Training Log Archive: AliC

Wahoo! Officially had a *blast* mountain biking with Barbara at Island Lake. Ok, it was definitely muddy. But that meant the challenge was kinda more getting through the muddy spots rather than going at speeds that freaked me out on downhills, so that's ok by me =).

And, mountain biking would appear to be a way better workout than road biking. Road biking I always have issues getting my HR high at all. I guess MBing uses more of body?

Rest of Easter was really lovely, with amazingly delicious food hanging out with Barbara and family and friends!

C • HR 12

A warm up, which just happened to take me to a kame (glaically-deposited hill) on the West side of Lake Genevieve (a kettle lake). Steep little hill with a nice view of the lake from the top.

And I finished my taxes, so I was allowed to go orienteering! =)

Training at Lyndon Park with some other members of the keen SMOC crowd. It's a new map Igor is working on. Parts are a bit thick, ok, really quite thick, but it's fair and not truly impenertrable. A question- will leaves out on the raspberries make them better or worse for getting through? Maybe the leaves will deflect some of the thorns from grabbing in? But the leaves also make it all just a bunch less visible, harder to aim to step right on the suckers to avoid getting caught... hm.

QuickRoute
Felt rusty to 1 and 2, which shows, didn't read the contours sensibly to #1 and then didn't compass right to #2, no reason to not go straight on the line to it. The rest went pretty well, some hesitations that I should work on working out...

C • Raspberries are fine, it's ... 2

Rested for a bit and grabbed some water and contemplated whether I wanted to battle the brambles again and decided that yeah, I getter get my butt back out there and rack up a smidge more training before the Pig! So did the closer set of controls backwards.

QuickRoute

And puttered around on the trails a bit, just exploring the park. Up another little hill with another good view. Then to a dock out into the lake. A park sign explained that a peat bog is forming on the W side of the lake, acid-loving plants and all that. A cool well-documented little park!

I was super-relieved to wake up to an email that one of the running guys had turned in keys to mall security and even more relieved when I called mall security at 10am and they had them, phew!! So I charged back down to Fallen Timbers Mall, picked them up from nice security people and then swung by Fort Meigs for some hill repeats, cause Maumee's kinda on the way home...

Parking lot was full of trucks and the river was full of dudes fishing. Saw some emerging in their waders with decent-sized fish over the course of the hour.

Ankle plyos

And, hill repeats! From Maumee River to the top of the bank the hill is on. Did 5 x hill, then a loop, then continuous up and down for 6.5 minutes. Legs felt a wee bit tired on the downs.

Really nice to run entirely off road on nice spongy grass!

And fail #133 (or so) of being a responsible adult.

I scooted down to Perrysburg after work to join Dave's group run, which was great. I ran with Jeff and Amy at a good pace for 6 miles. They're both local track coaches, so some chat of that amongst other things. Then we went to the pub after and then joined up with some astros in Toledo center after that. So 11.30 before I get home and I have no house keys.... panic panic panic.

Except, fail #132 of being a responsible adult was not even locking my back door this morning, so didn't have to sleep on my officemate neighbor's couch... But I didn't sleep that well even in my own bed, too panic-ed about the keys!

C • glad you found them!! Yep... 1

Warm-up a long way over to the track.

Normal running drills. Track totally empty.

First track session of the season! Time to try to get the legs up-to-speed! Did 800 hard, 200 roll-on, 600 hard, 200 roll-on x 2, with 600m recovery between the two.

Times were:
2:45, 2:00, 80
2:46, 2:03, 78

I started out meaning to do a 3rd, but this seemed like enough for today, will see how the body copes with this for starters!

Woke up to snow and it just kept snowing all day! Not much accumulation and was only semi-frozen precip when I headed over to the gym.

Some ankle flamingoes while waiting for zumba to start!

Yeehaw, back to Zumba after a good long absence! Some new routines, one was a bit tricky on the footwork... but fun times, today's was a pretty small class.

Core 15. The astro boys showed up, but I'm apparently scary because they went over to the corner of the room furthest away from me.

Bishop Lake

White Course/Yellow Course/Orange Course streamering and testing, joined by Barbara! I did them as real courses instead of all-controlling it so I could see if all the trail junctions and such would make sense from the way I intended folks to come from. White is ok, I think. Yellow and Orange need some work + lengthening... Plus I found a bonus indistinct trail that's in a helpful for course-planning place. And a rockpile that is maybe similar to other mapped rock piles. Or maybe it's just sub-mappable, unsure.

