Training Log Archive: W

Climbed a mountain above our long distance race outside of Tibi. For the life of me I can't find the name of the mountain. Anyway, it was about a 450 metre uphill climb, which we did in about 31 minutes. It got kind of steep by the end, but Roberto and I kept on running right to the top, so it was a good and mildly intense workout. Pretty hot, hazy view, but also a nice view. Glad to have rented a car, gotten out of town, and did something actually physically productive. Discovered the upper is also seperating from me shoe on my Mirages, so, good news! I'm going to throw them out and have more space, and also be able to buy a new pair of shoes.

Actually, I think I'll probably buy the same ones again, but prettier.

Post-WUOC banquet day, which we took off. I felt fine, I swear.

Relay, 1st leg. What. A. Debacle. The race started out pretty quick, but by no means unmanageable. I had my general route picked out to 1, then I saw Kodeda head a little bit left and accelerate. I knew I was in the right vicinity, so I thought he was probably heading the same way so I picked up to him. Turns out if I'd stayed on my line, I probably would've been close, but he botched it left. There goes the pack. On the way to 2 I tried my darndest to get back up in there, but I lost them and ended up veering left and running way too far parallel to the ravine I was supposed to cross. So I flailed around for a while trying to relocate off good god something anything, until I figure out where I was and resume course, 10 minutes later.

After that, the course was actually fairly easy, as I just continued on my lonesome, eventually picking off a couple other teams, but still embarassingly behind. All I wanted to do was race in the thick of things, and I couldn't make it happen. Do I have any business running first at WOC? Or at all?

C • Running first? 3

No running today, as I wandered around the middle. Relieved not to be racing it, but disappointed not to be racing it.

Well, on to the more downer races. First off, the sprint. It was expected to be a complex, but 1 and 2 really was more than I expected. Ironically, one was probably less difficult than I made it out to be. I approached it anticipating it to be complicated, so I came to a full stop to look for a more complicated route than simply running to the far end of the path and doubling back. For some reason it looked to me like it was impassible from that side. So I picked up a twisty turny route that required several maps stops until I finally came upon it, wasting about a minute or so. I then did the same at two. I saw what appeared to be a shortcut, and spend a stupid amount of time trying to decide it was going to get me disqualified or not. What was I thinking? Any time I might’ve saved by that shortcut was wasted trying to decide if it was in fact a shortcut. Very stupid thinking for a sprint. The object is to pick a route choice quickly and roll with it, and I picked route choices slowly and then hummed and hawed about it. I would have been way better off picking something quickly and sticking it to it at full speed, even if it wasn’t the optimal of optimal routes.

Despite being full out of the race by 2, I hammered on. With all the stairs it was very difficult to run with any particular pace, one had to be very very careful with where they were going so as to not get totally turned around. I didn’t do it very quickly, but I didn’t get lost on that section. By the end of the course it was a bit more high speed, and I was quite disappointed that my splits did not significantly improve once the flat out running sections began. I can only think that existing in the knowledge that I still had a shot at something decent would have allowed me to push that one extra step further.

Not a great sign going to Worlds, but, then again, last year I was winning the Nationals until I wasted 2 minutes, and a month later I did the sprint final.

Any Given Sunday.

Well, I've finally gotten around to Atta-clogging something from WUOC. Let's start with the good one.

I really have not been feeling good about my fitness, but the last 2-3 weeks that were spent in the mountains and San Fran probably helped a ton.

The warm-up map made me a tad nervous, as is often the case with 1:15000, my first problem is adjusting to the distance, and I undershot the first several warm-up controls. Fortunately, in fact, the first control was very close to the control, it was almost a bonus warm-up control, tough to miss, but a good opportunity to gauge both the climb and the distance between two discrete points (the start and the control).

Number 2 was the long route choice; I stood at 1 for quite some time. After initially seeing the ridge run route, I had a small amount of doubt wondering if that was some sort of trap to cause us to climb way more than necessary, but the roundabout routes seemed climb-y, though I didn’t see the better roundabout route – all the trails kind of look like cliffs. Despite missing the control at two and going too low, the ridge run proved to be the obviously better route for most people. 3 is apparently classified as a mistake, I suppose the consensus was to go down to the road than sidehill. Its probably true, side-hilling that was terribad.

Number 4 was another major route choice, this time I actually kind of changed my mind. Initially I thought I’d go left to save climb. But I saw an awful lot of people heading down the road, and, well, they’re European, so they probably know better than I! It was pretty effective, though the climb at the end was pretty dang painful. 5 and 6 looked complicated so I took it slowly and nailed them to my relief.

The upside to my route to 4 was that it was exactly the same route back on the way to 7, the start of the butterfly. Thank goodness there was water there, because it was hot hot hot and I was hot. They had them in little bottles so everyone generally would take a swig, then pour the rest on their head. It was a great setup, especially because we visited that control three times, and then they had another water control one later! Both butterfly loops were fairly manageable, though I would also have liked to attack the control a bit faster. Too much wasted time right around the control. The voice of “use your compass” just kept echoing in my head, I wonder who that was….

17-18 was definitely the decisive route choice of the race. A big convergence of runners appeared at 17,and I found myself running with a Spaniard and a Bulgarian, and there was a lengthy bit of time to think about the options. I had initially decided on heading straight across the ravine, or possibly up to the trail junction, and then over the hill. Then I noticed the long way around on the road, and gave a lot of thought to that. I gave it enough thought that I decided it was a pretty good idea. Turns out it was.

The Bulgarian that we started off the leg with lost 5 minutes to us on that leg, while I had the 19th best time and went from 40th to 34th. The most frustrating part, though, was that I ran the flat-out running part with Parramon, who ended up finishing 13th. And on the road I put some solid time on him. I closed the gap, passed him, and put on another 6 or so seconds. But, the moment we left the trail, he pulled that time back in mere moments, and he continued to pull away. So, while my speed is good, my off-trail speed is seriously lacking. Clearly I can run with the 13th place man, but just not when the terrain is more difficult. I’m not quite sure how to resolve this.

The Spaniard continued to gap me until he was out of sight, and so I think my speed slowed down a bit for those last few controls without someone to motivate me. The controls could have also gone a bit smoother, so I lost some places in the last few controls. So close to a top 30 finish, unfortunately my last WUOC. No matter, though I can’t confirm, it appears to be far and away the best WUOC finish by a Canadian male in quite, quite some time. And a far cry from last years 80-whatever-th place and 40 minutes back.

Unfortunately, if you followed any more results, you’ll know that clearly I used up all my magic on this race.

Model event in Spain at Caravisi. From what I understand, it was not overly relevant to much, particularly the dune section. Fortunately, it was very rarely in the dune section and instead focused more on the hillside, which turns out was actually fairly relevant. Many earthbanks that line the hill side that are pretty distinct, you could probably count them as you run past if you so desired, though there may be to many to keep track of sometimes. Quite hot out there as well, because there's really no shade at all, so about 27 degrees and ultra sunny.

This map was also right at the beach.... so, hit the mediterranean afterwards! Chalk up another body of water I've no swam in. It was actually not nearly as warm as I thought it would be. Very salty though, almost as salty as the tap water. :p