Training Log Archive: slow-twitch

Taking us out of the way of the relay area but into the depths of the WOC long area

Long, Buar Stromstad Ost. Finally a fun race and when I was expecting nothing more than a suffer fest. We don't really get course setting like this back home, I don't think I've ever had a 24 minute split on a leg that I pretty much executed perfectly before. Apart from some minor wobbles in control circles that are too trivial to count only leg 6 got in the way of a perfect race. There I drifted north of my intended route choice but not too much damage there as that put me onto a route I had considered and I recognised this early on. But then lost a few minutes at the end of the leg through not checking the compass and getting lured into an area very much identical to the control site only rotated 90 degrees. As for my ongoing battle with the mapping, I think I have got it into my head how clearings etc are used to indicate bare rock, while the smaller scale inconsistencies weren't an issue with fine detail interpretation not really part of the technical challenge today. Bashed the body around a bit so easy to stick with the decision to miss tomorrow's race

Another trip off to the side of the WOC map and back.

Middle distance Buar Stromstad Ost. I figured out why the public races are branded 'Rocky Orienteering Circus': they gave the nearly finished maps to some clowns to finish off the rock detail. Somehow still have a reasonable spike rate on what felt like a really crap run but I guess going to the unmapped rock face at 4, getting puzzled over which sheer sided granite knoll was which around 11 and finding it easier to believe the boulders I passed before dropping down to 14 weren't on the map than that I had drifted off my bearing, were all expensive mistakes. The rest was just a lack of terrain speed and too much time trying to figure what was what.

Tanum middle distance. Most technical so far in Sweden and for a while there felt like I was going to be found out. But a reasonable midfield result and apart from the first control where I came somewhat off my bearing the mistakes were small in-circle ones. Just felt slow and messy like I wasn't orienteering well all the way around. 2 mistakes in the first 3 controls does that I guess. Have mostly got my head into the rock mapping (or not) but I think it still contributed to 2 of the smaller oopsies.

Start and finish far enough away and timing to the start tight enough I actually got some wu/wd running in

Stromsvallen middle distance. Urban fringe so the areas that might have otherwise been the most technical that I had struck so far in Sweden had plenty of tracks to use, either running them or ticking them off while crossing them. Mostly a clean run just the few problems were more expensive than they should have been. Particularly 9 where I wasted at least 3 minutes finding every potential saddle in the circle. With the stuffing around in the early part of 3-4 because I didn't really have a plan for exiting the first forest block I can easily see a sub 40 time that I would have been very happy with.

Event: WOC 2016
 

Woc public race, sprint at Stromsvallen. Kind of OK race but a few places I was struggling with map interpretation especially in the 6 to 10 stretch where it became apparent that Swedish mappers have moved on from refusing to map bare rock to mapping it some of the time. Which I would not really say is an improvement. Not feeling 100% so the first mostly paved part of the course wasn't hitting the sort of speed I should but found some running legs through the last few controls