Training Log Archive: ndobbs

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The cheering was amazing!

Also, the Irish are brilliant. I felt like bailing before the girls finished, but the blanket saved me and I'm so glad I hung around.

In the words of an organiser as we finally left the relay, "your team spirit is amazing."



Kenny has loads of great pics from the relay. Ros' face (number 64 here ) at the changeover is priceless.

C • game face 1

Relay, WOC 2013
3rd Leg

21st place, Ireland's best result since WOC switched to 3-leg relays in 2003.

In 2001, also Finland, Ireland was 20th (but Denmark, Sweden, Italy were all dsq). And we were capable of better. On a good day physically, I could have caught AUS and BLR (maybe not outsprinted them though). Beating Germany, Poland(!) and Portugal was impressive.

21st was also listed as a goal for the relay. Now we just have to break into the top 20.

Quickroute. The following map is the undistorted gps.

As for my race... I wasn't feeling to bouncy warming up, maybe my light lunch was too heavy, maybe I should have prepared physically differently. Anyway, the goal became a steady, stable race, rather than something exceptional. I decided to smile on the way to the changeover pen, and smile I did. A bunch of kids were giving high-fives, and I enjoyed every one. A nervous few minutes waiting for Darren. Then Australia went out and Darren shouldn't be far behind. Shortly after, I see him coming. I start a slow clap, getting the kids around to join in, and then the whole local section of crowd. By the time Darren came, it was LOUD. So I set off with a spring in my step and a smile on my face, the adrenaline flowing.

There was, no surprise, a massive hill right after getting the map (150m after starting). I had to walk/jog most of it. A little shaky up the hill, but clean into 1, 2 was good. 3 felt a bit shaky so cut out to see the marsh above the control. I wasn't feeling in full control of my nav, so took the safe route to 4 and did it pretty well. 5 was easy enough. Cameraman was texting away with his back to me as I punched. 6 I again sacrificed a ew seconds to take a safe route in from above. 7 I was surprised to cross a trail :) , then hesitated to safely identify the cliff facing me as I approached (the one to the left). 8 I did well, good easy route. 9 was easy, 10 I hesitated about route choice, only decided when I hit the big trail. Actually following the trail another 200m further would have been a valid route choice that I hadn't seen. Anyway, I aimed a little left to hit the big reentrant, followed it down until I saw the right-angle cliffs, then safely into the control. I think this was was German that was slowly catching me made his mistake. Cameraman with big raincoat was rustling loudly. I was getting nervous about people overtaking me near the end (or even catching someone). Would I have to speed up, take chances? 11 was also pretty straightforward, but I hadn't seen the spur on the open trail, so I stopped there for a few seconds to think about things... thought I heard footsteps at 11 too, so sped up down to 12, 13, 14... massive cheers on the run-in, the Irish are amazing, such a good feeling!

Main goal of no serious mistakes was accomplished. Top-21 was also accomplished, but I had no idea at the time. Running strongly and overtaking teams did not happen. I saw no other teams out there. It was a mixture of boring training run and serious nerves all the way.

To start with HS' star 15yo. Not only did he do a fantastic run at Jukola, he did it despite losing his necklace and searching for it for over a minute. Sheesh. He did his qualie almost a minute faster than me. And he speaks French.

Watch out for Salmenkylä...

C • http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... 2

MiddleQ Men 3 rerun
Quickroute Quite a bit of distortion, possibly more than can be explained by running with the gps in my butt pocket. 4-5 leg was a bit strange, and if so it was perhaps unsuitable.

Couple of small bobbles, proper mistakes to 5 and 8, smaller one to 6, generally hesitant. A few controls were missing, but there were footprints. Fantastic terrain and course.

In.

Ali finishing 50:30 into this. Superstar. And then it cuts to a shot of some spectators... :)

Test:

http://picasion.com/i/1VfV7/

C • Klingenberg 2

Nick coming through en route to a fantastic 33rd. More pics

Model, exploring

Ran the WOC Sprint Q heat 1 course after a lot of spectating, sort of head to head with Boris on a girls' heat.

Easy enough after having seen the bridges spectating.

before and after

2013 WOC Long Q

16th place!

