Training Log Archive: W

*sigh* EOC sprint qualifying. I could tell right from the start that my fitness wasn't going to be there, and my illness didn't help. I wanted to be at least smart and make effective decisions, and I didn't really do that either.

I don't know how much detail is worth going into for this race, it wasn't a very special sprint, nothing very exciting. By the middle of the race I had gone through the spectator control with the Dane I had started with, but the gas really ran out on one of the dull long legs, and I also made a mistake on this weird circular castle moat thing, where I thought the earth wall I was standing above was the impassable wall, so I stopped and stood there trying to figure out if I was allowed to cross or not. It took until I saw someone else crossing it that I realized it was an earth bank and thus totally crossable. Naturally, spending time on that made me miss the better route choice on the next leg as well. Way, way out of qualifying, and although I didn't expect to qualify, I thought I could have at least made it a better fight than that.

*sigh* EOC Sprint B-final. Well, slightly less of a sigh. Although I was no fitter than in the morning, this sprint was at least more fun. My brain didn't seem to be able to keep up very well, so I had quite a few stops and didn't take many ideal route choices. I even blew the ol' top of the wall/bottom of the wall conundrum, since I didn't look to see the position of the control and went to the bottom. It wasn't a huge loss of time, but something I haven't done in a while. It probably wasn't until 3/4 of the way through where I was really able to start being proactive in my orienteering and plan more. Things went a little smoother, but then I blew the route choice to the last control, which I think was a solid 10 second time loss.

Still, a vaguely respectable B-final result, I suppose. Tue was way ahead of everyone as he definitely should have been in the final. Don't quite know what happened to him, but in the Q, ol' Per Forsberg just wouldn't shut up about him... "now Lassen is in 12th place, NOW 14th!!, 15th!! 18th!! Oh, no, wait, Tim Robertson isn't European, SO 17th place!! BUT NOW HE'S 18th again!!!" It was weird.

Had a close call with a decorative stone square bench thing at one point, was reading my map, and only look up at the last second to not smash into it. Otherwise, shin destruction. But, leapt over it looking totally smooth as if I totally planned that.

"Yeah, its cool, no biggie, I always vault these things".

Long model at Bila Voda. Basically, big hills, white forest. Some rocks. Your standard Czech terrain. The forest is absoluetly fantastic, no doubt, and it seems like on some hills they're going real light on features. As in, its a completely white hill side with just contours. No lumps, bumps, rocks. Its sort of a blessing and a curse. No features to navigate off of, and not an excess of features.

Super fun to run down graduals hills, though!

And, still kind of sick.

The question was, go on a forest map or just do the sprint model and run slowly to try to continue to get over the cold? I chose the latter, and did a very lazy day of a short model map run followed by doing work the rest of the day. Emily still has not arrived.

In retrospect, it didn't really make a difference, guess I should have gone to the forest instead!

Thursday was a long travel day that started at 4:55, with a train to Helsinki. Then a flight to Riga, and then another flight to Prague. Then discover that Emily's flight has been delayed in various ridiculous ways (more on that on the HPP blog in a few days), and a subsequent drive to Jesenik by myself. Which was not wildly fun. Most exciting part was trying to go around Prague, and getting hopeless lost in that underground freeway. I accidentally went back and forth several times before just driving as long as i could on this freeway until I eventually saw a sign to hradec kralove. Eventually that happened and I was on my way.

A seemingly eternal time later I made it to a cute little down in some mini-mountains and my accommodation, and managed to pop out for a short down the road. I'm still battling this mini-cold, but my legs would have been pretty darn unhappy if I didn't at least go out and do something. And its a lovely evening here. Just lovely!

I was a little stupid at TioMila. After the race, I wanted to stick around and be able to see the rest of the race, which I did. I should have gone back to our accommodation right away, because it wasn't super warm out, and I had no way to shower. But, I figured if I completely changed, and I put on all 7 layers I brought (everything I could possibly put on) I would be alright. That clearly wasn't the case because I've been feeling a tad under the weather as if I've got a mini-cold. The symptoms are not too aggressive, but I wonder how long it will last. I'm keeping the exercise down because I figure at least being not sick next weekend is better than doing a few hard workouts. It makes me resigned to the fact that I don't think I'm going to have the results I'm hoping for (particularly, making the A-final in the sprint), but these things happen and Iäve clearly learned my lesson for next time (e.g. don't be stupid).