Training Log Archive: mintore

The final day - Coulmony and Belivat.

I expected this would be the most grueling day. It had the largest reported climb (470 m in 8.7 km), was in the highland moors and it was the 3rd run in 3 days. I was not wrong, only I underestimated it.

I think I will be mostly summarize here. About a quarter of the map was marsh. At least half of the remainder of the map was either a forested hillside marsh, a rough open marsh, or an otherwise poorly drained area. There were also some much steeper areas and these were usually forested with tight or spaced green bars. Normally, I would find this all quite appealing but I was pretty tired before I started, ran across the marsh fumbling C1 and then C3 even worse. It was a big, unavoidable climb to C8 only to immediately decend and climb back to C9. I had questioned whether there might be an end around but then saw Nadim crashing ferns and pitched my self down the hill and up the bracken on the other side (this was neat because it was so tall I couldn't see up hill at all). From the timed-out road crossing C11-C16 were all ok but the longest two legs were now up: to C17 and C19. In retrospect, I chose very badly for the first. It was a bit over 1 km that covered a long hillside with few striking features bordered to the south by a very large marsh. I chose to use the rock features that existed to try to lead me part way but they were hard to find and the hillside was miserablely uneven and swampy. I think that taking an out-of-the-way trail to the south and then just cutting straight across the marsh was the ticket. I did better getting to C19 which had some decent vegetation boundaries but the running was more of the same. The stopper was C26 up a steep 40-m hill that was long-dropped logging debris. I am sure I was far enough around that I was out of the green bars but I needed some rest and essentially fell into a blueberry patch. I gave 20 seconds to the course to sample a few very plump tasty ones. Finished this out, but it was not a run that I would be keen on repeating.

So, ignoring my occasionally bleak writeups, this was an absolutely fantastic week. The weather for Scotland was great, the courses well thought out, the camping area was very pleasant with some nice neighbours, and lots of family time. We heard bagpipes and danced at the Legion, checked out a distillery, tried to figure out if we are Picts, and visited some more recent ancestral site in the Borders. 3500 people, but it all worked ... wow! Even though I was soundly crushed by the competition, I feel like this was partly because my access to and experience with really complicated terrain is so small. This week (and coming months) will really help. I hope to get to run on more and harder maps when we return home because to do well here, I think it is essential and I'd like to try again in 2015.

p.s. Aidan's results can be found on O Joy's site. I am happy he had fun and seemed to feel comfortable as he moved through the week. Running in M12A was a real challenge that I think was only really feasible because of his working on running technically harder courses both in TROL and TJOC.

As the difficulties for M12A match a short orange course, and M14A is closer to brown in the US, it is my initial impression that the age progression through technical stages used by at the national level OUSA is misleading for US/Canadian juniors competing abroad.

Day 5 - Roseisle

I really loved this day. Nice weather, middle day so I was fresh enough still, and only moderately bits of steepness (highest hills on the map were 15 m)

The site was access through an army base so there was some security and we drove down an old airstrip to the parking. This was the last day of dunes, nearly the whole run was within 500 m of the coast. The dunes were lots of abstract shapes often studded with depressions or very small earth banks. Together, they formed odd-shaped valleys broken by some sharp grassy sandy divides. As a result, it was quite easy to be standing 5 m from the control and have it be out of sight or to be in a parallel valley that could easily be rationalized to be the correct one. Loosing track of this cost me some time on #10; I stopped one valley short. Crossing lines on the map and mental fatigue mixed me up on the way to C15 as the line connecting the circles went through the circle for #8. I spent a few minutes looking for #8 unsuccessfully as I had tracked a bit to the N. The area was a lot of large, amorphous depressions that meant I was moving slow and confused but not actually in circles. Near the end, the my view of the landscape magically crystallized and I looked at a faint trail heading to some convoluted re-entrants by the coast. It had to be there and it was as good as Christmas. The rest of the run was mostly uneventful other than it was my first map-exchange course. Given the comfortable temperature, I was really thirsty by then -- there was no water on any of the week's courses, not even the map exchange that the marshal drove to, nor at the finish -- so I was driven by thirst to get finished and to the water in our car. Thankfully, it seemed like the last of the course was technically easier.