Afterwards, Barbara fed me scrumptious pot roast and brownies and let me shower at hers before heading out to a salsa lesson in Farmington- my first in this territory! Was amazingly like Amherst: at an American Legion hall, lesson first, then dancing and very friendly people. Yay! Intermediate lesson was the right level, learned a good combo that I kinda had the hang of by the end. (Basic, cross-body with inner spin, leader right-turn, follower right-turn (or double), leader half turn, break to copa, leader spins into hammerlock, break back and then 'around the world'.) But my left toe wasn't too happy about dancing. More icing and ibuprofen for it, I guess continually...

C • Please send me all the corr... 2

C • 20:00/km 29

Judged science fair posters for Northwest Ohio this morning. Half of my six 7th graders did experiments involving freezing/boiling sports equipment and seeing what happened - baseball speed vs. temp, hockey puck distance vs. temp and golf ball bounce vs. temp. Hockey puck had the most solid results. Don't play hockey with a hot hockey puck...

C • Don't play hockey with a hot hockey puck... 5

Maybury State Park

Yeehaw, first o-training of the season! Met up with work4Justice and we went around mostly together, doing Igor's streamered course backwards. I seriously tripped up being on a trail instead of the road from 11 -> 10, others were largely ok, but wow is it thick in some places! Need to up the tough meter for sure for foot o-season -less stuff hits you in ski-o!

Start -> 11: a bit inefficient because I read the contours badly/didn't listen to my compass, so I bailed to the trail too early when I should have cut straight to the control.
11 -> 10: I had wanted to do it ignoring the road, but then I got caught against a fence, so ended up on a trail and decided that was the road. Relocated on the giant marsh/pond and then headed up hill to the control, although still not smooth, Barbara helped by indicating that no, the little clearing with an earth drop-off on one side wasn't the nice big yellow open...
10 -> 9: We got separated heading into 10, but found each other in the big yellow open and continued on. 9 was much easier with the trails on the map I think =)
9 -> 8: Probably should have gone around on the right. Came through trail on the left and momentarily confused by trail junction at the bottom. But the trails are clearly not 100% done, so I should have just gone on contours!
8 -> 7 Cut cut cut, again thought the big unmapped trail was the road for a bit (c'mon, get it through your head!!), but continued on as I should have, then made sense of things when I actually hit the road. Then time to plunge into the green... quickly learned that the bike paths are the way forward, even if wiggly and ended up nicely at the reentrant that led me to 7.
7 -> 6 Fighting through veg. Found it slightly clearer higher up so hit the trail right of the control and then pegged it down to its depression.
6 -> 5 Ha, finally used an unmapped trail for good, to cruise on the N side of the hill under the line.
5 -> 4 Weee! Met Barbara at 5 and then said I was really going to go for it the next controls in. This leg was great fun. =)
4 -> 3 Trhough the marsh, really should have stayed in it longer, was perfectly nice running. Tried to come at 3 from the road bend. And it pretty much worked, except I wanted 3 to be at the bottom of the form-line reentrant, but it was to it's NE edge, so took me awhile to find, including one loop back to the nearby trail to be firmly located.
3 -> 2 Fun, some openish meadow-like sections and then an old foundation out of nowhere right by the control.
2 -> 1 Using the trail mostly, a nice depression =)
1 -> Finish. Spiked it going through the woods. Oh yeah =)

Great to have a training partner and also just to start getting back into the woods! Only 2 weeks until an A-meet, yikes-a-roni!

C • Yeah, that map needs some w... 1

C • That was awesome 2

Garmin isn't uploading, I hit the garmin upload link, the little 'Data Import' window appears, but nothing on it. Tried different browsers (Safari, Firefox), restarting my computer and soft resetting the Garmin. Anyone have any ideas of what to try next?

C • Garmin 8

TED talks on water in Qatar (desalination, currently powered by oil, hopefully in the near future by solar), biohacking centers and meditation.

Ankle plyos! Just a single set to get body back used to them.

2 x 10 min tempo, mostly in Wildwood, a bit on the bikepath way out/back. A gorgeous afternoon!

Back in Toledo! Red eye from LA only took 3.40h flight time! (Good tailwind, but also it's just not that long of a flight.) So nabbed some further sleep upon arrival home =)

Wanted to break up all the running, so a rollerski out and around Wildwood. Mixing up 10 min of no-poles with 10 min of normal. It was cold and snowed on me, hard adjustment from warm Pasadena mornings...

Eep! Didn't wake up to alarm at 5am, so had less time to finish my stats project (more on that later - found the opposite of what I expected!) and then go for a mini-run before the last day of the conference.

So out California then arroyo hill intervals, just coming in and out of the valley. Each was about 30s, did 8.

