Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Pineridge - Red M35. Didn't get any splits because I was hitting the wrong button. 4.0 km, 175 m climb.

A lot went right on this course, but orienteering isn't about how much you do right, it's about how little you do wrong. Everything was going quite well up until #8, when I was right on target just about to the edge of the circle, and then outguessed myself because the slope I was looking at appeared to be too big, and I guessed I had overshot. That was followed by a bunch of making parallel features fit the map, until I was just about back at #7, and on the second try I did it right. All I can think is that my brain got miscalibrated from the vetting I've been doing on the 2.5m Harris Center map. Then probably in a hurry to make up time, I completely blew my route to #9, going hundreds of meters out of my way and adding about five lines of climb. And fine after that, as far as I'm concerned. Ended up 16th overall, 3rd place on M35, 8 minutes or so behind Magnus.

A bit of trouble at the prestart. Fred was working at the first callup line, and there were four lines. The second one was a few steps after the first, and was just a streamer on the ground, then a few steps after that was the table with the control descriptions. So when the clock beeped, I went up to the table, not noticing the streamer, and John Harbuck came with me. Colette was working at the table, and spoke kind of sternly to John about jumping ahead. I said I was with him, and at this point I already had the control descriptions in my hand with tape on them. She started getting all in my face about following the rules, and it was only at this point that I saw the other line, which I went back behind, but she still seemed really agitated about my having the control descriptions, so I just crumpled them up and tossed them over the line. She continued to yell at me and seemed really angry, and I was saying that I wasn't upset and asked her to please not be upset with me. Then she basically made a comment about littering, and I said I'd pick up the control descriptions. When the clock beeped again, I picked up the descriptions and put them in my pocket, then instead of just letting us go to the table, Colette and the other worker seemed to feel that they had to take prepare the control descriptions for us, and I just said, "I'm all set", and waited for the next beep. When I saw her afterwards, I smiled and waved and she gave me a dirty look. Sheesh.

And seriously, this whole business of distributing control descriptions in the callup process is a total pain in the ass. For competitors as well as the organizers, and it's that much worse if the weather is bad. Can't we just go back to putting them in the meet packets?

C • Axiom 4

Went to see a doctor for a regular checkup for the first time in my adult life. Everything seems to be fine, he's scheduling some additional routine tests, and recommended that I take Vitamin D (I think he recommends that to everybody), and I got a tetanus shot (last one was 28 years ago) and a flu shot.

10 ring pullups

Rechecking some controls that Pete had adjusted

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down trails on Mt. Skatukakee with Nancy. Watch ran out of battery, see her log for the full track.

Checking a few more adjusted controls.