This was, in terms of pace and feel, the best day of my week and my finish place slowly crept off the bottom of the standings over the entire week. l

The Loch of Boath - Day 4.

This was my second most favorite day of the week and was my best run (meaning all that I wish I had not done was compressed into one control). This location was away from the coast, hillier and quite varied, so much more homey.

I have fewer comments about this run. It was amusing that while following a short piece of old logging track enroute to #1, I stepped in a spot no damper looking than the rest of the forest and went to my knee in cold water (mapped as open forest); I was ready to go after that. Crossed a field through two mandatory crossings going to C7 and messed up the bearing across the field. I think I was unconsciously following the ridge that was 60 degrees off axis; it annoying but easily fixed. There were some subtle controls in the middle; #11 was a nice and slightly hard to locate small depression. #13 - #18 had a lot of the climb. My error was on #18. I was clearly running on a ridge, I somehow thought that I should be in the valley, tired (note the theme), and couldn't separate up from down but down would be a beaver meadow in Ontario (i.e., wet swampy nastiness). I ran down; up the otherside; back down searched around, repeated all this for a while and finally sorted myself out; found the rides that I had somehow not hit the first time. I probably need to apologize to the trees for my bad language by the time I found the control. The pressure was off after this 20 min diversion, so I enjoyed the last of the course. Some of it was diagonally crossing long marshes on low ridges following a general bearing. I guess a bit of me thinks that this is what orienteers do and so I pretended I was in Finland and did the best job of it I could. Finished after a go control that was tucked behind a rock pile in the field; I was very discomforting running so close to the finish and not being able to see the last punch, worrying that somehow I had missed something. Thankfully, I had not.

Culbin - our third installment of sand dune-fest!

This park is the one site, albeit a different section of it, that will reappear in 2015 S6D/WOC. It was an interesting park; some regions of larger, more complex dunes and many large areas that were just a dense, scattered group of dot knolls and 2 m hills. There were blocks of medium green that we stayed out of except for control #1, and a rectangular grid of trails and wide rides mapped as rough open. I enjoyed the first two thirds a lot; a leg run on compass except for the bit in the green went well, an easy road leg (accessed by a nonsensical route choice), and a series of detailed "middle" controls. A pretty beach run on hard sand followed. Control #10 was probably the hardest. Saw Peggy D. while picking my way through dunes that required a lot of concentration. I still stopped short thinking that I had found the clearing but I had found the unmapped "clearing", relocated to a mapped one, and then to my control. I was satisfied because this could have been a disaster. Ran down a very steep hill of green bars and scattered trees; I wasn't sure it was a good plan but downhill it worked nice road and some time to plan. #11-15 there was a train of runners that cut down on the number of decisions to make; just keep up.

#16 my fuel started to fail; on the way to #17, I jammed a stick into the toe of my shoe and suffered the slow motion, pivoting through the air flail that seems to occur late in runs when I am not picking up my feet. It is awkward when the stick breaks, but this time it didn't so it was worse. Both knees hit but one found seemingly the one hard surface on the forest floor. I was pretty slow and dizzy for the next 600 m and actually sat for about 30-40s to let myself equilibrate. The legs to 17 and 18 were both long; I suffered. Through the open woods dense with moss I went; it was fun and comfortable but exhausting. There was a ditch on the way to 17 that I tried to cross and run along, the crossing was a failure and I learned to stay out of the ditches because they are mudsuckers, not solid midwestern stream beds. My only complaint would be that the rides were very hard to predict; some were worse than the forest but they all looked equal on the map.

A good day but a mixed performance. As I lay in the dirt after the finish, I was just thinking about how thankful I was that tomorrow is a rest day.

Day 2 - Carse of Ardersier

First things first, it was sunny!

This site was also sand dunes but completely different than Lossie. Here most of the smaller dunes were odder, less conically shaped. However, the dominant feature was a series of SE-tending ripple dunes. They were mostly one 2.5-m contour and often only a form-line high, crossing the map one after another like geological speed bumps. Otherwise stated, a continuum of very low-profile parallel errors.