Little morning toodle out to the Arroyo again, this time towards the Rose Bowl. But it was boring once I got close to it, tons of parking lots instead of a cool little trail amongst trees and such. It really is nice running on the trail!

Wahoo! Finally found some trail running in Pasadena! Went West on California until I hit Arroyo Seco and lo and behold, there was a trail down into it and then a trail along the bottom! Awesome. Although it is smoggy, breathing was kinda hard.

Did some fartleky type stuff up any hill I found. Nice to have hills =)

C • Mt Wilson Toll Road 2

Had a wonderfully lazy morning, staying in PJs and Kazakh slippers until I kicked myself out of the house to run mid-afternoon. Didn't wear quite enough layers, so was chilly... then time to pack for Pasadena!

And registered for West Point! (Blue Blue Red Blue) Was hoping to make it out for the previous weekend for the Billygoat too, but as I'm actually taking a class here at UToledo this term kinda cramps that plan... will have to try to regain the goat another year!

Um, yup, went rollerskiing. Because I think just 100% switching to running wouldn't be wise. So just a putter around the neighborhood, as always, searching out the 'hills'...

Happy Pi Day race!

Actually was called "The Race for Pi" put on by a running group that calls themselves "The Nerd Herd". They even have special t-shirts and everything, obviously legit. =)

So the race was 3.14 miles, starting at 6.28 pm, and the cost was also some multiple of pi, depending on when you registered. Cute. It basically went around a built-up retail area (shoping mall stores, but more strip-mall layout), so not most fascinating of terrain, but ok, it's a road race.

Started out in my plaid shirt, but without the issued nerd glasses, because I was worried they might fall off. Two speedy guys took straight off, totally not my pace. But then another guy was almost exactly my pace, awesome. Stuck right on his shoulder for the first two miles (very helpful into the wind!), but then he pulled a last mile about 10s faster than me, just creeping away.

Most exciting, at the 5k mark, I was under 18 minutes (17.57)! I didn't manage sub-18 at all last fall, so I'm very happy to be back there. Go ski training! =)

Also, many pie choices at the finish- chocolate peanut butter (nix), key lime, cherry, apple, lemon meringue. I went for a big honking slice of apple. Mmmmm.

C • Recruiting potential 7

C • Math Fame! 2

A little write-up of ski-WOC that I wrote was published here at the NordicSkiRacer website. It's geared towards the skiing crowd here in Southern Michigan that I've gotten to know this winter, hopefully explaining the orienteering stuff side enough while still making its sound like a cool, fun sport!

C • Nice article 8

And finally made my way down to join a group run down at Fallen Timbers Mall. I couldn't find where they were meeting, but then spied a group of runners, so quickly parked, scampered out of my car and caught up with them. Met Jon and Ed and a few others, but it was a chilly, windy run! Really should have had warmer gloves...

Hammies, 10s. Time to get back to these!

Just a little trot around the neighborhood upon returning home. Needed far fewer clothes than the last run in Lesnoye!

Trip home was long, but thankfully no problems, very happy to have had teammate travel companions for the most of it! Also watched Silver Linings Playbook on the last flight and read a bunch of the Game of Thrones book Adrian gave me (break from Les Mis for a bit I guess... I'm now 60% through it...)

A little morning joggeroo with the crew except for Anna. The plan to leave at 9am of course got changed overnight (this is just how things have been rolling here), so we were woken at 6am to be told to be ready by 8. So quick plan-change, but still wanted to squeak in a little run to start the mega-journey. Nice to do! Good bye Lesnoye!

And mini-warmup, due to last-minute waxing times! Snowing kinda hard, but I decided to go sans glasses because mine are kinda dark.

Ski WOC Long @ Lesnoye

17th place, which certainly wasn't what I was hoping, but 6 minutes back from the win isn't bad. I was totally in it after the first lap, coming in 6th, not too far behind the leaders. Then two mistakes on the second lap really took me out of it. The first was utterly stupid/careless, not taking the right exit off a big trail and coming out confusedly on another big trail, and then having to back track. At least a minute? Then on the hillside of spaghetti, I went to #59 instead of #60 on my second loop, another 30s at least, maybe more. Boo.

But the conditions today were pretty awesome, allowing for cuts through the woods anywhere the woods were open enough. It was certainly a blast to be out there racing!

