch, dinner, and gas stops. My knee hurts more now than it had going into the weekend, and now my left ankle is hurting too. At least I'm not too worried about the ankle. I think it'll heal pretty well over the next week. My family talked about going to West Point and we are likely to compete there.
Running warm up/down (Street and Trail) 9:51 [2] 0.85 mi (11:35 / mi) +3m11:28 / mi (injured)
East Fork Park. I jogged to the start of the OCIN Flying Pig events. It was not feeling good on my knee. I got there with 4 minutes to spare.
Orienteering1:11:15 [3] 5.1 km (13:58 / km) +175m11:55 / km slept:7.0 (injured)
OCIN: Flying Pig - on the East Fork State Park – South Side map. I ran the M-Green course again. The terrain was much nicer. I could run the open woods which weren’t always so open. Driving into the park we could see forest that looked much better. The climb was much less today too. It was 2K longer today, and less climb, resulting it about a 10 minute shorter race time. My right knee hurt sometimes and through my micro route choices I reduced the stressors.
For leg 1 I was surprised to see the distinct linear marshes that weren’t on the map but I still spiked the control going straight. Going through again on leg 16 I saw more that weren’t mappable. Around leg 4 I caught up to a Junior who turned out to be on my course. He and some others exchanged leads over the rest of the race. On leg 6 I made a bauble by getting too far to the left as I was crossing the road. For leg 10 I used the trail—as I attacked I lost a f second going too far right, but I recovered well. For 13 I didn’t see the control where expected and I passed the ditch to look further before coming back. On another control my course converged with Glen Tryson’s. Getting to a control location I was behind Glen and saw the control. Since Glen went past I convinced myself that I needed to go further too. The rest of the course was pretty good.
Orienteering (Foot) 1:04:32 [3] 2.53 mi (25:30 / mi) +222m20:03 / mi slept:6.5 (injured)
OCIN Flying Pig XXIV - 2022 on the East Fork State Park – North Side map. I ran the M green, or Green-A course mainly because I’ve been injured (torn meniscus) for so long and I’m very out of shape. I started with a bobble pulling up early leaving the trail the getting confused when I ended up back on it again. I’m not sure about my route choices but they kept me moving. I worked my way around the steepest parts of hills ant the worst of the green. I missed right at the end of leg 10 when crossing a flat part before a reentrant. Recovery was not optimal Overall I did a lot of walking, finding the terrain too difficult to run through.
Earlier In the day our family toured Ohio University in Athens, OH. Max is unlikely to go there but the campus was nice and we just wanted to expose him to different Universities. He’s got to start applying to different Universities next fall.