Training Log Archive: mm-ha

WOC Spectator races, E6
Decided to do another approach today: go superslow, walk nearly all the time, no always exactly where you are. This was of course slow, but worked fine until 9, where I completely turned of my head and made a 25 min. mistake :(

WOC Spectator races, Day 5
Very bad race, mistake after mistake on a lot of controls.
Total mistakes: at least 35 minutes :(

WOC Spectator races, Day 4, D35, 5,2km, 155hm

Maybe the nicest race of the week (apart from the moment were I run into a wasp nest, got stung a few times and got lost in the process), forest was much more runable than the other day. And in the end there was a real running part to get us to the finish area - were of course I lost time cause I'm just slow and unfit at the moment.

Details:
1) Easy, spiked
2) Direction and contouring, nothing else to do, not exactly my strengt. Came a bit to high, relocated on the path and then easily found the control - 3:30 lost
3) Spiked
4) Looked difficult on the first glimpse, but I made it easier by following the path from the refreshment control. Then along the depression, hill and the rest of the contours. Spiked
5) Good until short before the circle, then searching too early, not understanding contours. Dropped a lot of places there. 2:30
6) Spiked
7) Should have been an easy one, I made it a lot more difficult than necessary by misreading the control description and expecting the control UP the cliff - and then also looking one cliff too early. Could have just stayed in the reentrant and see it from below. 2:30 at least
8) Was dropping much too much on the first path, should have gone over the stones, not try to get around them downhill. 2 min?
9) Biggest mistake of the day. Was on a good way, but not all in contact with the map. That's why I ended up a hill too far and understanding nothing - meeting a bunch of wasps on the way didn't help either. Relocated finally in the depression. 7:30 lost
Rest was easy and spiked.
Total mistakes: 18 min.

WOC Spectator races, Day 3, D35, 3,2km, 140hm

Today the terrain won :(
Don't really know how else to describe it.
Was running fine for the first ca. 10 min. on the way to the first control. even enjoying myself. Then was leaving the path and immediately got stuck in the worst crap I've seen for that week so far. Lost every sense of direction and distance, ended up somewhere better to run and was so happy that I blindly followed - now I realize that what I thougt were yellows was actually the beginning of the path. Found a big path I couldn't place, stumbled around blindly and had basically no idea what I was doing - only thing that I knew for sure that (even if it would have been a good idea orienteeringwise) there was no way I'd go back through that crap to the last known place. In the end relocated when I was hearing a control beeping in the forest, went there and recognized one of the characteristic stone pits. Had no idea how I ended up there until I looked at my track - now I'm pissed how silly I was.
From there I was able to carefully orienteer to the first control, finding the second on the way - nearly 35 min. into the race and after at least 20 min. of mistake. But my split to 2 was very good ;)
After that had a equally bad leg to the 3. control, first half good, then cluelessly searching for it way too early and loosing another 7 or 8 minutes.
This was followed by 12 or more minutes of crawling through some of the ugliest forest I've seen in a long time (marked white on the map) before I finally reached the path and started to attack 4, with about zero motivation left. A few meters into the climb to 4 I read ahead on my map and saw that it'll continue that way with ugly stony forest and thickets for the rest of the course and realized that I already hated every step I did in the last hour - then asked myself why am I doing that and decided that I'm on holiday and doesn't have to do it if I hate it...
First time in my life that I dropped out of a race just because I didn't want to continue anymore, but still feel OK with that decisions. Congratulations to the people with the stamina to ignore the frustation and finish that course in 2 1/2 or 3h, especially the girl who took >1h to the first control. I myself finished the day with a nice and easy trailrun back to the finish...