----

Long Analysis (woo internet in Almaty airport!):

Start - A good start for me! Got map in, found start, knew where to head at least initially and also got my butt of the line along with all the other women on the first line - success!
1 - 16s down to Audhild, 14 to Josephine. Fine route, and not distracted by others going different ways, just a bit slower than the two of them. I could tell by the paucity of tracks on the way that I was one of the first to the control.
2 - A march up the hill. I could see Audhild and Josephine choose different routes, I saw both options, opted for Josephine's. Audhild's route might have been better, she was 5.51 to Josephine's 5.56 to my 6.06. But that's pretty tight actually on a long leg, not so bad.
3 - Ouch! 33s down to Josephine here. How'd that happen? Wrong route choice, a lower version that both Josephine and Kozlova took was faster, according to tracking.
4 - About 12s back to fastest, but not route choice problems.
5 - About 17s back, chasing down the Finn who ended up winning, Mervi Pesu and pressed from the back from other women. In decent contact across the hillside, a few cuts.
6 - About 30s back, more cutting across the hillside. 30s is getting to be a fair bit- just not as good keeping track on the spaghetti as the more practiced women, I guess.
7 - Boo! Totally passed on the downhill! Olsson took a great cut, I remember looking to do that, but didn't quite have the guts. Should have just gone more straight for the big yellow open! 20 seconds, just on a downhill, argh!
8 - Now trailing behind a few other girls (Ullveson, Grigorova), but at least this time stayed enough in contact and made it to my control. 25s down to Olga Novikova though, I can ski as fast as her, so must have been at least my timidness as I approached the circle, having let my pack go some other direction.
9 - 20s down, hm, not too much wrong here, maybe slight timidness so not to die down one steep downhill cut. Oh, actually, I do think I almost took a wrong turn, then fixed.
10 - Heading to 10, I could see Tove's distinctive ponytail in front of me by maybe 50m on a straight trail. Ok, not so bad I thought, and tried to aggressively double pole. Only about 5s back from winner on this leg, good stuff!!
11 - First time through the spectator control. I made a good little cut just to get out to the big trail, but still 9s back from the very fastest split on this leg, but I think she had a visual someone to chase down (Hana H.), so I think that probably helped her.
12 - Well, when I got to the map board not too many maps had been taken - woo, should be doing well then. Ok, time to go! But then I just spaced out on the big trail, went too far around the bend and jumped on what I thought was the right little trail, but it just dumped me on another big trail- not the answer... took a peek at my map, figured out what I'd done, heart sunk a bit, because I knew it would be a mistake that would matter, but back to it. Now looking at the map, I could have tried a cut on an open yellow area, but I didn't think quick enough to make that happen. A full minute lost, very frustrating that it was on something that should have been so easy!!
13 - Right up with the top ladies on this one, and uphill leg with big trail skiing.
14 - Kozlova gained 20s on me on this leg, I exited poorly from the control instead of heading out from 13 on the little trail, think that's where most of the time must have come from.
15 - I had chased down Novikova and Ulleveson, so this was following in our little pack straight to the control, a good time.
16 - Back to the equipment control, also easy, perfectly fine time.
17 - I had a bit of a different (low) route choice, but converged with the rest of the pack, a good split time again.
18 - And cross the spaghetti hillside, part 2. Except I was trailing off the pack and not comfy about where we were, which was basically just cutting, cutting and more cutting. We found ourselves at the gully, the Bulgarian took her skis off and threw herself in, the rest of us went up and around, turned out about equal time-wise. Olsson did it about 20s faster, but that's not a huge deal for a long leg.
19 - Downhill again. This time in a pack and with more confidence as it was the same exact control (forking much...).
20 - Ug, major fail. This was worse time-wise than my earlier silly mistake. And it was partly because I thought that it was the same control as the first lap because it was basically in the same place, so I kind of went with the same plan, but then the code didn't match. Argh!! So that made me lose the pack I'd been skiing with along with a full 1:15. Boo!
21 - Ok, back to a common control, remembered it from last time. A good split.
22 - Working hard, being mad at messing up, trying to chase down the little Russian Mariya who was in my sights, a good split time.
23 - Specator control again. Decent time out to it, but 10s back compared to the Finn Mervi, and it's a pretty short leg, so still time to be found.
24 - Very slightly wrong route choice, but I hesitated at one point too, 20s back.
25 - Oooh, feeling tired. And I thought briefly about route choices, particularly because I didn't feel like booking it up the huge hill again, but eh, still nothing stood out as an awesome option. But I think Kravchenko's route crossing over on little trails probably helped her gain the 20s on me. Hana H. was also pretty much even with me on that split and I'm pretty sure I'm skiing faster than her these days. So a route choice fail, even if not huge.
26 - Wow, watching the tracking, the way to win this split was to be Olsson and go for a cut from the big trail. Gutsy, but faster than my route by a full 40s or so. And there was probably a slightly better route than mine, a further down little trail to come into the control on.
27 - Respectable, given that I was skiing alone, 12s down to girls that were probably chasing each other.
28 - Ooh, again down, probably just on girls who were actively chasing each other.
Finish - Not an awesome finish split, annoyed at myself actually, should be faster than that, even without anyone in sight!

