Training Log Archive: AliC

Event: 2008 Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Match
 

Brief warm-up. Still chilly out...

JK Relay, Women's Trophy, Leg #1

Bah! Not so great. Totally, totally screwed up to the first control, and weirdly, I kind of knew I was at the time, and didn't try to avoid it? I saw a control that looked like it was on the right feature to be mine, but thought that my bearing was taking me along to a different control I could see, that most people around me seemed to be heading to too- so I went to that, which wasn't mine, then kept going for a bit, being a headless chicken generally. Lost at least 2 minutes.

Things went better for the next few controls, then made a perpendicular (!?!) feature error on a set of branching streams. No excuse for this, quite terrible. Must remember to look at (and believe) my compass on relays! Making this error lost my contact with the map, and probably lost another 2 min to number 6. Blah.

The end of the course was just a cross-country run in (last 6 controls), so I caught quite a few women just in that part, slightly redeeming my mistakes in the actually orienteering part of the leg.

Warm down, up to the cars, back down to the start, back up to the cars, really starting to snow now....

To start, and a bit of prancing around while there.

JK Long, Ashdown Forest
8/34

Wahoo!!!! A really, really good race! So cool. Was 4 min down to Elise (winner), 2 min down to Pippa (2nd), and close to many others. Totally sweet.

So, what went right? 1) I didn't really make any mistakes. This never happens, really. According to winsplits, #1 was a mistake, and sure, it was slow, but it was hesitation, perhaps necessary to not make a bigger mistake. 2) From 9, desperately trying to beat Mari and Jo who I caught, after they had both made big mistakes. Mari was just as strong a runner as I was, which meant I couldn't run away from her. (Never really felt that way while running with someone before.) She kept trying to run away from me, and I kept trying to run away from her, but neither of us could. Ended up 1 sec apart at the finish (the two of us had the 2 fastest run-ins).

Looking at splits, it's cool to see where I lost time to the leaders (mostly on controls where I hesitated, one or two likely route choice), and also cool to see that the top women also make mistakes...

Warm down jog around (including helping push a car out of the parking lot), chatting with Becky.

1.7k to the start, crossing the field in the hail and wind was miserable, but life was much much better in the woods, which was great. Had a dilemma at the clothing drop- run in the longsleeve or not? Choose t-shirt, and it was fine, besides very cold compass-thumb.

JK Middle Distance, Leith Hill
16/37 W21E

A very good race, although I was very annoyed with my two mistakes immediately afterwards.

My goal was to stay very focused in the technical parts, and have clear attackpoints. If anything, I wanted to be conservative in these bits, and avoid the large mistakes that could really ruin my race. I succeeded in this, only briefly becoming really confused by a path on the way to 5 (a path marked as minor looked very major, and the major path was an attackpoint, so plan got confudled for a bit).

My two mistakes, unfortunately, happened because I let my focus leave during what should have been two easy legs. 8 to 9 was an around-or-down+up route choice, with around and on the paths far better. I initially chose this, then decided maybe I should go down and up after all, messing everything up... came up to near the control, and couldn't make sense of things initially. Bah! 14-15 my bearing just totally and completely sucked, and I ended up on a path way off-course. At least I figured out what was going on and got back on track quickly.... Lost ~1 min on each, maybe more to 9, because I should have really been able to nail it around the path...

At least 5 min of running, had to bundle up immediately because of the hail! Nasty stuff, ouch!

Event: JK 2008
 

Short warm-up before the race.

JK Sprint, University of Surrey
23/107

Um, so I ended up off the map, and had this girl laugh out her dorm window at me, because I was clearly lost. Great... Other than that 2 minute mistake (just didn't pay attention in the cirlce, and ran by the control), things were pretty ok. Lost contact with the map at one other point (to 6), but nothing too awful came because of it.

W20E, W21E - Splits

Day o' rest before the 10 days of orienteering or so... Wowzer. So psyched! JK, then finally get to see what this Swedish terrain business is all about, wahoo!

Easy-peasy morning jog. Found some new paths behind Headington Hill Park, pretty psyched about that! Body not too tired from yesterday's intervals, feel nice and recovered going into the week of orienteering...

Slightly wimpy, but got some abs, one back exercises, and the infernal press ups in at least!