Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Big Basin B-meet. Brown. 4th of 31. (The three people ahead of me, Halliday, Ingulfsen, Cody, are all good orienteers aged 30 to 40.) 3:49 ahead of the next legit Brown runner.

Felt rusty, and distracted beforehand. Somewhat to my surprise, navigated extremely well, never wandered around, just a couple of minor bobbles. Also surprisingly strong given how little training I've had over the last few months. With the gnarly terrain, couldn't run that fast anyway, and intentionally didn't push it up hills, but kept moving steadily and ran pretty well on the many legs that had trail or road options. Split placings were clearly lower on the legs that had uphills in them.

Note: Salomons are definitely NOT the right shoes for dry weather orienteering in the Bay Area. I've concluded this before, but I wanted to wear them for the support and I thought maybe they'd be OK at Big Basin - but they definitely were not. Way too much slipping around on dry leaves.

Could feel a little pain in my right heel, but it didn't affect me in any way, and wasn't bad later.

1. Trivial.

2. The road would've been faster, but left #1 thinking 2 was in the upper part of the reentrant, and only discovered it was in the lower en route. When I came to what I thought was the correct reentrant (pace count, trail going over it's high point), peered down but didn't see it; moved a little further along the trail so I could see the other side of the reentrant, and there was the bag, way down.

3. Road. Got to what I thought was the correct reentrant, but the trail was closer to the road than I expected, so was a bit unsure. Dithered a bit, then realized I would know I was in the right place if there was a trail going down on the other side of the road (should have realized that in the first place); checked, there was, proceeded to the control. Lost about :30.

4. Well executed: trail to t-junction, follow ditch up.

5. Contouring looked nasty, so started down to the trail. Then thought "Gee, came out here for practice, should try the non-trail route." Well, the fight WAS nasty (so no more thoughts of doing that for the rest of today), plus I had to climb back up and beyond the amount I initially went down. But did a nice job of interpreting the contours on the spur and then the vegetation below, and spotted the bag about 30m to my right. Lost a minute or so, but that was only because of the decision to stay of the trail.

6. Well executed. Looked for an opportunity to leave the trail as soon as possible, but vegetation was thick, so stayed on the trail until I could see the bend, then followed a bearing, and got there as Mark Blair was punching in.

7. Thought about going directly up to the trail, but the big reentrant didn't look bad at all, so angled up across the reentrant to catch the trail further down. As I was clamboring up, saw Steph running on the trail, but I didn't think she was on my course. Ran down the trail, looked for the brown X above the trail, climbed up to that and use it as an attack point. As I was heading for the bag, saw Steph coming in from my right; she'd clearly taken a slightly longer route. Punched in several seconds behind her.

8. Left the bag ahead of Steph and just stayed a the edge of the flatter part, following a bearing, figuring the trail would catch me if I didn't see the bag. I didn't, it did: when I saw the trail ahead, turned around and there was the bag behind me, maybe 30m, slightly higher than where I'd just run. Climbed up to it, with Steph following. Lost :20.

9. To the trail, took a couple of steps towards the control, but realized the road would be faster and a better place to attack from, so did that. Looked for the long tree trunk laying between the road and the trail (had made note of that while heading to #7, so I knew what it looked like) and used its bottom end as an attackpoint. Nailed it. Second fastest split on this leg.

10. Fought my way up to the trail, took it to right before the highest bend. Bearing and looking at reentrants to the right, after a while identified the correct reentrant ahead, slowly walked up (legs feeling quite tired), nailed it.

11. Had plenty of time to plan this long leg while walking up to 10. Went straight down to the trail as quickly as I could (slowed by deadfall). Ran on trail until it was close to the road, then bashed down to the road. At the campground on the right, took the trail (lost a few seconds because the trailhead was closer to the road than the map indicated and I had run several meters past it). Kind of lost track of my pace count on the trail, so when I saw a gap in the vegetation above, thought it might be where the control is, and if not, I'd be better off on the upper road anyway. So went up there, no control (it was the mapped white east of the control), ran down the road until nearly the bend, and there was the bag a few meters to my left. Had third fastest split.

12. Went a little further down the road to be able to get up to the trail. Went to #1, took a bearing and had a good view of the spur, nailed it, though my tired legs took me up the spur very slowly.

13. A little indecisive about the route. After a few seconds, angled off the spur on a bearing toward the flatter part of the last reentrant. Then took a bearing toward the control, climbing slowly. Didn't have the energy to climb higher than the fight, so hoped I could get through it. Wasn't a problem at all, and I came out right below the bag.

14. Rough compass towards the bag, knowing the trail would catch me. Stumbled over a lot of deadfall in the first 50m, legs seemed to be very week. But then the woods opened up some, and I was able to run, feeling like I might be a little to the right, so kept my eyes left. A little before my pace count ran out, spotted the trail 25m below, with a bag on it, so went directly down, and it was in fact #14. Had the fastest split!

RouteGadget


[Orienteering race]

Warm up by jogging to the start with Marie-Josee.

Distance and time are approximate.

Big Basin. A bit frazzled at the start after helping several people at registration and generally running into people to talk to. Wound up picking up a Red map. #1 was the same for all courses, so it wasn't until I was approaching #2 that I realized something was wrong: clue said reentrant, no reentrants anywhere nearby. Ran past the control, found it coming back, but code was wrong. Theo punched in soon after me, I asked to look at his map, same circle as me, then realized what was wrong. Jogged back to the start and started over.

Cool down, jogging back towards the assembly area on a trail.