Training Log Archive: cporter

Jog to the start...shins were bothering me quite a bit so I had to stop half way to stretch them,

NAOC Middle Distance - after almost missing my start I didn't have great expectations going into this race, which in hind sight probably helped quite a lot since I wasn't putting extra pressure on myself. Fortunately I had a few seconds at the start to take a deep breath and pull my head together. I continued to calm myself down and get my head into the race on the way to #1 and managed only a slight bobble...OK, no problem, just do it better on your second control, which I did. To say the least the map was a bit overwhelming with the amount of contor detail, but in retrospect I actually did a really good job of map simplification on this race. Hilltops were my best friend because they pretty much what I navigated by for much of the course. Overall, I wasn't going very fast, the woods didn't really allow you to move too quickly so I took trails whenever I could (which did actually backfire on me). I bobbled #'s 1 and 5 with less than a min lost between the two. My major time losses were en route to #7 (I took the trail, but got so focused in just running that I ran right past the trail junction I was supposed to turn off at and got about another 50m down the trail before I realized something wasn't right, still took a while for me to figure out what I did and then of course I had to run back) and then I over shot #10 - probably about 2-2:30 lost for those two errors, but otherwise I had a pretty clean race. I felt quite slow out in the woods, but I did keep a steady pace even if it wasn't terribly fast. Again, I can't really complain about my race, I had absolutely no idea that I had such a good run (and probably the best thing for me too.) Since the printer was down when I finished and couldn't get splits or see results, I really had no idea how well I did until Eric told me that I had finished 1st for the US women and 3rd overall for NAOC's!!! Thanks to everyone for your congratulations!

C • NAOC Medal? 3

Event: North American Championships
 

NAOC Sprint #1 - This was by far my worst race of the weekend. I had several pretty significant errors totalling close to 3 min of lost time. My two biggest mistakes were on the way to #5 (I stopped short and then ran all the way around a large patch of green before I found the control) and then on may way to one of the last few controls, like #10 or 11 (I've misplaced my map for the moment) I ran to 2 wrong controls before finding my own. When I exited the woods from the previous control I saw a flag straight ahead of me and I just went into tunnle vision and didn't even check what feature my control was supposed to be hung on because I was sure that it was it. Fortunately, I had the sense to check my control code and realized it wasn't right, then kind of paniced and ran to another control right next to it before I stopped myself and forced myself to relocate. Thankfully, I was only about 20m off from my flag. Even with all that nonsense I still qualified for the Sprint Finals, which I wasn't expecting so I guess I can't complain too much.

Psych-out warm-up since I didn't realize that our starts had been delayed yet again...

US Team warm-up before the Final. Quite fun, wish we could all warm-up together all the time...

NAOC Sprint Finals, Sprint #2 - OK, so not only was I not expecting to make it into the Sprint Series Final this weekend, I didn't even know that the Final was this weekend! Once again, no complaints, but it just goes to show how flaky I can be sometimes. As unprepared as I felt for the race I had a good run and it was a really fun race. I was a bit nervous with Christina starting only 30 sec. after me (and with everyone watching of course) but managed to keep a pretty cool head and concentrate on my race once I started. I had problems with #3 on the first loop (not surprisingly in practically the same spot as my #5 control from the earlier sprint) where once again I stopped short and then wandered about for about 30 sec. The second loop went fairly smoothly with no real errors, just slower than I wanted to be. I almost lost my focus on the third loop on the way to #18 when I took a bad route choice through the woods and go tangled up in some green, but fortunately I found the control OK and only got slowed down a bit. The rest of the race went well navigationally, but it was a real test of endurance. Fortunately, I held on well enough with a 6th place finish overall, 5th for NAOC's which means as the 3rd US woman I actually scored points for the US!!! And we beat Canada!!! (for that day at least...)

Kickboxing

Event: QOC: Hemlock Overlook
 

Sprint at Hemlock Overlook - not a great sprint for me. There was a general consensus that #9 was hung wrong or mapped wrong, but even with that warning before I went out on the course I still managed to screw it up, which cost me over a min. I also over ran #3 because #13 happened to be very close by and I didn't look hard enough and actually ran half way to #13, fortunately I was able to cut through the woods and down a different trail to #3 without having to go completely back, but still there was easily another min lost and then I also bobbled #5 because I had a hard time reading all of the different veg boundaries in the field. All told I lost at least 2:30 on the course which, looking at who finished around 12 min seems about right for where I normally finish. Oh well, lets just hope I got all the screwing up out of my system so I'll run well at NAOCs!

Middle Distance (Red) at Hemlock Overlook - at least the middle went well for me today. No real major problems, kept a good momentum just until last couple controls which were uphill. Only really notable screw-ups are when I was high on my #5 and wound up hitting #16 in stead (luckily they were only about 150m apart.) In my defense though I found Patti Mace sitting on the ground on my way to #5 and stopped to make sure she was OK, she said she hurt her ankle, but that someone was already on the way for help and she waved me on. I still feel like a bit of a jerk for not staying with her though since I later found out that she thought she had actually broken her ankle - no word yet though if she did since the ambulance had been and gone by the time I finished. After my mistake at #5 I ran virtually error free (not too hard to do though in this terrain) until I hit #17. I meant to run around the hill top and drop down the reentrant in which #17 was hung, but I got sucked down into the wrong reentrant and then go tangled up in some deadfall that slowed me down. My route to #18 didn't go much better, but something just didn't seem right when I was running that leg. My bearing was also off when I didn't think it should have been since I was tired at that point and there was a lot of deadfall so I wasn't moving too quickly and paying a lot of attention to my map and compass. After the race I confirmed with some others that something was definitely off on #18, just not sure what (either the reentrant was mapped a little funny or #17 was hung too far down the reeentrant.) My #19 was also a bust, but that was my own stupidity - since I was confused at #18 of of the guys that I had been running with (not intentionally) caught up to me and took off ahead and out of sheer laziness and because #19 was the GO control I thought surely he knew where he was going, but we came out on the wrong trial and wound up having to run over a nice little hill to get to the right one. Even with the few mistakes I made though it was a pretty decent race. I felt a little bit redeemed after such a terrible sprint.

Short - Splits

Red - Splits