Training Log Archive: mintore

Event: GCO: California Orienteering Week (COW), Part 2
 

Meet 14 Race 16
JWOC Trials Sprint

Sprint - Red - JWOC Trials - Splits

rolling heel mostly

a moderate run nearly negatively split

various

a solid run. Strong headwind outbound and a but gentler on the return.

7-1/2 laps of the track. Damn, was that ever boring and, since I have not been doing longer hard runs much recently, it was really physically unpleasant. I will probably try to do this with Aragorn at least a couple of times more this year to help keep moving.

Event: MVOC TROL - Taylorsville
 

Meet 13 Race 15
MVOC Taylorsville Red 6.5 km

This was so, so frustrating!!

I made errors-- a smaller route choice error on 2, lost time on control 4 which was hidden (wedged between a set of closely spaced trees and a small rock wall), not reading the clue for 8 while simultaneously not visualizing the terrain well, and I probably took a poor route to 10.
But leaving 10, I was confused. There was the guy who had told me before the race that they may not have uniformly told people to cross the road by the trail underpass. I did this arriving at control 6 (which was a common control 6/10/17) as it was the obvious path. Leaving the same control going from 10 to 11, I needed to cross the N-S railway tracks but this was now harder because of the train parked on them. So I ran S expecting their to be a tunnel under the tracks but there was not. I ran along the gravel bed for a bit and got trapped behind the pile of rail ties. Climbed them and went back to 10 deciding the only way to go was next to the road but 5 min had been lost. Coming back the train was gone so I could go to 17 across the tracks and finished the race with only minor incidents. George was confused but decided much quicker that the only crossing was the bridge and he used it twice. My frustration was the lack of clarity about what was in bounds. I grumbled when I got home to Aragorn, went to sleep and then talked about the race with Brenda. At that point, she noticed that the clue sheet said how to get to 6 (use the underpass) and to use the road bridge to 11 and 17, both as text statements at the place in the clue sheet where it would be needed. I never saw these during the race, after the race, or talking to George or Aidan after the race; I hadn't read them because I had no expectation they might be there. These text directions assumed that this is how a clue sheet was to be used, maybe that the sheet would be reviewed before the race. If there is a special symbol, then I am looking for the text descriptor but that is the only place. Meet notes with special hazards and instructions should be given before the race. I had got informal and not wholly accurate instructions from the guy in the parking lot but was unprepared, chose badly, and then had the second half of the race to let my humor percolate. Sigh.