Training Log Archive: AliC

Middle Model @ Taleni

Time to switch to forest! Headed out to the middle model with Greg and Tori. Was great to be out in the woods finding controls! Legs are sore from yesterday, but not destroyed. I'm skipping the library multi-level spring that Greg, Tori and Anton are doing because it sounds like too many staircases for my quads right now...

start -> 31: turned off trail late because the pits marked right off the side of the trail were higher up - I saw them, but worried weren't the right ones, but need to think more 1:10,000 "right off" doesn't have to be first few meters.
31 -> 39: good on a bearing, noted the spur-reentrant combo on the way there, this one was mostly in beautiful white woods
39 -> 35: downhill, trying to be a bit speedy, on a bearing, but deflected too far right into wrong marshy reentrant. Think I misidentified some light green which led to hte initial heading too far right. I didn't see the ride indicated on the edge of the wrong reentrant, so perhaps rides aren't very visible. Didn't correct as early as I should have, should have noticed direction of stream wasn't right earlier.
35 -> 39: wanted a redo, so back to 35. Did ok uphill on a bearing (not going too fast now), pretty much spot on, just didn't see because not a big control. Saw the broken ground along the way.
39 -> 35: better on my bearing this time, didn't get pushed
35 -> 36: down to field, I didn't see the small hogsweed markings until now... eep! But I guess I'm ok... anyways, rough yellow was ok to get through, but is some nettles and such, so not too fast. On the way down the slope, was right of the line, corrected using reentrant, then could follow (but barely) form line reentrant to control. Wide green slash wasn't tough to get through at all - small river reeds.
36 -> 37: not far apart, but nailed it! pretty small knoll.
37 -> 35: wanted to set up next leg, 35 wasn't hard to find from downhill side (corner of field very close)
35 -> 33: pretty much spiked, but there wasn't a control out - eventually did spot the numbered stake. Could pick out distinct veg boundaries on the way. And dense green slash was particularly nasty zones of downed trees - good to know!
33 -> 32: a bit hard to get through the downed trees following the stream up, but ya just gotta ninja it through! Cliff above the dot knoll was definitely a cliff
32 -> 46, out of ravine in a nice reentrant that let me take a bearing to 46 pretty easily - would be harder if coming out of ravine at a less distinct location
46 -> 44: drifted off a bit left, probably pushed by light green intermittent marsh. Noticed the contour in front of me and corrected. Seemed then to be on a hill so took a bearing from there and worked. These fairly featurless flat zones will be tough in the race.
44 -> 45: Not good! In the race, would have used the trail more, but was attempting not too and just go on a bearing. But dumped into stream reentrant to early and then mistook a bend about 150m too far south for the right one, but then didn't add up. Bah, big correction needed! In race, would have come out to trail, pace counted about 15 paces from junction, then diagnoled in to correct stream bend.
45 -> 44: This time did use the trail, nailed from trail junction.
44 -> 40: On a bearing, did correctly pick out the med green veg amongst the light green, depression was right behind.
40 -> 44: Went the other way around the dark green, bearing still worked.
44 -> 46: Wanted to thread the greenish zones, so pacecounted 80 on one bearing, then corrected and finished with another ~80 straight W. Worked pretty well, but on the approach saw the hill right beforehand and that helped me in anyways.
46 -> 32: Coming at the dot knoll from the top: is some dense green slash indicating downed trees, but it is all of 2 mm long, so real hard to see...
32 -> 31: mostly back on the trail. Kept track of distinct veg boundaries to dive off trail in the right spot to nab 31 again.

A good set of 19 control visits. Learned about the mapping. The green slashes: dense = slow-you-down downed trees, sparse = not-a-problem low veg, also the open dot marsh had some distinct marsh grass and some marsh bushes. Pits were deep and noticeable. Distinct veg boundaries do appear distinct. Even little streams are still wet (rained yesterday) and have quite clay-y soil, so can suck your feet under!