This probably should have been a good day and, barring two controls, it was. There were only a couple of climbs of any significance at the start and the rest was keeping track of the wash board. Somehow, along one of the higher and more striking dune lines (4 m high?) I just couldn't find the bag. It was sitting between a dot knoll and the dune top in heather and wasn't obvious but the attackpoint was good and I fumbled repeatedly. Not so good.

I enjoyed a big chunk of the remainder of the course until control 23. I was getting tired and crossed into a complicated area somewhat N of where I intended. Garmin says I ran within meters of the control before I turned into a random-walk simulator. Maybe I wasn't paying attention? (Control 24 was on a dune tight up to a tree. I was surprised to see this; placements in forested areas were frequently obscured to certain unpredictable site lines by the general forest. Apparently, if you are in the woods, one should expect trees to obscure the view).

It seems like some of my adrenaline was lost during this down period and I felt the effort of pushing through mostly uneventfully to the finish. The area near control 28 was not well mapped for vegetation. Overall, the veg mapping was very good; either it was unmappable, continuous low heather and moss that was going to chew up your ATP, beautiful and wide-open forest, or occasionally medium heather that could be run at price. But on this map, there were some spaced green bars for bracken and brambles. Near #28, the brambles extended quite a lot further than mapped and were probably not avoidable from my approach along the S side of the dunes. I keep thinking the north would have been better so I felt a bit duped even though I don't actually know N was better.

Event: Scottish 6 Days
 

(Posted on Day 1, Scottish 6 Days). Hard rain in on the run before the hard sand dunes. We don't usually see contours that look like massing angry amoebas! Some good things about this run and a good pace for the first half but two botched controls at the 2/3 point really killed my time. Second from the bottom upon leaving the event site. Aidan finished at about the middle of his group with one sizable error; this bodes well for him.

Day one of our UK orienteering and the Scottish Six Days! A new experience, the sand dunes of Lossie. The area consisted of a long 250-400 m wide strip of sand dunes next to the North Sea and some very flat reforested area with long low hills (1:7500, 2.5 m contours). Along the beach there were many barrier posts and old fortifications from WWII. It was definitely disconcerting running into the dunes off the start but I was within one depression on bearing and adjusted the correct way. I have few complaints about the next 6 controls; they could have been done faster and cleaner but I had a plan and was navigating fine. The longest leg was 8-9 and I chose cross-country for it. The choice was good but the amount of effort it takes to run across pretty open forest with thick moss, I had not anticipated. Nevertheless, my line was fine but the rain started part way through and by the end I could see blurry trees and the colored bands on my compass. I punched while passing the bag, fortunately because my attackpoint was intentionally beyond the control given the direction of approach. #10 - rain continues; #11 - the first control in the hard dunes. (When I got home) I have never seen so many little circles packed so close together; it was like a miniaturized mountain range of volcano dunes. I took the trail much of the way, took good but risk free choices to get to my attackpoint and right as I was approaching it, the rain just dumped. I saw two runners go in the wrong place and I hit the control dead on. I was so stoked! But, indeed, my day would not last. At this point (this is now from my deconstruction during the drive back to our tent), I couldn't see so I ran back to the ride I had attacked from. My brain kept running forward on the map :{ The very obvious features I should have hit did not appear; unexpected trails kept crossing the ride/trail l was on and I could not stop or figure out what happened. Finally after travelling 5x the distance it would have taken to get to the trail, I hit something that made sense and, as it turned out, had taken me most of the E-W distance to the #12. It was unfortunately so disconcerting to me and the next control was quite tricky to actually hit (this took 3 attempts from within 75 m of the bag; 18 min lost), that I spent the remaining third of the race just trying to get to the finish. Control #13 was no better except that the rain had eased; it was a small depression that took a dozen minutes to find circling about (9 min lost). The next few controls were long runs and I was flagging but they were easy to find. #16 was the control most Ohio-like a block of light and middle green dense new forest, only with very, very few features. Thankfully, the few there were stood out and while I missed 50 m to the N, I knew what had happened, found the bag and pushed for the end.

At the end of the week, it would turn out that this was my worst race with the worst weather. Even though the dune monster Flossie got me, I would be enthusiastic about running here again. Nice variety in control types, but a bit linear for the first 8.

Course was reported to be 7.7 km/65 m; the 16 m from Garmin is rubbish. It seems that close to 65 is fair guess.