Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Third go at a decent day of racing gave a very similar result to the first two tries--not good, in other words. On the bright side, at least I have been quite consistent so far! But maybe consistently poor is not the right sort of thing one should be aiming for; what was I thinking!?!

I started off a little ragged but managed the first 4 controls okayish, and the terrain shifted to something I could manage better. #6 and #7 were dead easy, except I managed to miss them both. In one case, the terrain in the circle didn't match at all what I was expecting from the map, and in the other case I glanced too quickly at the control circle and stopped one feature short of the actual control feature. Frustrating, but I was still game at that point and ran on.

#9 was a small boulder on a blank slope, and I decided to follow a ride up a large hill and attack from above, using a distinct spur. The route along the ride was longer than a direct route, but the prospect of contouring along a blank, steep slope for a long distance had no appeal and offered little prospect of success at the far end, either.

I made it to the distinct spur, examined the reentrant beside it, and it didn't look quite right, and the next spur over didn't look exactly as I expected, either. But I was satisfied I was where I intended to be, and crossed the reentrant, and descended to the edge of the control ring and stopped and looked down the hill for the boulder. The forest was wide open with great visibility, and I couldn't see anything of any help. If I was in the wrong place, then not seeing the boulder would of course be no surprise. But if I was in the wrong place, then I had no idea where I might be, and so nothing really mattered anyway. On the other hand, if I was in the right place and couldn't see the boulder or anything else, then what should my next logical course of action be? I decided to go down a little lower and cross my fingers--not exactly a plan you could endorse for anyone else.

I went down lower and saw nothing. I looked around. I looked behind me. Aha! There was the flag, just a little behind me. As I was leaving, I took another look at the rock, and estimated the uphill side was at least a generous 0.1m high. No sure how the good orienteers are able to discern mossy, 0.1m from everything else, but that is part of what separates them from the ordinary.

That took the steam out of my racing efforts, but I soldiered on for a few more controls and got them okay. Then came #13, a short leg descending a slope which got progressively steeper, with the control in a small reentrant. It looked like it could be easy to miss and a miss would be costly, so I proceeded with excruciating care. I passed a feature I could identify about 70 m out from the control and practically glued myself to my compass, and went down, looking every which way....and didn't see anything. I stopped when I had the feeling I had gone far enough, if not already too far, and when I stopped I had no idea whatsoever where I was in relation to the control, even though I was absolutely sure of where I had been just 70 m back. That kind of situation does not conjure up a fun feeling. I guessed at which way to turn, and found the control almost at once, but it was sheer luck. Basically, at that point, it felt like another really crummy day of racing, and I jogged through the rest of the course.

It's hard to believe how different this has felt from two years ago in Scotland, but it does. Presumably it's just me. Maybe in part it's because my eyes aren't quite as good, maybe my attitude has changed enough and I'm not as interested/willing to try to run where the footing has been pretty tough, maybe it's a variety of things. But it sure hasn't been as fun for me.

To be clear, that's entirely my fault though, and not the fault of anyone else.

C • standards 7

C • Traveling 5

Day 1 of Scotland started off well: felt good warming up and got off to a decent start--not great, not bad, but decent--and felt strong on a steepish climbing leg to #5. The way out of the control was straight back downhill, and it took only a few steps for my weird, occasional upper leg "travel cramps" to seize up my legs. It's quite clear from the splits where things literally went downhill for me--ha! It was pretty painful for any downhill sections after that, and even where it wasn't downhill, I was reduced to a slow jog everywhere else. Too bad, I wasn't expecting it, but it wasn't a total surprise, either.

Today, Day 2, my legs were a bit sore from all that yesterday, but they otherwise weren't bad at all, and so hopefully I'm already past the cramping problem for this particular trip. However, it wasn't any better of a race for me. The forest was quite wide open nearly everywhere, with mostly very good visibility, however the runnability was quite difficult--or at least I found it so. The forest floor was mostly stones overgrown in moss, very uneven and lumpy, with forest workings (branches, tree trunks) in generous amounts on top of the stones. It was quite slow going for someone unused to those conditions, and once again it was more jogging than running for me--albeit for very different reasons.

A couple of controls had a "bag in the woods" aspect to them, and a couple of places I had disagreements with what the map was saying with respect to vegetation and what I was seeing. That aside, however, I would have to say I orienteered poorly--2 misses from carelessness, probably not adjusting well to the presence of so many runners in the forest, hesitations, etc, etc. Even if I subtracted all lost time and had ran perfectly, I would have been far behind the leaders. A little disappointing, but so it goes; it's still been fun to be back in this lush, green land filled with friendly people!

Did some more rain training, and got wet, but not too wet, and, importantly, not too cold. So the training went well.

Also ran down and then back up Devil's Crotch, just to get that hilly feeling set in the legs.

C • Is that the new name for Devil's Claw? 5