Monday Oct 30 |
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| (sick) |
| Caught a cold again... sore throat, tired. Third one this year for me. Unusual. |
Wednesday Oct 25 |
| Orienteering City/Park (wet) 28:00 [4] | |
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| Thomas did o-cross for this WET at Acadia. Part of the map updated to sprint standard. Very tricky area, much more difficult than the campus itself. |
| Running Smooth 15:00 [2] | |
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| Short run after the training. |
Sunday Oct 22 |
| Running Smooth 10:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up before the race. |
| Orienteering Forest race (middle) 53:47 [4] 5.7 km (9:26 / km) | |
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| Local race at Rice Lake on the new map the club payed Louise to make. I had been looking forward to this one for a while. An actual forest map, which I didn't make, with lots of nice detail. Of course, running is slow in any forest here, but there are many nice sections around Rice Lake.
I took it like a serious race and I felt good all the way, but it wasn't perfect, when analyzing afterwards. The route choice leg to 5, I went around the big hill and out to the trail, which I think was a good choice. However, out of 4 I ran too much to the south and I'm sure that cost me a minute. I also lost one minute at 12, my only problem with an actual control. Out of 14 I should have gone straight north out to the road, but I ran almost straight east and I think this cost me another minute. Thomas's total time at 12 was about 30 seconds faster than mine, but then he made some mistakes and I was 5 minutes faster in the end. |
Saturday Oct 21 |
| Orienteering City/Park 2:25:00 [2] | |
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| Long run across 8 different maps! Andrea planned some controls on each map. She was on her bike and would meet up with me at finish of each section and give me the next map. Start at Jericho, then the northern part of Pacific Spirit, down to the beach and around out to UBC. Ran up the steep hill and then did a 10 minute sprint loop on the new Anthropology map. After that followed another 10 minute sprint at the campus and then some trails around Triumf. Then a section across to Camosun and then a 10 minute "sprint" on that map, by now my legs were pretty stiff... Last section was down to Jericho again. Fun! |
Wednesday Oct 18 |
| Running Smooth 10:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up for training. |
| Orienteering City/Park (wet) 29:26 [4] 5.7 km (5:10 / km) | |
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| WET at Vanier. Gar set a simpler runner's course on purpose because he expected some people to come from his running club. This park doesn't have much in it to create much navigational challenge anyway... still fun to run around with a map though, as always. |
Monday Oct 16 |
| Running Smooth 1:02:00 [3] | |
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| Run along the beach out towards UBC, around the perimeter on Marine Dr, then across the campus and back home along 10th. |
Wednesday Oct 11 |
| Running Smooth 10:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up before training. |
| Orienteering City/Park (wet) 29:50 [4] | |
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| WET at QE. Very tricky course actually. Even though I've been on this map so many times, it was a challange to find the good routes. My legs were very stiff from all the racing on the weekend. |
Monday Oct 9 |
| Running Smooth 10:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up for the race. |
| Orienteering Forest race (middle) 53:37 [4] 7.9 km (6:47 / km) | |
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| O-cross, one man relay. Mass start with 2 forked loops first and then a final non-forked loop. Started out slow in the start to get a feel for the map. Could see that it was tricky and that it would pay off to be careful in the nav. Halfway through the first loop I felt like I started to pass some people making mistakes and ran together with Mike Smith on the way back to the exchange. He ran away from me out on the second loop, but I caught up to, and passed, other runners which I could see made mistakes around me. The last half of the second loop I didn't see any other male elite and at the exchange I heard I was third. Running up the road to the first control on the last loop, I could see that the first 3 km was almost all trail running and I felt like I would be caught by the chasing pack. Looked behind me all the way down to control 2, but couldn't see anyone. Got 2, 3 and 4 fine, but now I could hear the branches cracking from the runners in the forest behind me. Again, looked behind me on the long trail run back up to 5, but didn't see anyone. Almost over ran 5, but stopped myself about 50 metres past the control and got it fine. Was careful on the more technical last few controls and still didn't see anyone else and ran in alone in 3rd spot. Great little map and super fun format!
My photos from this fantastic weekend of orienteering here: http://flickr.com/photos/magjoh/sets/7215759432257...
A big thank you to Bender for inviting us to stay at the amazing Piller estate at Rocky Ridge!
