Training Log Archive: Canadian

Goal / plan was to orienteer with intense focus for the first part them let myself relax for the middle and then do the last few controls focused again. Got half way through the last section and then simply ran out of focus energy so called it quits.

Crazy costal area in Scotland. Primary goal was to be really focused on good map reading. This generally went well.

C • Which one?! 8

Solid performance. Without doing a real analysis here are some thoughts:

~5:30 of mistakes and about 10 min back on Will.
I'm very happy with my race both physically (I am surprised how strong I felt) and technically. I made far more mistakes then I would like but I always recovered quickly and consideringbthe number of times I caught myself not orienteering quite up to scratch I didn't lose much time. A bit of luck in one instance and simply catching myself and adjusting my plans elsewhere.

The performance won't put me in the top 50 at WOC nor would it likely clinch me a WOC spot but it shows that my training is working and that I'm on the right track for July and August. Still a few months to go to he where I want to be.

Struggled through a cool down loop.

Absolute disaster. A mental preparation failure which resulted in my race completely fallig apart.

I didn't have enough time to warm up and get to my start (long story) and ran straight from the car, quickly to the arena to wash shoes and take a pit stop and up the steep hill to the start. Got to the start with 5 minutes to my call up but that wasn't enough to put me in the right mindset. It doesn't help that I had underestimated the difficulty of the terrain in my prerace analysis. I was sloppily orienteering to my first four controls but found them without real problem but then I made a large mistake to #5. Got caught to 8 and was in a small train which made things worse to 9 and then things went downhill from there and I made almost every mistake in the book.

Not beibg mentally prepared nor relaxed at the start expressed itself technically as rushing my map reading (I need to be looking at the map closely and for long enough to really absorb and get a picture of what I'm seeing) and then when things naturally went wrong I couldn't get back into the groove because I was never in it in the first place.

It's absolutely critical to avoid this kind of disaster for the sake of consistency and confidence. Need to practice really focusing well on the right things and putting emphasis on going into races with the right mental warm up and focus right from square one. Another lesson is that its far better to overestimate the difficulty of an area than to underestimate it.

C • Boo 2

Working out the frustration from the race.

Alex and Will (my ride for the weekend) were going training after the race. I convinced myself that the mental benefit would make it worth the physical cost and it definitely was. A really nice area too!

Event: Jan Kjellstrom International Festival of Orienteering 2015
 

Got in a very good warm up to the sprint, did some running drills and visualized flipping over the map and finding that first leg. As it turns out the map was shown on the ground at the -1 minute call up after we had our control descriptions so I was able to figure the first control location in advance.

Very tricky and enjoyable sprint set by David and Miriam Rosen at Lancaster University. Had a solid game plan and stuck too it which resulted in a good race. Between the very slippery wet conditions and the complexity of the map and route choices I never felt like I was going as fast as I could have. X-talons would have helped in this regard on the grass but I also need to learn to push more in sprints when I do have the chance. It's not something that comes natural to me. Anyway a clean race and a good result so I'm happy.

I nice little exploration up a hill with a view right next to my B and B. Spent a lot of time hrcking out terrain but it turns out it was bit nearly as complex as the race areas. Damn!

Ended with some strides on one of the trails.

Hip was still sore so took the day off.

13:35 rolling hip with tennis ball
8:04 rolling the legs

While waiting for hours in the airport.