Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Warm up. Supposedly 1500m to the start, so walked the first six minutes then jogged, as it was hot and my legs were finally tired (and my mind, too).

WOC Tour, last day, Day 6, Sprint 3. Start 12:54. Quite warm. Somehow managed to win, 4 secs over Poul Bobach, despite an off day. Actually had the best night’s sleep of the trip so far, but woke up to an email that my flight tomorrow from FRA to MUC was canceled, so had to scramble to find a replacement (and got a 7:15a flight, which would mean a 4am wake up). Between that and havingto check out of the BnB and having to make arrangements to get me an my luggage to Billind, I was pretty frazzled. And feeling the pressure of having only a 64 second lead going into the final race. But settled down once in the car with Kjell and Birgitta.

Averted disaster when with a minute to go before my call up I realized that I was at the wrong Start, with the correct one just across the street.

Had to really focus on the map throughout as it was clear to me that today I couldn’t do the simultaneous processing of current and next leg that I usually do. But I stayed in the moment, dealt with each leg one at a time, and got through it pretty well.

#2. Mistakenly thought that the red line from 1 to 2 was a barrier closing off the path I wanted to take, so started on another route, realized it was going to be really long, so took one more look at the first idea and realized I could in fact go through. Lost 30-35 secs but somehow didn’t let it bother me.

12. Squeezing through a narrow passage between a building and a high hedge, just NE of the control, and with a big guy immediately in front of me, didn’t see a short but big pipe protruding out of the ground; tripped over it and went down hard. Took several seconds to get up, and I had to limp the last bit to the control. Amazingly, had the fastest split on this leg anyway.

13 to F: Upper left thigh was hurting and though I was limping a bit, powered through with very good splits.

More on the leg injury in the next entry.

Splits, Course maps and route, etc, linked to from: https://tour.woc2022.dk/

Later: wonderful award ceremony for the WOC Tour winners in front of a crowd at the WOC Sprint Final arena.

[Orienteering Sprint race]

Started a cool down jog with Tori, but my upper left thigh couldn’t handle it. Went to the medical tent, where they gave me a chemical cold pack, which wasn’t nearly cold enough. At least they agreed the bones seemed ok and the soreness was just from the muscles. No contusions or scrapes, so I guess it must’ve been a result of me throwing out my leg somehow as I was going down.

Warm up. Sun came out, it was pretty hot and I was feeling tired and rather anxious, so didn’t do too much. Felt pretty ready.

Day 4, Sprint 2.

Nailed ‘em all :)

First by 1 min and 9 secs

Splits:
http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/dk/d...

Course and route (more fun to look at the course before seeing the route as the gps for the route isn’t that accurate):

https://www.livelox.com/Viewer/WOC-Tour-Stage-4-Fr...

Info about all stages and courses for the WOC Tour:
https://tour.woc2022.dk/etaper/etape-4-en/

[Orienteering Sprint race]

C • Looks like so much fun. 3

Cool down

Warm up. Did several strides after this, felt loose and ready.

WOC Tour, Day 3, first Sprint. Forecast was for rain all day, but the rain stopped as I was leaving my BnB for the race and didn’t start again until afterwards, when I’d already cooled down and changed clothes. Ran in shorts even with the temperature below 60, and that was absolutely the right thing to do.

Narrowly missed a spectacular performance today. The complexity of the course was right up my alley. By #13 (of 17), I was a minute ahead of the field. But i think I was focusing too much on speed at that point and getting a bit cocky about my ability to nail the controls, and for 14 I weaved my way into the correct courtyard but inexplicably turned right instead of left (clearly I was not looking at my map), leading to an 80 second error. Made up a little of that in the remaining short distance to the finish, but wound up second, 5 seconds behind the leader (who, I’m told, comes from a family that has won several WOC medals, including Gold). Very disappointing, but trying to put it behind me and gear up for tomorrow.