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Sunday Oct 8 |
| Running Smooth 10:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up for the race. |
| Orienteering Forest race (long) 1:40:25 [4] 12.2 km (8:14 / km) | |
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| NAOC Long. Started out well technically and tried to conserve energy, not running too fast. Had a very solid and consistant race up to, and including, control 14 at which I was in 7th position overall, 5 minutes behind the leader. Then came a big parallel error to 15. After crossing the trail, I started to read from the wrong hill and then I was lost in the green. Bailed out to the trail behind, but didn't know where I was on the trail. Lost 4 minutes on this control and then got really tired and lost focus and another 2 minutes on the next. On the long leg home I got stuck in the unmapped extremely dense bush around the stream and then got confused in the field behind. This "field" on the map, was in reality mostly patches of dense bush. Did the mapper actually visit this area? Anyway, was very careful in the trail network at the end and got those controls fine. Ended up 15th, 16 minutes behind. Kind of what I expected actually. Thought I could be top 10 with a clean race, which I would have been without the mistake at 15. Great terrain and lots of fun! Just not in physical shape to last 12 km. |
Saturday Oct 7 |
| Running Rough 20:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up for the race. |
| Orienteering Forest race (middle) 33:01 [4] 4.5 km (7:20 / km) | |
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| NAOC Middle. This was my chance to place at the top this weekend. A shorter race with very technical orienteering fits my skills perfect. I started out spiking the first control and I felt I understood the map right away. Coming into control 2, I ran on the left side of the two small hills just before the flag and and turned right into the control. This unfortunately was the root cause of my mistake to the third control. The picture in my mind was that I should turn slightly right out of 2, but because I came in at a different angle to this control, I ran out of the control in the wrong direction and failed to check my compass. I lost touch with the map and lost 2 minutes on this leg. I managed to pull it back together to 4 and then found a good flow all the way to the trails at the end. I got very hesitant coming into 15 and probably lost 15 seconds there and then out of that control I ran 90 degrees in the wrong direction and that cost me another minute. I ended up 5th, which I felt very happy with, but still slightly disappointed missing the podium with some sloppy mistakes. |
Friday Oct 6 |
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| Event: 2006 North American Championships (Golden Leaf Orienteering Fest)
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| Running Smooth 30:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up and cool down for the race. |
| Orienteering City/Park race (sprint) 16:32 [5] 3.1 km (5:20 / km) | |
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| NAOC Sprint. Campus sprint with no forest running, so exactly what we train here in Vancouver every week. The course was packed with route choice all the way and it was a joy to run. I didn't make any control mistakes and was actually very happy to be only 1:09 behind the winner, given the low amount of training for me the last half year. I was surprised to end up 16th with this time, the field was very strong! Great to see, this is what North American orienteering needs! Still, I think it showed that the nav was very easy, not many mistakes were done out there and it was clearly the running speed deciding the race. If I could give any critique about the courses, it would be that the different route options were too similar in running time. There weren't really any route traps. Left or right around the building resulted in roughly the same time on every leg. |
Wednesday Oct 4 |
| Running Smooth 5:00 [3] | |
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| Warm-up before training. |
| Orienteering City/Park (wet) 27:25 [4] | |
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| WET at Jericho. Some nice route choice legs. Visit from Sweden, Peter Näsholm, running for NTNUI. |
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| C • Tack før att jag fick vara med... 1 |
| Running Smooth 30:00 [2] | |
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| Picking up flags. |
Tuesday Oct 3 |
| Orienteering City/Park 30:00 [3] | |
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| Sprint orienteering intervals at UBC campus to prepare for NAOC. |
| Running Smooth 25:00 [2] | |
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| Some slow running after the training. |
Sunday Oct 1 |
| Running Rough 15:00 [2] | |
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| Warm-up, jogging up the hills at Six Mile, to get to the hub of the star exercise. |
| Orienteering Forest 43:00 [4] 5 km (8:36 / km) | |
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| Star exercise at Six Mile at Savona. Like this map much better than Grasslands. More trees, more technical. Wonderful day, sun and crisp air. On the first loop of the star, I smashed my head hard into some root stock of a dead tree as I was ducking under a tree branch. It was a pretty hard hit and there was blood immediately, but there was no deep cut. Lost a few minutes assessing the damage. |
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| C • Dude! 3 |
| Running Rough 30:00 [3] | |
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| Running around on the map after the star exercise.
Photos from the weekend training here:
http://flickr.com/photos/magjoh/sets/7215759430837...
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