Training Log Archive: neon

Second day of the Canadian Nationals. I felt a lot better about today's course, even though I made a huge, 30 minute mistake on one control. I still thought I navigated and chose routes better than in yesterday's sprint.

The first nine controls were in this complex, fairly intricate area of reentrants, spurs, hilltops, and depressions, and I did best in this terrain. I felt really good on most of the controls, except I did make a five-minute mistake on number 4 where I ended up finding 9 instead of 4 by accident, but that was quickly resolved. So I guess I did well in the complex area!

But I pretty much failed on the long leg, which took us into this vague, marshy area which was pretty flat and had lots of streams and rivers crisscrossing everywhere. I suddenly realized the features were not matching up with the map about halfway in, and then proceeded to get myself even more lost. Even when I finally reoriented myself, my eventual attack into the control was clumsily executed and I bobbled it.

I think my mistake on this course was getting too used to and confident with the complex terrain on the first half of the course, and then being taken by surprise with the transition into a different area. I should have been more careful when I saw that the area I was going into was not at all like the area I had just come from. Another, secondary problem was not bailing out quickly enough. I should have just gone back to the trail where I attacked from, but I just kept going further, figuring that things would start making sense if I got closer.

Middle Course 8 - Splits

First day of the Canadian Nationals! This was the sprint, held on the campus of McMaster University in Ontario. I have a lot of trouble with sprints (you'll see if you look at the winning time for girls on this course, which was about 17 minutes, ouch) and this one was no exception. I ran out of the start triangle to control 1 just fine and had no trouble finding it, but then I tried running to control 2 and just completely lost my head. For some reason I couldn't figure out how the map translated to reality. I spent 8 minutes running back and forth over the same spots trying really, really hard to remember how to orienteer! Things clicked for me eventually (after 8 minutes) and I understood where I was and where I was supposed to be going. After I found 2, I more or less got back on track and my mind started working again, although I was pretty slow and hesitant throughout the entire course, probably because I didn't want a repeat of that horrible experience in the beginning.

Looking back on why that happened, I think I just panicked. I was really excited running out of the start triangle, but then because I got the slightest bit confused on number 2 I just completely freaked out and thought about all the orienteers running by who looked like they knew what they were doing and how my competition probably would have moved on halfway through the course by now. I also kept getting distracted by people turning in different directions going to other controls so I (totally illogically, I know) went to these other controls in the area because I thought they might be mine. When this sort of thing happens I just need to calm down, stop for a second, and focus on the map. It really helped me just to take a breath and ignore everyone else for a second, because then I actually understood what the map was telling me.

I looked at the map again and all my controls were really very easy. I just got trapped in my own nervousness of telling myself how I needed to move on, start thinking, because every second in a sprint counts so much. If I had stopped myself from thinking like that earlier and just focused, I wouldn't have made such a huge mistake on number 2.

Sprint Course 4b - Splits

Rock climbing at Lindseth. I went to go club afterwards because I was nearby and there were maybe three people there because everyone else was studying for prelims (like I should have been) :(

Plantations loop.