Training Log Archive: cporter

Hickory Run - Green Course. This race would have to rank as one of my top 3 worst races for the year. Not that I ever run well at Hickory Run, but this was one of those races where you begin to question if you have ever in fact orienteered in your life before...with the exception of #2 I didn't make any really huge errors. On #2 (which I might add was not a terribly long leg) I made it to my catching feature just fine and then ran about 30 degrees off my bearing. I knew I was off fairly quickly, but it still took me a while to admit to myself that I screwed up, bail out to the nearby powerlines, and then reattacked the control and found it just fine, so that wound up being a leg that took me 11min when it should have only taken me 3:30. Ugh. What is really more bothersome about this race was my complete inability to run on a compass bearing, which was essential to navigating this course (there wasn't much in the way of route choice for a lot of the legs, in my opinion.) I am also one of those unfortunate orienteers that doesn't consistently pull to the left/right of their bearings, I go either way. It was actually commical in this race because I seemed to switch directions every control - maybe that was due to overcompensation from the previous let, but I'm not sure I was that cognisant that I was doing it during the race. My favorite part of the race (sarcasm) was when I got my hair stuck in a tree branch on the way to #9 - the branch wouldn't break and I couldn't get my pony tail out so it too me over a min to get untagled. That situation pretty much sums up the whole race. By the end of the race I did have a few cleaner legs, but by then I had lost so much time that it didn't really matter.

US Team Training Camp - Chang of Direction Training. Middle distance type course with short legs and a lot of direction change. This training was as much a challenge of will as it was skill. After running 16+ km collectively on Sat. and then my disaster of a race on Sun. morning, I was exhaused and fed up with Hickory Run. Fortunately I ran the course pretty well, although for a lot of the training I wasn't alone which as Sam and I had discussed gives you an extra boost in confidence as you move through the woods - it also incidentally kept me moving through the woods period when my body really didn't want to. For most of the course Sam and I were in each other's sights, but I feel like while we were both aware of each other's presence, we were doing our own navigating so I don't feel terribly guilty about keeping her in my sights. The added advantage of keeping up with her is that I was able to show to myself how much my body really could take and still navigate reasonably well. I will have to say though the best part of this training was finishing - whether by design or not Tom had us finish right next to a dammed up stream with a pool that was just deep enough to take a quick dip in to cool off in the extremely uncomfortable heat and humidity that plauged us all weekend.

Control Pick up with Alison after training - just walked because we were pretty damn tired.