WOC Spectator races, Day 2, D35, 4,7km, 195hm

Another long distance, longer than the first day and on a very green map. Runability wasn't as bad as feared, but still not good either. And due to some unneccesary orienteering mistakes (aren't day always?) the day was very epic for me.
Details:
1) Should have been pretty easy, if I had turned on my head at the start. But I didn't and somehow did not realize that the triangle was at a road crossing and just followed the one I was already on for a while. 3 min. lost already there. Then took another wrong turn on the path crossing near the control and searched in the wrong depression. Another 2:20 lost - time to get away from paths and roads maybe? ;)
2) OK, as there were no paths involved in the fine orienteering ;)
3) Tried to run on top of the hills, but had no real plan. Ended up to far left at the big stone pit there, which made it easy to relocate. From there very slow and careful progress to the control. Maybe 2 min. lost - compared to other mistakes I can see in Winsplits on this control I was actually very good ;)
4) Came too far left leaving 3, which made getting to the path a lot harder than necessary. Can't really see on the track how much I lost there, Compared to other split times around me I think 4-5 min
5) No obvious mistake, but 10 min. is too long for this. Seems like I lost about 1:30 near the control, but don't know what happened to the rest of the time - am I moving so slowly through that terrain?
6) Still superslow, but OK
7) OK
8) Can't remember why I was making this big detour on the road. Very silly. 1:30 at least
9) OK
10) Very easy one for once. OK
11) Long climb up the hill, a lot of street running and a spiked control.
12, 13) Ugly terrain. Slow but OK.
14) Didn't want to move through the terrain anymore, so took the long route over the road. Maybe would have been a good choice if I stayed with it, but after a bit of runnig towards the road I first tried to go through the terrain and only ended up at the road when I was so far down and near it anyway. Going directly to the road would have been 2 min. faster and an OK split.
Total mistakes: 17:20

WOC spectator races, Day 1, D35, 4,1km, 190hm

Terrain was as difficult to move in as yesterdays training, sometimes even worse. So no real challenge physically most of the time as I'm just too careful in this kind of terrain - too much afraid of an injury to really try to move fast there.

Detail:
1) Bit slow because of the climbing, but perfectly spiked. Good start.
2) Route could have been a bit straighter maybe, but still good.
3) On the path down to the big road, up the other path until the depression, then find the yellow behind the hill - theory. Worked fine until shortly before the depression, when there was another depression and I started searching for the control behind all the wrong hills and couldn't figure out what was the matter. Took me a while to find the right hill - and all that was in a especially ugly and unmovable part of the map of course :( According to my QR-Track I lost 8 min. there - which would have meant a top 10-Split without the mistake...
4) Super carefully after the big mistake, but spiked.
5) Still slow, carefully and hesitant, but no mistake
6) Easy one
7) OK, but lost time compared to others due to beeing super careful and to hesitant
8) Good routechoice and good execution, one of my better splits even with stopping and showing a child the way.
9) Should have taken a bit more of a straight line and follow the yellow into the control. Had a bit of a problem locating the control when in the circle. 1 min?
10) Easy
11) Should have been easy, BUT: didn't see the first path down, followed the wrong path, stopped at the crossing but didn't realize were I am, came even further down, figured it out and had to go back. 6 min. Tiredness?
12) Easy
13) Was already standing on the right hill near the control , just not on top. Then somehow misinterpreted were I am and searched for the control somewhere else. 4 min.
Total mistakes: 19 min.
8)

Event: WOC 2011 + O'Festival Savoie Grand Revard
 

Short training on the training map to be prepared for tomorrow after watching the WOC long distance quali the whole afternoon.
Terrain really is super technical and very bad runability - I can't really move over all those stones...
Details:
1) Easy to get near the control, but then I had a bit of a problem identifying the little hill
2) Found the control circle easily, but then was searching for the control a bit too far south first
3,4) Easy ones
5) Lot of problems near the control
6) Confused when crossing the path and didn't understand the yellow first. But after deciphering it found the control perfectly.

Toe was better after 2 days of beeing careful, so was able to do the training in o-shoes with no real pain. But could feel it again afterwards...