Good to have gone over this leg-by-leg for sure. The two mistakes were of course bad, but then there were also a few route-choice surprises that I hadn't even guessed had lost me time, so good to see those. Should go over all the tracking from Europe champs this year, and just test my intuition about route choice. Of course the snow conditions matter, but hopefully will still be a helpful exercise...

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How to get better for the future is on my mind since I didn't quite meet my goals for this ski-WOC. (Not really upset or anything, but do just want to get better!) Initial thoughts:
- Do more pushups (I kinda failed at doing these after a bout of shoulder arthritis around Christmas, but my pecs, which pushups totally get have been *really* sore this week, a sign I really should have done more!!)
- Do more awkward skate, even if on rollerskis. Because this has to be second nature, can't expend neurons on it.
- Get to more European ski-os, or US ski-os with narrow tracks. That is totally the toughest part to adjust to in these races, gotta get the brain trained on this stuff. Also thinking more in terms of left-right-left type instructions while map reading while rollerskiing/skiing. Also thinking about where cuts could go. Also just route choicing while in oxygen debt. Hm... this list now sounds like the kitchen sink....

C • Narrow tracks 6

Fluoro top-coat testing, Toko Blue vs. SkiGo 55/99 liquid. Squeaky-cold snow, neither was fast, but the liquid maybe was a bit faster. Shocking to breathe cold air after the past few days!

Got to the stadium in time to cheer Alex off the start - only 8 women, not the fiercest of starts then spectated chilling in the sun with Greg for a bit. Cool to see the US dot, even on a blank white screen, you can at least tell the order although it's really hard to tell if it's different route choices or different forkings.

When Alex handed off to Anna, I started my warm-up, scampering around the stadium.

And Relay Times! Alex (with broken ski episode, see her log) had come in 6th, Anna fought hard, but had both Norway and Kazakhstan pass her, so I went out in 8th, with a 5.5 minute gap. The Kazakhstan last leg (Olga Novikova) is fast, so I knew that she'd have to have a very poor race for me to catch her. So I went out racing, but not giving the 110% I would have in a closer race. (If the long weren't tomorrow, I totally would have, obviously.)

Anyways, a solid race, 9th place split out of the 24 women racing. Of course, you never know with forkings and such if the legs are actually equivalent. I'm going to try to actually write up how it all happened:

Map grab - Fail. Went to the map board, took my map and the guy there took it back from me. What? It was the only women's map left! What did I do wrong? After a second or two, he gave it back to me. Ok, then, I'll go ski... but they used the thick paper and I couldn't stamp my snap through the paper. Eventually got it after the first control, using two hands. At least I know I need two-handed strength for that paper for tomorrow's mass start...

1 - Slight debate - around on big trails, or sneak through on little ones more diagnol? Opted for latter and it went well, did my left-rights correctly.
2 - First small mistake, got quickly out to the big trail and started skiing left instead of right. Realized quickly, but silly mistake (I think I was thinking 'uphill' which was the general flavor of the leg, but just not that turn.) The a good climb on the big trail before some little trail left-righting in from the big trail corner.
3 - Descent on little trails, simplified well.
4 - Ah, ok, there is only one way across the stream, go for that. Trying to be speedy and also stay on my feet on awkward groomed stuff. Ran into 4 before I expected to, I missed a turn early on.
5 - Not perfect route choice and I got ahead of myself at the beginning somehow. I caught myself on the house with a fence early on the leg and that meant I was committed to the upper route-choice. Did some cutting when it seemed a good idea.
6 - Wee! Downhill, but holy moly a little icy! Had the whole little leg in my head and executed perfectly, whoop!
7 - I cut out to the big meadow from 6, which was nice and then this leg was just a no-option cruise on a small big trail. I tried to read ahead, but it was hard because the trail was so bumbly, almost fell twice when I was reading.
8 - Not much of an option either, big trails until it was time to cut in, which I did well.
9 - Spectator control numero uno, I exited 8 just fine on the little trails without excess map reading at least.
10 - Through the stadium.
11 - Didn't commit to a plan early, but used the little big trail until last moment (it became just chewed up ice at one point) then right-right-left-right to the control.
12 - Hm, could I cut more directly to the control on the farside of the double big trail? Tough to say, there's a reentrant there and those are flooded... hm. I'll go with safer option of over the top on big trails. Fine.
13 - Down from 12, did one cut out to the big trail, then around on it a bit and back in, which was left-right and then I thought I should see the control, because woods are generally open, but it was tucked behind some pines and I missed my left right to it. Quickly realized, but second real mistake of the race.
14 - Spectator control numero uno again, before finishing.