Let's let that fine result sit for a bit, and now pass to the story.

Part 1, the days before:
I ran out of my steroidal nasal spray two-four days before (I don't know how to tell when it's *really* empty), and on Friday my nose took revenge. We'd just moved into our WOC accommodation, a lovely room shared with Dooby right above the sauna. Or in the sauna, depending on how you view 28º. Opening the window didn't do much, so it was a warm night and my nose was all swollen inside. Needless to say, I slept like a baby with colic. So Saturday (by which stage I had replaced the spray, thanks Miika!), I rested, apart from a half-asleep game or two of snatch (pirate scrabble) and a team meeting where Paul kindly offered to pick me up at 7:30 in the morning to take me to quarantine. The spray needs a couple of days to take effect, and my nose wasn't much better on Saturday night, but I went to bed a little after nine and relaxed, bags packed, no stress. I had a good race at Jukola, and tried to channel some of that feeling.

Part 2, the night before:
I got some sleep, Darren kindly refrained from waking me as I snored the early part of the night away (the ol' clogged nose doing its thing). I woke at 3 and again several times during the night. The missed start-time nightmare repeated a couple of times. The second time I did the classic dream this isn't a dream and I've really screwed it up this time, waking mid-afternoon and the place is empty.

Part 3, the morning of:
Breakfast, two bowls of muesli-yoghurt-fruit-salad and a piirakka. After all the excellent buffet food, I didn't need any more. A fig or two and a bit of blueberry soup an hour before running and I'd be fine. Hopefully. Got dressed in all bar socks/shoes and double-checked I had everything, then down at 7:15 to wait for Paul. Paul was there 7:25, took me to quarantine, I collected my bib and emit card and lay down for ten minutes before taking bus to pre-start. The bus took us past the arena, which was a pleasant surprise. Most expected the new terrain to be used for the final and for the Q to start on the Vuokatti side of Kumpula. Got out, hung out with Paul for a bit, put on my two pairs of socks and VJs (a late decision, but felt they were safer than wearing the newish Icebugs) like I wore at Jukola. Went for a jog, tied my laces tighter, ran some more, didn't feel especially strong, but not terrible either. Tried out the portaloos, lightened the load, ran another bit, some off-trail gentle uphill to warm up the hamstrings. Had one last drink, gave Paul my bag and headed to call-up three minutes early. Ross Smith and Johan Runesson were starting the same time as me. In the first box I got my Ross hug. Onwards towards the final boxes and I considered stepping out to pee again, but figured it was unnecessary. Checked my compass, worked out which way to turn my map when I turned it over, beep beep beep beep beep BEEP

Part 4, THE RACE:
In general, the goal was to stay close to the red line, not to zigzag in green, to properly understand the control locations, to sit into the marshier bits using the hamstrings and to go wheeeeeeeee on the downhills, running fast without pushing hard.

I started at 9:39, third batch of men to go out.

#1 Maybe out to the road would have been better, but I figured straight wasn't going to be a terrible route and Runesson was picking a line for me with Ross zigzagging a little around me. By the time I could see the hill before the trail junction I was happy and confident with where I was going. Straight may be the rule, but a trail around a chunk of green seemed worth taking early on. The veg changes were obvious, so cutting in where I did was no risk. The contours when I got close thankfully funneled me into the control, spike.

#2 Run between marsh and lake, around the hill was the intention, but by the time I hit it it was too late and straight was acceptable. Enough visibility and contour detail up the other side to make the control easy, spike.

#3 left or right, left of marsh, either way looks like it would have worked. Edge of hill past end of marsh made the start easy, and there was the guts of a trail leading along that part. I nearly went left of the yellow hill, wasn't what I was expecting, but corrected. Across beautifully clean white woods (distinct veg changes again) a little left of straight in order to skirt the darker green once in the shorter, low vis trees. Slowly in, I was pretty sure where the control would be, but slow seems safer. Spike.

#4 Along the contour, didn't want to drop into the channel of depressions early, not exactly a challenging leg navigationally, but didn't want to plan ahead for the long leg. Saw my Latvian pass by to the right of the channel, no way I was going to keep with him. Also saw Ross, except Ross was Hannah. Spike.

