Saturday Aug 25 |
 | trail run 20:00 [2] | |
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| warm up for the first leg of the relay |
| Orienteering 43:33 [4] | |
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| The first leg of the relay at WOC. I was very nervous at the start and really did not want to run. But there I was on the line and they said go and I started running. Thankfully, it was very straight forward to the first control - it was a building at the end of a field. The first control was forked and then the 2nd and 3rd controls were the same for everyone. I was at the back of the main lead pack going to #3 and most everyone turned left out of the control, going downhill. The french girl in front of me paused and turned right out of the control, slightly uphill to the field. I looked at the map and went with her, and the Ukrainian girl came with. As we were running across the flat before going to the reentrant, other girls ran in from the side - switzerland and norway being among them. I was thrilled that they were behind me :) At the bottom of the reentrant was a swamp that looked ok to cross, but the mud was deeper than it seemed. I went up to my mid calf and then found a piece of land and a log to crawl across. As I was crossing, I looked behind me and saw one girl in up to her chest and another girl pulling her out. I went to the wrong forked control on #4, but I went there with everyone else. We all reloacted quickly and got our control. Then there were two more common controls, 5 and 6, and I was running with a pack that was being led by Norway and Australia. Everyone in my pack had a different control for #7, but it wasn't a problem. I saw theirs and ran to mine without losing them. Then there was a slight, but long, uphill climb to #8 and Norway and Australia pulled away and I was again running with France and Ukraine. We ran to #8 and #9 together and I ran through 10 and the spectator control (#11) with them. There was a road and trail run to #12 and Ukraine disappeared - either a different fork or she was lost. France and I punched #12 right behind Australia and Czech Republic - so we caught up some time somewhere. #13 was a common control and we all caught up to Estonia on the way. Then to #14 I made my one damaging mistake. I was pulled off to the left by the group, and I ran to their control instead of mine. I knew immediately where I was and after some choice words I sprinted to my control, punching it with Estonia. The damage was done though, the pack was gone. I think I may have lost them anyways though, since my control here was definitely the longer fork. I had to run right back by their control from mine on the way to #15. Then going to #15 I hit the fence higher than I thought I would and stopped with Estonia as we both said "downhill!" and sprinted downhill towards the control. As I was approaching I saw Latvia leaving the control. Over the fence we went on the fence crossing and to #16 with no mistake. Then sprint to #17 and into the finish.
The race was a blast :) I couldn't stop smiling when I finished. It was like a 6km sprint. It started with open areas and buildings, moved to technical and physical ups and downs through reentrants and then into flat, open subtle terrain. The mistakes at the end cost me about 2 minutes, which is disappointing, but I still had a good run. It wasn't like last year, where I had the type of mistake where you are standing in the woods and nothing makes sense and you can't find anything to reloacte off of and you are simply wandering around. When I went to the last control I immediately relocated and recovered, even though it still cost me time to run to my contorl and back again. This was by far my best race at WOC this year and it was nice to see that I was able to handle first leg of the relay again without never returning to my team :) |
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| C • awsome run 3 |
Friday Aug 24 |
| Orienteering 32:35 [2] | |
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| The model event for the relay. Got a taxi to the event area with Boris, Hill, Eric and Eddie. Tom drew us up a course to run around. He picked some new control locations which looked ok on the map, but we actually filled with stinging nettles. I had a good time jogging around and felt confortable with the map scale, which was my main concern. |
Thursday Aug 23 |
| road/trail run 35:10 [1] | |
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| A run along the canal with Hill, John and Viktoria. Viktoria and I stopped one bridge before John and Hill because we were feeling sluggish and it was the hottest time of the day and then canal was not nearly as shady as I thought it would be. We melted on the way back. |
Wednesday Aug 22 |
| trail run 10:06 [2] | |
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| Viktoria and I had one map of the women's middle course, so we decided to go out together and run the course. We didn't actually go to their start though and so warmed up by running to #1. |
| Orienteering 47:31 [2] | |
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| Running with women's middle course, from #1 to the finish, without doing the mandatory run through. The tracks through the woods were intense, especially in and out of the controls. I can see why people had difficulties in the beginning though. It was pine woods with rolling and steep hills that made it difficult to see far. We got a bit lost there too :) |
Tuesday Aug 21 |
| Note | |
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| Knowing a password makes it easy to add a note to a training log in order to then post a good luck comment. |
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| C • whoo hoo ! Yay Sam. Keep raci... 9 |
| trail run 38:37 [2] | |
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| I think this was a the day we jogged over to the island and used the o map that the organizers gave us. We stopped by the beach for a break and I went swimming in the river when Boris pushed me in :) |
Sunday Aug 19 |
| Orienteering 57:53 [5] | |
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| Long quali. A shaky course the whole way. I wasn't doing great inthe beginning, but by looking around me I could tell that others were also not doing well. There were lots of people standing around, running opposite directions and one girl even asked me where a control was. I didn't tell her and actually wished she would be lost longer so I could beat her :)
Missing by 10 seconds is annoying, because of course that time could have been made up anywhere. At the same time, most of my splits, and my placing duriing the course was outside the top 15. I wasn't navigating at a high enough level today to really makie it to the final. My splits ranged from 18th to 10th and although my placing started at 13th, I was at 20th in the middle and then climbed my way back up towards the end. |