Happy with the race, and despite our last-place finish, I think we did well. We were 8th last year too, with the same first 6 teams and then Lithuania instead of this year's Kazakhstan (who didn't have 3 women last year). But in percent back, we were definitely closer, so closing on in that 6th place... =)


think my technique is getting a bit better. Hope it's enough up to snuff for tomorrow!! Kinda nervous =)

C • Mapholder mod. 6

Wahoo! Sunny times + music in the ski stadium. Gotta love it. =) Changed a bit, then did some cool down laps while hearing about the unfolding men's race. A perfect day for ski racing!

Stayed out to watch our guys pull it ahead of Germany - Scott raced against their fastest on Leg 1, and came down a few minutes, Greg pulled 2.25 minutes back on them and Adrian had already covered the last 1.5 minutes to catch them by the spectator control. Wahoo!

Little morning joggeroo mostly with Alex a-chattin away, although Greg and Scott were also out at the same time. Very much happy about the rest day, my arms and upper chest muscles are sore, sore, sore! Especially the right tricpe, hope it recovers for the relay...

And out into the rain for a bit of a spin before the race. Pretty sopping just by the end of it. Sore from yesterday, pecs + right tricep not really loving being used, but made sure to warm them up well!

World Champs Sprint-Relay @ Lesnoye

Ok, well the sprint relay as a whole was ruined because I mispunched on my second leg. Not cool. I've never DQ'ed a relay before and it feels pretty terrible. But we'll get to that in the second leg.

This was the first leg, with all the chaos! The map paper was thicker today which was way better, so despite some sogginess it was possible to get into the map holder without it bending and sticking to itself and thus becoming unreadable. My map was even fully secure in my map holder before start was called! But then I was still kind of looking at it and everyone else went off like the devil, gotta remember that part still matters...

But I knew where I was going and quickly became apparent that Finland, Norway and Estonia were heading the same way, just a bit ahead. So to the first control smoothly, holding on the pack to the second control. Almost to the control I wiped out from a bit of soft snow, taking out the Estonian girl who I'd passed. Got up from the crumple, ahead of her, but having lost Finland and Norway. She scooted ahead on a slightly better route choice and I was following her, trying to catch up and get ahead through 6, after which we had a different forking. But I wiped out *again* on the way to my 7, this time taking out both Tove and the Bulgarian woman who had done the long leg first and hence were in the second half of the course at the same time. Whoopsie. Not feeling like I had any right to be fiesty after taking them out I let them start first and followed, but I think took a different route choice or had a different last set of controls because I was behind in the finish.

Not a great leg with the two falls... I think both happened because the snow under my ski collapsed. (The snow is basically melting underfoot and has been for 2 days now, not a great day to be a bigger, heavier skier.)

Sprint Relay 3rd leg

Started maybe a minute after the Czech team, rarin to try to get some of that time back. And kinda happy to get to cruise on my own after the falls + subsequent collisions of the first leg. Got to #1 out in the field perfectly fine and I hope pretty fast, and #2, but then #3 was the mispunch. I started heading to #3 using little trails, despite having a perhaps ok big trail option on the outside. I think I've been too scared of little trails recently as the big trails just aren't that fast. So I was going mostly ok, crossed the big trail a-ok, but then I think I took a left instead of a 'straight' which was the plan (was more of a right than a 'straight') and was in the maze without exact direction. But then I saw a control at least in the direction I thought it should be, so went there, I think I did a quick number check, but now can't be sure (33 vs. 53) and then took on off.... Argh!!!! Major boo. Need to practice reading numbers upside down, backwards, tilted, under rain....

From there, was pretty smooth and I was psyched to see the Czech girl, totally within a minute right before punching my second to last control, musta done some catching. (But legs were different, so really can't be too sure.)

C • shit happens 8

Sprint Relay 5th leg

Oh, and this was the long one. =) Nabbed the first two in the low zone a-ok (slight misgivings when I went back to the control I'd already been to). Then it was time to climb on the little trails. Not sure if I made the right route choice to #3, went on the right, maybe better to go to the left? Then #4 was more climbing, right tricep wasn't super happy... #5 another choice, I reversed, I think is ok. #6 was the common control, came at it from the top this time, with the winning man, Peter Arnesson coming at me, eep! (I think someone was following him with a head cam on... )

#7 went smoothly, we'd been through that section many times by now, but to #8 I might have gone a bit too far on the right route choice. So this leg finally wasn't a disaster, but I don't think I was that quick on those little-trail uphills!!