I’ve been working on trying to run faster in sprint races when the opportunity presents itself and I did that very successfully in the middle of this race. The first six controls were set in very complex areas in courtyards and I was very careful looking at the clue, making sure exactly where I needed to go and did that part very well. Then the next four controls were mostly on the main streets at the corner of a building or something that was very obvious and in each case you could see the control before you got to it so I ran much harder between the controls. Then it got complex again and I think I didn’t settle down enough and I was kind of cavalier at 11, 12 and 13 and had little bobbles at each and that should’ve been a warning sign for 14. The only thing I can think of is I didn’t look at the map once I got into the correct courtyard and then I got myself kind of turned around and I had to use my compass to re-orient the map and I just couldn’t figure out what was what but eventually did figure it out and got to the control. But I must’ve been a little rattled because I lost 10 seconds on the next leg (I don’t even remember how I left the courtyard although I see it on the track) but I know I did the second part of the leg very well so I must’ve dawdled in the first part. So all together lost about 80 seconds.

Splits: http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/dk/d...

[Orienteering Sprint Race]

C • Great performance 3

Cool down

Walk back to the BnB after lunch in Kolding Centrum.

Walked to Restaurant Over Aaen to have lunch with Jørgen Jørgensen. Had intended to take the bus, but it never came (maybe it was early).

Afterwards, walked over to meet with the teams guarding the controls and eventually over to everyone’s station (my station was last). Unintentionally left my gps watch running the whole time.

Walk back after dinner at Stay in Kolding Centrum. There was a free dinner for those who had been on the guarding crew, but the line was really long, and you had to go into a packed hall to get the food.

My guard shift was pretty much a waste of time. No runners came into my territory, and hardly any passersby.

Kolding, Denmark. Walk to the grocery store.

Walk back from the grocery store.

Walk back from N of Monday’s assembly area.

Earlier: took a bus to old town Kolding, bought a hat to replace the one I left on the train, walked to the assembly area for Monday so I’d know where it is, then walked up to the bus stop I thought I was going to take but didn’t.

Day 1 of the WOC Tour. Jogged from the Assembly Area to the Start. Had my choice of times as I entered Open 4 by Direct (i.e., day-of) entry, but didn’t give myself enough time so was under some pressure.

Day 1. Just intended to do a few controls, mostly walking. Found #1 easily (with a little jogging) but never found #2 after quite a few attacks, finally gave up. There were many stretches that could have been trails but none of them matches the few mapped trails, at least not to me. Couldn’t make much sense of the vegetation either. Early on found a hunter’s stand with a control on it, so it had to be the only one in the vicinity on the map, 60m away from my control. But I attacked from there maybe 5 times, to no avail. And when I decided to quit and bail for the dirt road to the E, had a difficult time even getting to that. Geez. Also found moving in that terrain very difficult. Gimme Sprint-O in an urban setting any day.

Also, as I’ve found before, orienteering when I’m not intensely focused on it can be extremely difficult.

[Orieteering practice]

Continued my walk back to the assembly area from S of the Start.

Had the day mostly to myself at Finn’s. Only physical activity was walking the 5 minutes over to the grocery store and back.

Later we drove down to Kolding, not getting there until after 9:30pm. Finn dropped me off at the Artist’s BnB.

Aarhus, Denmark. After visiting the clubhouse for Finns club, went for a walk in the mapped area along the coast. Visited 4 of the permanent controls, none of which seemed to be in exactly the right place. (Have I mentioned that I prefer Sprint orienteering) Then we walked along the beach before walking back. Gorgeous day.

Aarhus. After dinner at the Street Food food court, Finn, Birgit and I walked around the harbor area. Saw the Queens yacht.

Time and distance are approximate.

Kungsbacka (Kjell’s house). Heavy overcast, mid-50s. Halfway decent sleep, decided I’d see if my legs felt like running, and they did.

Down to the end of the quay, then on the grass alongside the bike path alongside the busy rode, running pretty easily. On the way back, picked it up markedly and pushed it up the final hill.

No need to run again until Saturday.

[Easy distance]

Cool down

Kungsbacka (Kjell’s house). Finally, i slept, six hours in two sessions. Got up early, lovely day, so walked all the way down to the end of the quay (where I stretched for a while) and then back, going a bit passed his house to make it a mile.

Kungsbacka. Walked with Kjell and Birgitta on an O-map adjacent to a golf course. Kjell has a bunch of controls out there for a sort of permanent course. We went and found a few near the trails we walked on.