Event: WOC 2018 - Latvia
 

Women's Sprint Qual Heat A

Woo! Very happy to have made it to the final, tying with Galina Vinogradova (RUS) for 9th in my heat, 52s back from Karolin Ohlsson (SWE).

It was fast. I was hurting at the end for sure - pretty much felt like a running race at that point.

One small error (15-20s?) trying to go through a way that had a blocked passage. Just a normal fence, not an artificial one, so actually less obvious on the map. Hope to avoid that on the final.

Was reading ahead pretty well, but there weren't so many descisions per leg this race. Occasionally timid with rock walls, but all encountered and that I thoguht might be crossable were.

C • Well done 12

WOC sprint final, Riga city center

A pretty good race considering where I'm at, but I *really* would have liked to have more oomph out there!!! I orienteered decently - one mistake getting ahead of myself on the map, but caught pretty quickly (#9) and then a small one right after with #10, just being a bit flustered. Perhaps a few not-optimal routes, but sometimes you just gotta do *something* and none were that bad. A few times that it mattered I did see the right route, so that's something!

I think it would have been good to do a few 5ks or at least a track 3k time trial and gotten more used to the level of hurt necessary to sprint well. While familiar, I think I would have been able to push even where my fitness is a bit more with better mental game.

Also, it was fun! Super-cool city, made trickier by well-placed artificial fences. They definitely used the trickiest tiny passage zone that I'd scoped out on the map beforehand. They did mess up the too-close placement of GO control to start control. Got me, and nearly all the women. (Because #17 was otherwise super easy, so you're just running at that point. And the start control wasn't on our map because of a map flip. So you're expecting a control right at that spot, see one, go punch. But when it doesn't beep, you realize there's another control and go and get it... )

Also, dodging pedestrians is an art. Maybe I should have yelled more and gotten more to move out of my lines.

Running around the model map. Good to see what the artificial fences will look like both on the map and in the terrain. Legs feel well rested and brain was pretty with it despite time change and all. But racing will put both of those to more of a test tomorrow!

There was a very narrow passage between a building and olive green with the olive green taped as OOB. Missed the passage on my first pass of that control - gotta see those ahead of time tomorrow!

My plan is to run as fast as I can while the orienteering is simple, but respect when any thing looks tricky. In that case: 1) find the way(s) into control 2) find a not-terrible route that connects to a way in. I don't have to always pick the *best* route - often when the choices are hard in a sprint it's because the two ways are very equivalent. Without any contours on this map to make one route hilly versus not, there shouldn't be too many things that will make a route be bad that won't be easy to see.

I also did a 1cm pace-count, in case it is helpful for going full speed until there should be a narrow passage opening. (Otherwise easy to slow down looking for it.) At a good clip on flat, it seems like I have 11 paces to 1cm = 40m.

Here's hoping I have enough speed and brains to make it through the qual!

C • Run well! 9

Arrived in Helsinki, slept 6+ hours on the flight as planned, so hopefully jetlag won't be too terrible. Goal for today is to just absorb as much daylight as possible during the day to reset body. Now off to Riga and meeting up with teammates!

C • Welcome to Europe 13

Jogged over to the Riga city center where the area is embargoed except for a few roads, which you are allowed to use. So I walked those and got a feel for where Saturdays races will be!

Woke up at 4am for the journey to begin!

Sooooo hard to say bye to Sylvia in Chicago (she and Tom headed off to Rochester, where they will be busy visiting grandparents and also get to see aunt, uncle, cousin, 2 x great aunts, 2 x great great aunts!). I was a wreck. This is my first time away from her for even a single night and it's 9 nights in a row.

Last pre-WOC stroller jog! Was up at 4:30am and Sylvia woke up ~6am so we hung out for an hour before daycare. Going to miss her sooooo much during WOC!

Read UW campus map on the way there, Seattle Pacific on the way back. Two people commented about the empty stroller on the way back. I mean, how else are you supposed to run your baby to daycare?

C • empty stroller 8

Reading WMOC M35 sprint qual map while jogging around the canyon.

Chill Pilates.