Training Log Archive: slow-twitch

to the start and round and round and round near the start

NZ Middle Champs - St Arnaud.
So actually I liked the model event much better. I wouldn't say this was a bad course, it would have been fine for a filler race in the middle of a multi-day, but not good enough for a middle distance championship. It should have been the 10 minutes lost thanks to an over-run of control 6, or the bit-too-much faffing on the way into 1 that took me out of the race, not the accurate, direct, navigation into most of the other controls which penalised me against those who turned basically every leg into a track-run. Even within the limitations of the map it feels like an opportunity lost for something really special.

C • course 1

Event: NZ Orienteering Champs
 

Easily 10 minutes with Mr Harris cruising up and down the brook (which makes for a lovely warm-up area) pre-race, and maybe about 5 minutes too long after, after-race

NZ Sprint champs, Nelson. Just too slow on the day to be competitive, definitely not in the same shape as for Waitangi! Technically ok though, apart from trying to use a non-existent route choice to 11 (bad), and missing some gaps which led to an unnecessarily long way in to 15 (minor). Through 1 and 2 thought I was getting off to a bad start, but afterwards can't see any better way of getting them, and at this point I was pretty well placed suggesting everyone else had also been pretty cautious at the start ...or they weren't! Also thought during the course there wasn't much in the way of route choice options but have spotted quite a few afterwards - in some cases probably better than ones I used but not so much that I should have spent a few more seconds thinking on the relevant legs. What I really liked was how the 'terrain' kept changing through the course - just when you were getting your head into each part of the map, you were into the next, different, part.

Middle Model, in which I first took long enough to get my brain out of 1:4000 and in to 1:10 000 to start feeling very sceptical about the mapping; then had everything suddenly start to make sense; then started feeling very confident about the mapping and my ability to make use of it; then came to the conclusion that tomorrow would be a full-on technical challenge, causing carnage for anyone who took it lightly

One easy warm-up, one or two not quite successful attempts on an otherwise easy climb that finishes with a tricky overhang that I hadn't tried for a while and the rest of the night on the grade 16 project that I've been working on forever. Which, just quietly, I made tonight - neither cleanly nor convincingly but hand touched pipe at least 3 times. I'm taking that. (for now)

Two days off sick - seems that Saturday's lack of energy may have been the beginning of something in the guts. Ah well, not like the lead-up to nationals has gone anything close to plan anyway...

Checking control sites for a race over a year away that I may not even be around for - how do I get talked into these things? Called it quits when I started losing track of which control I was at. Very technical and very slow, so sounds like good practice for next weekend?