Kjell only had one map, and he had it most of the time, but I was reminded (1) 1:3,000 is WAY better than 1:10,000, and (2) maps of forests are so imprecise compared to sprint maps.

Afterwards had a nice lunch at the clubhouse at the golf course.

Much in need of a nap, slept for an hour when we got back to their place.

Took bus and train up to Kungsbacka (just S of Guthenburg) to visit Kjell Jeppson and Birgitta.

Ödåkra, Helsingborg, Sweden. Fairly complex residential area. 1.9 km, 13 controls, no climb. Start 10:12. Rain (tapering off during the race), temp in mid 50’s. Ran in shorts. Didn’t even take my magnifier because with the 1:3000 maps I hadn’t needed in the two previous races and it would have been useless in the rain anyway (and it again turned out I didn’t need it).

The stated distances must be straight line, not optimal route, as I ran over 2.4 km and I was extremely close to the optimal route.

Finished 1st, 51 seconds ahead of Leif Löf, my best race of the weekend, and it was the most challenging course. Had a very surprising amount of energy given the weather, my appalling lack of sleep, and the fact that it was the third day in a row of racing. Felt totally “on”. Started off faster than usual because I was cold, had to ease off a bit after 5, but split rankings still improved towards the end, probably due mostly to the short, complex legs from 8 to 13 (my forté).

Only blemishes on a near perfect race:
1 and 3. Knowingly choose slightly suboptimal routes because I didn’t want to run on wet grass. Not a good choice.
6. Suboptimal route choice, costing about 10 secs. Just didn’t see the other alley.
8. Didn’t notice the short trail through the olive green. After the race when I did notice it, thought it wouldn’t have made a difference, but then saw on LiveLox thay Leif went that way and he beat me by 8 seconds (of course, he might have just been running faster, as the difference couldn’t have been anywhere near that much - or I might have slowed a little, figuring out how to get to 8, which was the only real trap of the entire weekend).
11. Almost overran it because I didn’t realize it was in the woods and, therefore, not obviously visible from the road (and I was keeping an eye on Bo - who at that point I thought was Leif - while planning the next leg, and he did overrun it); fortunately, was paying enough attention to all the things I could see, most especially the cutout for parked cars, to realize I should stop and turn left, and a glance at the map told me to peer into the woods and I could see it. Lost maybe 3 seconds.

Splits **link needs to be fixed, but here’s the url of the event’s main page, where there are links to full results, splits, course maps (via Lovelox) and more: https://eventor.orientering.se/Events/Show/36199


[Orienteering Sprint race]

C • Congratulations! 2

Cool down. At this point, the rain had stopped. Afterwards, got changed in the open, bought a grilled sausage, and took some photos with Kjell.

Managed to meet Bo Klamfelt right after we finished (he’d started a minute ahead of me, I passed him going into 11, he came up the chute 3 secs behind me); kept looking for Leif Löf, but never did find him.

Walked into the center of Helsingborg for dinner at Viva.

Warm up, mostly jogging to the start.

Pålsjö, Helsingborg, Sweden. Day 2 of 3 Skåningar + 1 Dansk. Sunny, 60 degrees, nice temp for running. 1.8 km (straight line), 15m climb, 9 controls. Rated this as Difficult despite the part in the residential area being too easy because the part in the woods was hard, in no small measure due to the vagueness of the map.

First place by 7 seconds over yesterday’s winner, Leif Löf (the others were far back). Very satisfying, especially since more than half the controls were in a wooded area, not usually good for me in a sprint, but I worked out a strategy beforehand, adopted it to this race early on, and executed it nearly to perfection. The strategy, obvious really, was that when any wooded section came, Id have to stop acting like I was in a SprintO, slow down drastically, and orienteer cautiously like I normally do in the woods.

