Training Log Archive: AliC

Event: WCOC Pond Mountain
 

WCOC Pond Mountain Blue

Awesome long race training! (Thanks George and Lyn!!) At 1:15, which is critical, and had some good long legs. My race went well, much better than previous two o-races this season.

1-4 Little beginning control pick, fine.

5- Super long leg! Wowzer. I choose a route similar to most I think, along trail next to road, then up a stream valley, through a saddle, to a big marsh (went high along it), to a neat narrow reentrant, then could just go right direction and figure myself out along all the stone walls. Kevin C passed me on the way, and we kept seeing each other, sometimes right together, until choosing different routes til 12, I think.

8- Bah. Worst leg of the course. Decided to go south of the marsh on the way to the control, on the trail, but didn't read things right, came off trial too early, but still headed the right way. Then encountered the line of gray, but further east then I thought, so saw cliffs in front, and went around back to find reentrant. But pretty much passed by control on the way, too-far set of cliffs!! And think route more on line would have been faster anyways...

11- Dragged by hill off my bearing, bad form.
12- Trails. Pretty much the whole way. Fastest option?
13- Scared to find right boulder....
14-18- All fine.

1086/2000

WCOC Pond Mtn Middle 4

After changing clothes, eating, and becoming at least kinda warm, headed back out for the middle, setting off at the same time as Ethan and followed by a minute or so by Ross. Ethan and I had courses with different forkings, and ended up Ross had the same as I did.

Really good fun, almost sprint like actually, especially after such a long long! =) With the butterfly loops, part of the challenge was correctly reading the numbers to make sure to do them in the right order, but that's good training.

3- Scared in this detailed area, but came in off the stone wall and went right in.
4- Bad! Way drifted bearing.
7- Again scared in the detailed area.
8- Lower than I expected. Didn't have a great plan for when to turn off trail and could have stayed lower.
9- Nervous to find the right boulder, so many around!
13- Had no memory of being to this control before. (Was #3 on the long), found it partly using the distinct tree just at it's base.

Besides above little things, was really pretty smooth, although a bit tired from the morning.

1102/2000

Finished middle, then straight out to pick up some of the farthest controls, because otherwise would turn totally frozen! Drove down with Ross to the far end, and picked up only 3 controls in this long time.... might have been a bit tired!!!

Also, we didn't pick them up in a super effecient way, because I really wanted to re-do 7-8, which I had kinda flubbed up. Went much better second time, went more direct route, and didn't make a mistake in the control circle.

1105/2000

Blue - Splits

Middle 4 - Splits

Jog around the Christmas morning run loop at home, first little bit down the hill with Dan before he split off another way. Calves slightly sore from yesterday's orienteering, but not bad.

And arrived back to JFK, recovered car at Grandma's (thanks to mom for the lift) and then decided there was time for a quick o-training in Harriman! So Harriman orienteering both right before and after this Chile trip, perfect. Unfortunately, there wasn't actually time, b/c of traffic, Dan ended up waiting for me at Hartford airport for quite awhile.... whoopsie.

Anyways, went out on Polebrook, did 5/7 O-tervals Boris planned for last year's training camp when I became deathly ill. Super gorgeous day out, ran decently well, much more fun to run in the woods without calves of pain.

O-technique still rusty, hopefully getting there. Felt like I was relying a lot on my compass, and I think that's how I usually orienteer, but would be nice to fit a bit more of the terrain with the map.

1068/2000

Up the volcano Villarica! HR shows isn't actually much of a workout, but at least the other guy in the same group wasn't really slow, he's an American who just quit his real estate investment job in San Francisco and moving back to Denver and decided to do a 3month stint in South America between.

Anyways, was pretty cool, bottom bit you just walk, then becomes snowy and steep so on with the crampons, and up up up! Altitude really wasn't that bad, peak is at something like 2800m?

C • WOW! 3

Walking around the rim of the volcano. At one point, could get a good glance down- it went wayyy down. Crazy, it's a hole in the Earth! Eep! The volcano is currently active, but not explosively so, just belching stink and heat into the air.

Also was very impressive to see all the other volcanos around- some in Argentina, some higher, some lower, but bigger. Volcanos are cool, well, suppose until they destroy something.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! This was so much fun! So the way down, is mostly snowy, so you mostly slide on your bum/sledge using the ice axe to slow yourself, and then self arrest when needs be. Feel way more comfortable self arresting now. Awesome awesome times. =)

Little run around Pucón, did a few 1 minute pick ups, trying to develop some speed of some sort! Ended up heading onto the peninsula sticking into Lake Villarica, hoping the road would loop around, but it didn't, so back and a little out and back on the black sand beach before heading off for the day!

And the day's sightseeing rocked, I never really do led-tour-like things, but this worked, especially since I'm only in this pretty cool part of the world for 2 days and will spend all of tomorrow hiking up a volcano. So saw waterfalls and lakes and rivers and ended up in a really nice un-stinky hot springs, apparently the water is filtered through lots of rock before it emerges in the spring, and loses the stink somewhere along the way... pretty cool. Oh, and the whole thing was in Spanish, for 5h, wowzer!

C • Sounds so cool! 2

Back in La Serena, a jog around a quiet Sunday morning city. After finding a cash point, made my way down to and along the beach and then back up through the city. Only a few stray dogs followed me, none aggressively, they seem much more interested in barking at and chasing cars?