Loops just to stay warm in the stadium, being layered with clothing from helpful teammates while Scott was out there battling with his courses!!

A few laps cool-down, which was pretty literal. So cold when you're soaked to the bone!! And finished with cheering Scott into the finish! Sprint relays are pretty darn cool!

C • Comet PANSTARRS 2

Little warm-up around the stadium after staying in my nice dry warm room until about as late as possible. Actually in a nice little dry spell (still windy though). Some stops to de-layer as I really overdressed, expecting torrential rain.

Extreme ski-o Middle Distance World Champs @ Lesnoye

Middle distance races don't have a great track record at ski-WOCs.... two years ago was epic blizzard in Tanndalen (disappearing tracks). This year we woke up to pouring rain and crazy gusty wind. So crazy that as Alex and I were standing in my rooms entry way, a gust came, blew my room's outer door open, which forced the inner door to slam shut, shattering the pane of glass in its upper half in the process. Eep! (This was about 2 feet away from our heads.) The effect of the wind in the woods, was as you might expect, a ton of trees down. Greg apparently had one fall only 20 feet away, I didn't see any fall, but I had one that shut down a route choice and several that had to be scampered over/around. So an adventure!

In any case, I had a very good race ending up in 12th place! Not yet rivaling two year's ago 8th, but the long is still to come... And I do have to admit that today's result was at least partly helped by being passed by the Russian gal who came in 4th place at control #4 (my two-minute back woman...). It was probably so early on because of an extra 1.15 of goofmuppeting to #2 (totally lost contact, ok, that's too fast then!).

I pulled ahead of Mariya to 5, but then missed a turn and ended up following her. To #6, she put a bit of a lead on me. I took a slightly different route to #7, but it wasn't enough to put me ahead. I pulled in tighter from #7, and took off towards #8 pretty close behind her. We were stymied by a tree in the way, but found another little-track way to #8, then through the stadium to the spectator control #9, not far behind her. To #10, she took the identical route I wanted to, so right behind her, then I wanted a different way in the beginning to #11, but again, it didn't help, fell in on the big trail right behind her. Then I took a bad route choice downhill to #12, being too much of a wimp to use the little trails which were more direct. (There were also 2 trees in the way on the big trail route, didn't help.) Anyways, I think she got significantly ahead on that one and I never saw her again.

The best part of having Mariya in my sights was to see how someone faster than me ski-orienteers. To my surprise, her method was to completely stop at controls and plan her route to the next one. Whoa! But then she wasn't making route choice mistakes because of those few extra seconds, and it seemed like she was able to commit a good deal of the route to her head, and maybe only take small looks thereafter... it doesn't seem a particularly smooth way of orienteering, but just maybe it's speedier... At the beginning she was faster, especially on the little trail up-hills than I was, less so towards the end.

I was the first woman from a nation outside of the “Big 4” of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. Actually, I beat all the Norwegians, but the whole Russian and Finnish teams beat me, so still far to go...

C • stopping to plan 15

And a cool down, in the absolutely pouring rain. Saw Adrian and Scott come in, and heard my name and time announced a few times until I was booted out of the top 10! =)

Ski-WOC Sprint @ Lesnoye

Well, I was happy with my race *until* the point I heard that I was in 6th place having started with 16 of the fastest women still behind me... So I ended up in 21st, 2 minutes back from Tove who repeated her sprint win from last year.

The good thing was that I did race clean, always knew where I was and where I was going next. So the problem was that I wasn't going fast enough. Well, route choice may also be a part of it, at least twice I found myself taking a route that not many of the women in front of me had chosen, so the splits will tell if those were poor route choices or not.

I guess for the future races, I need to think a little bit more about pushing it out there. I can't push it too much, or I'll get lost, but I probably can speed up a bit. I think the other races will also give more of a chance for my strong skiing to shine through, today's flat, short and technical course didn't really challenge that much.

A solidly ok race, but definitely hoping for better in the next few days!!


-----------Analysis-------------
Route choices were not terrible, maybe 10s to the first control, possibly 10 to #6 and then a few to #11 by not going straight. Where I went is red, where it would have been better to go in indigo.




The splits show I was just steadily losing time each leg other than these minor wrong routes. So yep, gotta try to bring the speed!