The event notes (only in Swedish) indicated that the race would include wooded areas and residential areas. From looking at previous orienteering maps of the area, I knew that the bus I was taking would go up a street that splits the wooded area to the W from the residential area to the E. Once off the bus and following streamers a short way to the assembly area (where the Finish was, too), it was clear that the Finish was at the edge of the wooded area. I wondered how they were going to get us across that busy street to the Residential area and back. I wondered if I’d missed something about that in the meet notes, so I asked Kjell and he said no. For the walk (jog in my case) to the Start, we crossed that busy street at a light, so that’s how they got us one way. Once I was in the start procedure and picked up my clue sheet (first surprise was that there were only 9 controls), the symbol for #4 puzzled me: I’d seen it before, something about a bridge, but I didn’t remember what - but I figured it would be clear when I got there. The route to #1 was through some narrow alleys, so gave it my full attention, but the route to #2 was pretty trivial, so on the way I unfolded the very large map (due to the 1:3,000 scale) to get an overview of the course: 4 controls in the residential area, 5 in the wooded area, and then it hit me: that clue for #4 means “underpass”, so that’s how they’re going to get us back across! And, all courses would have to have that control. Furthermore, the three remaining legs in the residential area were long and rather trivial, so the strategy became clear: run like hell in the residential area, which wouldn’t destroy me for the second half because I planned to go more slowly in the woods anyway. This all came to me as I turned onto a street that would take me to #2; at that point I could actually see the bag way down the street, and an orienteer moving considerably slower than me heading for it. Wanting to invoke the run like hell strategy and not wanting to get queued behind that guy to punch, markedly picked up the pace and beat him to the control - and that’s why I had the fastest split on that leg!

Pushed it to 3 and 4 without any hitches, and then shifted gears once I got through the underpass.

5. Got to what I thought was my attackpoint, when the little trail I was on crossed the paved path, but the path wasnt paved, just dirt. This caused a bit of hesitation (and apparently threw off Hakan Nillson completely), but convinced myself I was in the right place, took a careful bearing, and after 30 or 40 m, I spotted the bag (which was much more visible than the very small depression).

6.Torn about whether to run on the main trail or try to catch the indistinct trail heading right to the control. Came to my senses in time - an indistinct trail in vague and well-trodden woods could be hard to catch, and the 1 to 3000 map meant that the control was pretty darn close to the distinct junction of several main trails. So, sped down the main trail. Thought about pace counting, but, not having pace counted at all yesterday or earlier today, I somehow couldnt think of what the right count would be (real brain cramp, as what I really needed to think about was how long an interval on my compass would be - 30m in this case). Easy to see when the big junction was coming up, and just at that point I saw a small trail to the left, so assumed it was the mapped one and took, and very soon I saw it curving up ahead, with a thicket on the right and a patch of ivy behind that, matching the map perfectly, so headed for that patch and soon spotted the half-buried control.

7. Took a bearing towards the elongated knoll between the two thickets, but I wasnt as cautious as I had been earlier. Saw a fallen big tree ahead of me with lots of broken branches around it, with open woods to the left, so figured this was the westmost patch, so went around the left side and angled towards the control in the creek, and totally nailed it. This one felt lucky, but I reckon it was just good navigating. Never noticed the boulder, nor, as a matter of fact, any other of the mapped boulders in that area.

8. Only error of the day. Aimed off to the left in case I didnt recognize features, and I didnt, so hit the road, turned right, slowed down - and soon saw a guy coming through the woods from the N looking like he was getting ready to punch, so looked at where he was looking and there was the control. Felt lucky, but I suspect I would have seen the control in another second or two anyway.

9. Had the fastest time by 11 secs (20 %), but should have been several seconds faster by just barreling out to the field. Went due N clambored over some fallen stuff, hesitated for a sec because I wasnt sure if I was on the mapped indistinct trail (I was), THEN realized I should just run like mad for the field, which I did, and I was full of run. This was my only number 1 split besides 2, and the first time I got into the lead.

[Orienteering Sprint race]

Cool down in the big field around the assembly area. Managed to meet Hakan Nillson, but not Leif Löf.

Warm up. It was supposed to be 1 km to the start, but got there in less than 0.8 km. Was eager to get going because of the the threat of rain, but the sign up sheet was much fuller than I expected, so I had to wait 25 minutes for the start. I was already sweaty (it was muggy) so I walked around quite a bit, jogging a little here and there, trying to stay warmed up but also not worn out.

Gustavland, Helsingborg, Sweden. First day of 3 Skåningar och 1 Dansk. Muggy, threat of rain. Started at 656 pm.

