Training Log Archive: smittyo

Very different from yesterday. Today's map was fast, spur and reentrant orienteering. An excellent course. I was worried that it wouldn't be technical enough and turn into a running race, but judging from the errors people were making, it was plenty technical. Also did a great job of discouraging trail routes. They rarely seemed like the best choice for very far.

The western states champion awards were based on two-day total time and were very cool (little mining pans) so I wanted one. Eileen Breseman was my only competition and she was five minutes ahead of me from day one, so I wasn't very hopeful. I made a pretty decent error from #2 to #3. I climbed up a hill and thought I had climbed more diagonally then I did, so I misjudged where I was on the top of the ridge and went down in the wrong direction, taking me a ways away from the control. When I hit a main road that didn't look like, I spent some time relocating and then got back on track. Time loss - about 3 minutes. Saw Eileen just before #6. Both of us thought that I had caught up to her (turns out she started behind me and had made up 8 minutes already). We took different routes into the control and I was surprised to find it, take a drink and get away without seeing her. Kept going feeling better that I was apparently having a good run. Had a nice clean race from there. it turned out that she made a parallel error at #6 and lost a lot of time. In the end, I got the gold pan!

This was a very gnarly course! That 6% climb in the specs only begins to tell the story. The area was extremely complex. So much so that the map was at 1:7500. Lots of steep reentrants, narrow spurs, ditches going everywhere, and small knolls. Most of it shown with actual contours. The course was designed to keep you in the most technical terrain constantly.

Started out very poorly with an 8 minute error at number 1. Lot of different reasons for this, but I prefer to blame it on the mapper :-). Knowing the scale was different I started out prepared to check my pace count and immediately got distracted and didn't really measure the leg I was on. So even though I was counting, I still didn't know where I was. I was planning to attack from a small marsh not far from the control. The area was flat and mapped about 2/3 yellow with scattered patches of greens and whites. Since the marsh was mapped in the yellow, I was checking all the clearings for any sign of marshiness and never found it, finally just charging up the slope hoping to find the control without a decent attack. It didn't work and after spending quite a few minutes trying to relocate in the technical terrain to no avail I went back down to the flats and reattacked from a much larger and identifiable marsh further from the control. After the race I went back out to find the small marsh and discovered that it was actually a marshy thicket. I had run right by it and stopped to look for it when I hit the open just past it.

Shelagh Pepper caught up with me at number 2 and we stayed together through the rest of the race. Saw a lot of people over and over again as well. I didn't have any other serious errors, but the technicality slowed me down a lot. To stay on track you had to be reading the map details constantly. I really wish there had been a model even for this. I ended up about 5 minutes behind my competitors.

Event: 2009 Pacific Northwest Orienteering Festival
 

Gold rush sprint at Boise State University. Fast, flat course. Technically not too bad, most legs reduced to left or right around the building. Lost time on 3 to 4. At first I picked a route that would have taken me straight into an uncrossable wall. But I executed poorly and never ended up there. Instead I chose a new route that went under an overpass. Unfortunately, I failed to really note that I wanted to be under and took the stairs onto the top only to discover that didn't go through and had to go back down. Otherwise no problems. Estimated 2 minutes lost.
Looks like a pretty decent run compared to others. Let's hear it for training! Won my age class (only three people).

Travel day - drove to Reno and took in the show "Menopause - the Musical"

Jogging to and from the gym

Weights at the gym

2 min intervals / 5 reps / 2 min recovery in the bunny field
Should have only done four of these. I was definitely spent by the end of the fourth one. But I was still a full interval away from home, so I did the last one a little easier than the others.

Warm-up / Cool-down and recovery between intervals

Barefooted it home after the workout