C • Thanks 9

Warm-up, doing loop-d-loops in the playground field. The morning was made interesting by the arrival of.... snow! Which was much awesomer than the expected rain, but did mean the teams staying in 'neighboring' Sinegorye had a 1.5h drive instead of a 0.5h drive, so 1h delayed start. The event organizer promises she has ordered snow plowing for tomorrow.

Post-race cool down in the stadium, mostly a-chattering with Alex.

Rest of today: Get all of us through the waxing room with snazzy-fast skis for tomorrow, then the opening ceremony down in Ridder (hope the bus has no problems!). After that I'll stick around for the team leaders meeting where we'll get the startlist (hopefully both Alex and I in the Red Group!) and info about exactly how tomorrow's sprint will work, woo!!

Ski/wax testing. A clear decision on fluoros round 1, less so on round 2. As for ski grinds, I thought the CV0 (blue grind) was faster than my purple grind initially, but then less sure and a glide-out test showed no repeatable difference. Then testing the purple grind with a rill seemed a bit looser (faster) than without it, so long as conditions are about the same tomorrow, will go with that.

Big question of the eve: will it freeze overnight? Different weather sites have different predictions....

Ski-o Model at Lesnoye

Exploring the little-trail ski-o network. Learned: earth banks might eat you and even just normal uphills when you need more force out of your poles, they are liable to sink in pretty darn far... a good sign is if there are already deep holes around. Punches are solidly against trees which is nice, with flags hung on wires high above the trails.

C • I look forward 7

And a whirl around the big trails we were allowed on - up up up hill! Is good to have these big trails, because going up on the little ones will just not be effective, given their state. There are a few fewer big trails out there than on the previous map, given spying on either side of the trail (legal).

It mega-rained this afternoon, changing to a bit of snow right before dinner. What will the wax be? Who knows, but we will scheme to find it!

Tomorrow is the model, where we actually get to ski around tracks here at Lesnoye where all the races will be. It'll also be the time we test skis, ski structures and wax. Hopefully the conditions will emulate race-day Tuesday at least to some degree, but we'll just have to use Alex's wax-sleuthing smarts in case not...

C • Thanks writing about all of... 2

Warm up loop around the outer edge. Slow suction-y snow...

Alex-designed ski-o o-tervals! Great to do these, getting our ski-o feet wet at higher speeds. I cruised through them pretty well, I think came to two full stops, both times due to criss-crossing lines. Oh, and then once was heading to the wrong number 2 for a bit.

Would have been harder on fast snow, but still very good to get into the right mind!

A little break, just skiing, lots of folks out and about!

And skiing my own o-tervals, just easy, but I lost focus and got real lost almost from the beginning, bah! Suppose a good lesson in relocation and such...

Scampering quickly back to the bus, but oh, it was going to take a bonus 30 min anyways, ah well! Got a good stretch in and had team chattime!

Also, we found out from Markku at dinner that the place we are staying is basically the Soviet Ski Academy for cross-country skiing. Neat! Where Vladimir Smirnov trained when he was a lad... It used to be full to the brim in those days, which maybe would be ~200 students? It's a big building. Now there are 35 students or so.

C • Cool! 3

Woo! The five of us made it to ski-WOC location at Lesnoye Sports School late last night (10.30pm or so) and Anna is on her way!

After sleeping amazingly well, we breakfasted (rice pudding with butter, mmmm), were marched around to find the wax room and stadium where we'll finish, and then went out for a group joggeroo down the road to get the legs a-moving!

C • GPS 4

Woo! First ski-o training here! We drove over to Sinegorje in a sauna-like van, obtained maps and headed out to play. Great network of little sprint trails and solid snow so not boggy. Good to get out ski-o-ing.

I did a few pick-up like things, trying to use good ski-o techniques to move fast on the little trails. A little practice of quick 180 degree changes of direction too (we're using standard SI, not touch-free, so this is important). I felt a bit non-expert out there, as I haven't been on narrow trails much.

Other thing, is it was hard to know when to change the map orientation, I think I usually only change it at the beginning of each leg, and then brain just keeps track of the winding, unlike foot-o. (Having it change orientation fewer times is worth it, else you have to look entirely different places on map holder every time you turn a corner.) Today we didn't have any controls on our maps, so made my normal approach tough!

C • map turning 2

Arrived in Almaty safe and sound with the crew (all of us sans Anna), one last little flight will land is in Oskemen mid-afternoon!

C • Yeah! Is Anna arriving la... 3

Prancing around with Alex (and a bit by Adrian) outside the UKK airport, while waiting for a ride to the pizza place. After oodles of sitting, some leg-stretching was just necessary!!

Joggering around, amusing the smokers/bus waiters.