Finished 3rd, 26 secs behind Leif Löf in first, 2 secs behind Hakan Nillson and 2 secs ahead of Bo Klamfelt. Good run, started too slow (needed to settle down after some pre race confusion), finished strong. Had the fastest time from the 3rd control to the Finish.

Terrain was a little too easy, it was mostly a matter of not losing track of where you are.

A few minor errors:

3. Slightly sub-optimal route, only by a couple of seconds.
9. Needed to refold the very large map, but once I did I was looking at 6 rather than 9, so slowed down for a few seconds before I sorted that out. That slowdown is very noticeable on LiveLox.
13. The enclosure was a stand of closely packed large trees, and I initially didn’t see the fence. Started veering left thinking maybe the enclosure was beyond what I was looking at, but then spotted the fence and corrected. Lost 4 or 5 seconds.
14. Expected to see the hedge when I looked in that direction after punching 13, didn’t, so had to look at the map and then realized it was a bit out of view to the left. Lost 3 or 4 seconds.
F. Ran hard, but I was the slowest of the top 4, losing 5 secs to Nilson who wound up in second 2 secs ahead of me.

[Orienteering Sprint race]

Cool down.

Helsingborg. Took a bus over to the assembly area for Stage 1, just to make sure I could do it tomorrow evening for the race. Walked around some, and over to a nearby place I’d found an O-map of online. The map was more than a dozen years old. An area mapped as white looked to me like medium green. Hope that is due to growth in the intervening time, and not what they have in mind here when they map something as white.

This “training walk” also includes walks to two grocery stores on the way back.

The bus system here is terrific. The buses are on time. There’s an online app where you put in your start and finish and the time you want to go, and it shows you a schedule which includes walking to and from the appropriate bus stops and detailed maps of both the bus route and your walks - AND shows you the positions of the buses on the route (a la a ride sharing app). Plus you can purchase your ticket online right through the app.

Still struggling with jet lag. Getting close to enough sleep over all, but in chunks of one to three hours, sometimes at unexpected times (like just now getting up from an hour and a quarter conk out).

Helsingborg. First run here. Nice and easy 2-days-before-race warm up, under 9 min/mile pace for the last several minutes, still running easily.

Virtually all on grass in nearby parks. As it’s been since I’ve been here, it was mostly cloudy, cool and very windy, but then the sun would break through and I’d get really hot.

Really struggling with jet lag. Not able to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time nor stay awake for more than a few hours at a time.

[Easy distance]

Cool down

Got fruit and veggies at a Coop market :)

Helsingborg. Walked into town to find some lunch and an ATM. Ate a salad at a place not too far away, but it wasn’t very satisfactory (proprietor didn’t speak any English); wasn’t easy finding an ATM but finally found one down by the waterfront (where I then had a conversation with a couple of young Mormons from the US). After that (the last 42:47), used an orienteering map I’d printed at home to see some of the main sights of Helsingborg, including the 14th century church and the one remaining tower from the 14th century fortress. Right after seeing a monument to the famous 16th century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, found a better place for a second lunch. I’m familiar with Brahe’s observational work (done just before Galileo first turned a telescope on the night sky): his meticulous data on the orbit of Mars was used by his assistant Johannes Kepler to formulate the three (paradigm shifting) laws of planetary motion. (Sixty years later, Newton used his own laws of motion, law of gravition, and calculus [which he invented] to derive Kepler’s Laws.) I didn’t know, though, that Brahe had anything to do with Sweden, so I looked it up later: Brahe was from the Helsingborg area, but back in those days, this area belonged to Denmark.

Walked in sandals because I’d worn my XA Pros for a good part of my long travel day yesterday and they’d made my left big toe sore.

Near as I can tell, I’m the only person in all of Sweden wearing a mask.

Time isn’t very accurate as I kept forgetting to pause the watch when I stopped to do something, and once or twice forgot for a while to restart it when I did remember to pause it.

Walked back to my hotel (the Good Morning Hotel).

Helsingborg, Sweden! After 24 hours of travel from the Bay Area, decided to walk from the train station to the Good Morning Hotel, despite having my luggage - just feeling really good to be here! Sunny, cool and breezy when I started at 6:45, but after about seven minutes, it started pouring rain. No problem, quickly found a sheltered area in front of a closed store, and after about ten minutes, continued on.

