Training Log Archive: arcticQnIn the 1 days ending Aug 10, 2010:
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Tuesday Aug 10, 2010 #
Orienteering race 1:02:41 [5] 5.7 km (11:00 / km) +230m 9:09 / km
WOC Long Distance Qualification
*sigh* Sorry everyone. It all makes sense, really, ...there is a good explanation.
I started the race pretty solid, first two controls anyway. But then, #3 i totally botched, misreading swamps and forest and getting too high up and having to come back down. Coming out of 3, I knew i had lost at least 4 mins because a Czech and a Spanish girl caught me. I ran behind the Spanish girl for a ways. Honestly, there was no keeping up with the czech, she was gone pretty quick. I realized here how slow and sluggish I was. Even on the downhills, which is atypical for me!
I had solid routes to all controls (excpet maybe #3) but just lost a lot of time running. (or not running, which was the problem.) Also good today was that once I got in or near the control circle I was very confident on the control location (except #3). I think yesterday's race really helped a lot with my technical confidence, but perhaps wore me out for today at the same time. I just lacked the necesary fitness for this terrain.
So, by the time I neared the end of the course, it was a lot of downhill and I was so psyched to be done, I had spiked the previous control (#9) (though the split was really slow) and was feeling confident. I came cruising down through some crappy yellow slash and cut over to a trail, looked for my boulder for #10, didn't see it, kept going a bit, maybe too far, but sure enough there was a control on a boulder, checked the code on the stand: '84', check the clues: 'something-4'. cool. got it! Down to the last control, seeemed a bit farther than i would have thought, but there was #11, tons of photographers, codes matched and off I went to the go control, which was fortunately NOT on top of that stupid hill again today. Got into the finish and they held me up and then brought me over to a separate tent where they compared some data and then told me i had punched the wrong control. Awesome. Looked at the maps they had and sure enough, i realized right away what I had done. I had punched at another boulder, read 84 on the stand, but had matched it up with my #9, a boulder, code 74. I was actually looking for 72. drat. It all makes so much sense!
Looking at my time there, though, i knew it wasn't good enough for the final anyway, so I laughed, shook my head and told them it was just as well. They laughed along with me.
I really don't feel so terrible about it. Not that it's a great feeling to MP, but, I learned a lot about my fitness, strength and mental capacity under that sort of strain and pressure. Yesterday's race was a huge learning curve, and today was similar.
*sigh* Sorry everyone. It all makes sense, really, ...there is a good explanation.
I started the race pretty solid, first two controls anyway. But then, #3 i totally botched, misreading swamps and forest and getting too high up and having to come back down. Coming out of 3, I knew i had lost at least 4 mins because a Czech and a Spanish girl caught me. I ran behind the Spanish girl for a ways. Honestly, there was no keeping up with the czech, she was gone pretty quick. I realized here how slow and sluggish I was. Even on the downhills, which is atypical for me!
I had solid routes to all controls (excpet maybe #3) but just lost a lot of time running. (or not running, which was the problem.) Also good today was that once I got in or near the control circle I was very confident on the control location (except #3). I think yesterday's race really helped a lot with my technical confidence, but perhaps wore me out for today at the same time. I just lacked the necesary fitness for this terrain.
So, by the time I neared the end of the course, it was a lot of downhill and I was so psyched to be done, I had spiked the previous control (#9) (though the split was really slow) and was feeling confident. I came cruising down through some crappy yellow slash and cut over to a trail, looked for my boulder for #10, didn't see it, kept going a bit, maybe too far, but sure enough there was a control on a boulder, checked the code on the stand: '84', check the clues: 'something-4'. cool. got it! Down to the last control, seeemed a bit farther than i would have thought, but there was #11, tons of photographers, codes matched and off I went to the go control, which was fortunately NOT on top of that stupid hill again today. Got into the finish and they held me up and then brought me over to a separate tent where they compared some data and then told me i had punched the wrong control. Awesome. Looked at the maps they had and sure enough, i realized right away what I had done. I had punched at another boulder, read 84 on the stand, but had matched it up with my #9, a boulder, code 74. I was actually looking for 72. drat. It all makes so much sense!
Looking at my time there, though, i knew it wasn't good enough for the final anyway, so I laughed, shook my head and told them it was just as well. They laughed along with me.
I really don't feel so terrible about it. Not that it's a great feeling to MP, but, I learned a lot about my fitness, strength and mental capacity under that sort of strain and pressure. Yesterday's race was a huge learning curve, and today was similar.