Training Log Archive: pi

COC Long. An epic 15 kilometer course with almost no rest for the mind, with constant detailed navigation, route choice and patches of green to fight through. Had a solid and steady race with good control. Only lost contact with the map once(!) and that was towards control 24, with about 1 km to go. Even so I did lose time on several controls due to bad route choices through thick green, especially to 6, to 8 and to 17, adding up to almost 4 minutes lost time. Better routes did exist, but I never saw them until after the race. Add to that about 1 minute "normal" mistake at 24 for a total of 5 minutes of lost time.

Looking through the splits it seems like I had a weak period between control 5 and 12, dropping all the way down to 8th position overall (though only 4 minutes behind the leader). The key was to be clean through the difficult controls from 13 through to 16. Many mistakes were made here and I moved up to 3rd position overall, which I then held all the way home. I paced myself well early on and was able to post top splits on the last 3 km. My first COC medal! (as an eligible runner)

This was the best course design of the week and I thought it was a great blend of physical and mental challenge. Sections of fast running in the open, detailed contour navigation, slow and careful through the green with low visibility and several key route choices. Great stuff!

C • Beat the coach? 2

C • Congratulations to the medal! 12

Warm up on the 1:10000 model map.

Warm up to the remote start, 2.5 km from the arena.

COC Middle. Great terrain, great map and a great course for the first 10 controls! Several bad dog legs on the last part of the course. Overall, this was a much better race than the sprint, but I was still troubled by many smaller "issues" all the way through. Course started with some bushwacking up a steep slope and I was not sure about my location as I came out into the open on top. Hesitated from this point all the way into the first control and lost 30 seconds on the leg. Also lost time on the 5th control as I went around too much to avoid dark green, but it turned out it was not as green to go straight as the map showed. 7 was a great route choice leg where I decided to go straight and through some green, but I got a bit stuck here. To 11 I lost time by being way too careful and zig-zagging back and forth. Same story to 12. 4th position and I was fairly pleased with my run, but it should have been a medal with some more aggression and attack in the navigation.

Event: Canadian Orienteering Championships
 

Warm-up/cool-down.

COC Sprint in the sand hill terrain. Fast and "sprinty" course with an early spectator control, but lacking any decisive route choice legs unfortunately. Started good on the first two controls, but then lost it to number 3 with lazy compass work and bad focus, dropping 45 seconds. Followed up with another hook to control 4 and lost another 15 seconds. Will Critchley caught me on the spectator leg past the arena. Managed to barely stay within sight of Will for the rest of the course, but finished with a disappointing time in 6th position. Really fun race and good arena with lots of spectators for the late starting Red Group.

Club relay to kick start the COCs. Ran on the "elite" team for GVOC with Graeme Rennie on first, Meghan Rance on second and myself on the last leg. Graeme had a great first leg and came in first, 1:15 ahead of Eric Kemp on the powerful Ottawa team. Jeff Teutsch was 4 minutes faster than Meghan on the second leg and I went out on the last leg as number two with 3 minutes to catch on Robbie Anderson for Ottawa. I had a fairly clean run and pushed hard all the way in the fast terrain. A few hesitations, but not more than a total of about 1 minute lost. Never saw Robbie as he had a very fast and clean run and Mike Smith never caught up the 3 minutes he went out behind me.

A great arena with several spectator loops, radio controls and race announcing created an awesome race!

Fun short relay to finish off the Sass Peepre camp.

Ran 7 controls of the Prarie Goat. Very hot and I felt exhausted. No way I could do the 14 km this afternoon.

Shadowing of the JWOC crowd at the Sass Peepre.

Spectator race before the WOC Long Final. The border between Hungary and Slovakia was on the map and we crossed it on the course, which was kind of fun. Karst terrain with many big depressions and very open forest. I have a tradition of not doing so well in this kind of terrain and it was the same today. It's kind of too easy and eventually I lose my focus. And it doesn't help that my running shape is low in this terrain. First half of the course was ok with only a few routes that were too zig-zaggy. Then made a huge mistake to 11, a diagonal steep downhill with no features where I drifted too low despite being careful with the compass.

Public race on the map of the relay. Long distance style with one very long route choice. Had a good run technically with only about 2 minutes lost on various sub-optimal route choices, but no problems to hit the controls. Physically a bit weak, but have been very little training since PNWOF.

Event: WOC 2009
 

Public race, Open Advanced 3. The same area as the WOC Middle Quali yesterday. The same start and finish and similar course layout. Great to try out the terrain! Started about a minute ahead of Will C, but he caught up to me at the first control after a little hook by me on that control. We had some fun fighting for the next several controls, until he ran away from me to control 8. I did another hook to 9 and I was convinced he was ahead of me in the finish, but he had an even bigger hook to 11, so I had passed him there.

Physically I was not feeling too great. Had to basically walk all of the hills... and there were a lot of them!

Middle distance model. Walked to the top of the hill and ran through the controls downhill. Nice woods and much better map than the training map, but still some issues with vegetation and rocks. Lots of side hill orienteering.

Shadowing of several team members on the Kisfennsik map, relevant for the middle and long distance. Bit old map and overmapped rock. Controls were tiny sticks on the ground, absolutely invisible.

Ran an open class at Svealandsmästerkapen. Swedish orienteering at its best. Great summer day, glorious detailed orienteering, physical heavy marshes and very good map. Had an almost clean race, but felt tired crossing the marshes and had to walk a few times. Had so much fun! Makes me miss home...

Nyköping OK club training at Ryssbergen. Ran the course at race pace. Did well except wasting 4 minutes when reading to the wrong control, running almost to 13 instead of 8. A few wobbly routes, but otherwise good. Great terrain!

Test run of Kitty's first draft of the M21E middle distance course for the NAOCs. Pretty good for a draft! Few tweaks needed, but not too much. Start in the arena and spectator control. Will be fun!