#5 I'd looked at the old OS-style map of the area the day before, courtesy of laBaguette, and picked out a similar leg to this as on obvious candidate long leg, so I smiled inwardly when I saw it out of the start. My control was so far along, across the bridge seemed better than any of the marsh options, and I hesitated whether to go out to the road. After what felt like a good twenty seconds I went with the straighter hilltops route. There were a couple of swerves, but the visibility was mostly good (skirting the green in near 10) and veg changes obvious that it was easy enough. I found a tractor track through the slash, so that was nice. A tough uphill to the control, spike.

#6 Not particularly technical, but felt very slow. Sidehilling in green is hard work. Spike.

#7, didn't know exactly what direction I was supposed to be heading in, and the semi-open was strange, but it worked out fine, spike.

#8 across the scary marsh, Petrzela ahead of me but we weren't both either of us going quite straight lines, and certainly not parallel. We bothe passed down the white re-entrant, he found the path around the green while I went more through and up past the greenhouses or chicken coops or whatever those buildings were. I hit the spur to the right of the control, and thought that was what I hit, but the control was higher up that I had pictured, so hesitant coming in, spi-ike.

#9 Nice. What it says on QR. I could see the control from 40m, spike.

#10 hesitated which way around the lake to go. Logvin and another went left and I felt it was better when I was leaving too. After passing the col I knew it could be tricky and went carefully into the control, low-vis, spike.

#11, a few metres left of the line but not lower than the control, knew what I was doing, spike.

#12 Tero Fohr passed me up this hill. He went through the field, I thought the grass might be long or rough (I avoided it to 5 too) and went around, crossed the road fine, then low vis in to 12. I did check a tree-stump to my left wasn't a control at one point before telling myself to continue in the right direction, and following another look at the map, that I needed the highest point. It arrived, and the control was there, spi-ike.

I went from 20th to 16th on that leg!

#13 The green with the white re-entrant was tall trees I could see from 12, so I aimed for that no problem. Up the hill to 13 was a slog and I was starting to lose focus or composure, but mostly kept it together. Got to within 30m of the control fine, expecting to see it but no. Went another couple of metres and saw a knoll to my left with a tiny wee bit of rock exposed, figured it must be mine. Around it, eventually saw it, phew. NOT Spiked. Might be a little more, but let's call it 20s.

#14 could see the white valley off to the right (along with Logvin, as Baptiste R jogged past on my left), easy peasy, spike.

#15 Back into the green. Skirted the slash to the trail end, then up the veg boundary and in, possibly in a few metres early, it was thick enough. Spike.

#16 out to the ride, along, stayed highish around the deep re-entrants, dropped into mine as a girl climbed out, Baptiste already well out, spike.

#17 a little shaky again, on the right line, hit the trail, wasn't expecting to, oh ok, that's fine on in, re-entrant to my left, except I'd inverted the contours, realised it, lost 15s and then 'spiked' the control, running the last 40m confidently. 20s.

#18 Nice visible veg changes, easy peasy, spike.

#19 some slight trouble distinguishing the white patches, but mostly easy. A Russian came in to punch the same time as me, but I had a half-pace advantage and went for it, as only one slot was pointing my direction. Smooth punch, in front of the assembled mass of photographers, spike.
evidence

#20 Full speed down the hill, perhaps unwisely trying to push. I thought I'd passed through the bigger of the index contour depressions, what followed didn't properly make sense, kept going a bit, figured I was on the index contour hill, then went down but veered off and missed my control hill, vis wasn't great, looked out at the river through the trees, thought I might be way southeast, ran 30m, thought some more, went back and punched. 50s. Aaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhh. So close to great!

#21 Logvin punched 20 just before me, but we went lower and right to 21, I had the instinct left to climb and get free, good vis coming in, plenty of cameras again, spike.

#Finish chute. All out. All in. Lots of cheers, definitely helped. Thanks!

GPS distance ~ 13.5km

C • sweet 5

Really, laser-printed warm up map?

LONG MENQ3 - Splits