Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

WMOC Long A final. Not much left in the tank, and the course was much more physical than the previous two. One bad error - 6 mins at #3 - but otherwise pretty decent, so moved up from starting as the 78 seed to 66th. Woke up with a sore throat and now the symptoms are worse. Sure could use some rest.

C • A final 3

Made the WMOC A-final! Just squeaked in, finishing 26th in the two-day combined time ranking. Top 27 make the A-final in M65.

(Added the next morning: ) Actually had a 2:38 cushion between me and the guy in 28th, so it wasn't really a "squeak" :-). Interesting shuffling of places after Day 1. I moved up from 33 to 26 overall; the guy who was 37th on Day 1 actually jumped past me to 25th. Of the seven guys who finished 21 - 27 on Day 1, only 2 made the A final.

C • Glad to see you made it! A... 4

WMOC Long Qualifier 2. Finally, a race without a major snafu. Lost time in several places, but always recovered quickly and kept the loss well under a minute. This was a very physical course despite the reasonable climb because there were several significant hills and there was a lot of nasty stuff to run through (marshes, mud, very rough open, splashy areas). My legs felt good the first three races and I ran well, but today they were tired and I missed out on some opportunities to run fast on trails or through pastures. But felt good to not make any major mistakes. Finished 26th of 57 in my heat.

Lost about :25 on #1 as I was too far left though I tried to be very careful with my bearing. Marie-Josee (W40 and M65 shared the same course) had the exact same problem. I think the rows of trees, which seemed to be going in the right direction, probably pulled us off. Fortunately a big clearing in the distance allowed for quick correction.

Lost about :35 on #2, again too far left. This time my bearing said go a little further right, which was correct, but I thought I was reading the land form, bit it was a bit of a parallel error.

Settled down and made no further navigation errors. Lost about :20 on #9 because I was standing 25m from the control, in an extremely broad and shallow reentrant, but couldn't see it because it was tucked behind a tree (inappropriate placement in my opinion); lost :45 on #11 because I left 10 on a very suboptimal route but then corrected after a bit; lost a minute or two over the last several controls because I no longer had the leg strength to go uphill or climb or over the crappy stuff on the ground. So, not a great run, but pretty decent.