C • Pouring rain? 2

Marin Airporter to SFO for 2:45pm flight to Amsterdam, arriving 10am the next day. From there, flew to Copenhagen in the afternoon and then took a train to Helsingborg.

Bon Tempe. Out early to beat the heat, though it was already quite warm. Got there a few minutes before the gate opened.

Slept better than the previous three nights, and legs felt good. Had to really resist not blasting the last half mile.

Start at Sky Oaks crosswalk at the E end of the Sunnyside Trail
919 little power station
533 short wooden bridge
257 back to Start

830 total for the second half

[Easy distance]

Cool down

Quick break while getting ready to leave tomorrow.

Interleaved:

2 x hundreds (104)
2 x 15 leg lifts
1 x 16 abductors
1 x 32 adductors

curls: 1 x 8, 25 lbs, ea arm
presses: 1 x 8, 25 lbs, ea arm

1 x 32 low rows

[Strength exercises]

Bon Tempe. Worn out from bad night's sleep (anxiety about the big trip)

Start at Sky Oaks crosswalk at the E end of the Sunnyside Trail
959 little power station
245 sharp turn/reentrant crossing

[Easy distance]

Cool down

Warm up

Berkeley campus. Sprint course designed by Matej in Dec 2017 for the Berkeley HS team. He called it Corner Challenge, as many the controls were placed just inside or outside a corner of an uncrossable fence or wall. I think I nailed all of those, It was a very good exercise in map reading while on the run. I tried not to go quite all out, but still got pretty tired when going up hill or up stairs. Decided to skip 17 and 18 to avoid more hill climbing, and then 19 turned out to be in a construction zone, so my course had 19 controls.

The only mistake I made was not noticing what looked a direct path from 15 to 16 was actually blocked by an uncrossable wall (which was mostly obscured by the circle for 16). In this case, that wall was close to 15 so I didn't lose much, but it could have been a major error. Otherwise, nailed everything. So, at that speed, as I have shown repeatedly, I can run very accurately and efficiently. Is ti worth trying to go faster and risking errors?

Ran in shorts as the temperature was just over 70.

Running through a narrow space between a building and a parked van, intently looking at my map, hit my head on the van's side-view mirror. No significant damage; could've easily been worse.

[Orienteering Sprint practice]

Cool down. Didn't start the watch until I'd already been cooling down for a minute. It had gotten pretty warm, so needed a while to cool down.

Interleaved:

2 x hundreds (104)
2 x 15 leg lifts
1 x 16 abductors
1 x 32 adductors

curls: 2 x 8, 25 lbs, ea arm
presses: 2 x 8, 25 lbs, ea arm

2 x 32 low rows

Did this same workout this past Thursday in three minutes less time. I was a bit more leisurely between sets this time.

[Strength exercises]

Sonoma Coast St Beach, Shell Beach parking. Overcast, high 50's, no wind - great running weather. Uptempo run, but didn't push it (no need to at this point), felt great. Of course, had essentially three days without running, but definitely feel like I'm ready physically for European orienteering.

Pretty sure I would have been under 30 for 5K today, and that's with 4 gully crossings and no warm up. Think I'd have a good chance to get under 27. Would under 25 be possible? Wouldn't bet on it, and unlikely to try, but interesting to think about it.

SB 1314 SR 950 SB

Also took a split coming off the last boardwalk: ran the last third of a mile at 8:30 and there was plenty left.

[Easy distance]

Monte Rio. Moderate walk with L up the hill behind Bill's house, loop around on the fire road, then back up Old Monte Rio. Rather muggy out.

Ran for a few minutes out on Greenfield comparing my new bifocals to my old ones. Alas, the old ones are better :((

Interleaved:

2 x hundreds (104)
2 x 15 leg lifts
1 x 16 abductors
1 x 32 adductors

curls: 2 x 8, 25 lbs, ea arm
presses: 2 x 8, 25 lbs, ea arm

2 x 32 low rows

[Strength exercises]

Picked up food and supplies for Rachel and Rianna, both down with Covid, and drove to SF to deliver those.

Later packed and drove to the cabin, getting there right after sunset. Much too stressful an afternoon.