Training Log Archive: pi

Warm-up.

COC Middle distance. Bronze medal! Started carefully and ran all the way around to the first. Had a sense right away that the navigation would be critical today, with a labyrinth of trails and low visibility in the woods. Got the first 4 controls slowly, but without problem. On the long trail run around to 5 I read ahead a few controls. Coming into 5 I was expecting the little cliff to face me, but in fact I had misread the map and it was facing away from me. I literally stood one meter from the control, but never looked down. Ran around for 1 minute until I came back and spotted the flag. Tried to forget about this and settled back into the routine, got 6 to 8 fairly clean and ran trail around to 9 and again to 10. Took the straight route to 11. Nailed 13, think this was my only winning split! Was too far right to 15, in fact I saw control 20 just to my right and I think I lost 20 seconds here. First two controls after the spectator control in the arena went ok, but then I got confused by a lot of ribbons in the forest on the way to 19, which made me hesitate and slow down. Think I lost 20 seconds here to. To control 20, the last control, I tried to push a little bit extra and since I had seen it earlier on the course I was aggressive on the approach.

Running into the finish chute, I felt I had a decent race, but not enough for a medal. It turned out I had the margins on my side today, narrowly edging out Nick for the bronze! My goal before the weekend was to come home with one medal, either in the Middle or the Long, so that felt really good!

Great terrain today for a Middle and a good course! I think the 1:10000 map had the wrong symbols sizes, probably shrunk from the 1:7500 which seemed to have the correct sizes.

Middle distance, M21E - Splits

COC Relay with Graeme and Andrea. Graeme had a stellar run on the first leg and came in 2 minutes in the lead. Andrea lost some time on the second leg and I went out in 3rd place overall. Robbie A was right behind me out the start gate and passed me to 7 when he had a shorter fork to 6. I saw his tail until 9, but then he ran away to 10. When I came out of 13, Robbie suddenly came in the wrong direction, so I had a feeling he had made a mistake, which was indeed the case. So I held my place and finished 3rd.

Various warm-ups and cool-downs.

Setup sprint at Carlton University Campus. Felt pretty excited about this one and tried to push hard. Started in a corner of the map with some fields and bushes and I think I ran a bit too much around to 2, but no other issues out on the course. Fairly straight forward navigation. Finished in 2nd place. I was very surprised, given that there were many runners faster than me and the nav was easy. About 10 guys finished within a minute.

Chase start at Carlton. Tons of runners starting within seconds behind me and it all turned into a big pack within a few controls. The first part of the course was brilliant sprint orienteering with difficult route choices in multi-level terrain with many stairs and walls. Second half was easier, but a critical long route choice leg at the end decided the race. The uncrossable fences were mapped with the wrong symbol and this caused some confusion out on the course. It would have been interesting to run this course as a staggered start to get to do some individual navigation. I really didn't stand a chance to keep up to the pace of the furious pack, so dropped many places.

Thanks to Jeff and Robbie for putting on this fantastic little event, complete with spectator controls, radio controls and race announcing!

C • Can we see the map? 2

Sass Peepre junior camp in Ottawa. Ran around shadowing the older juniors on a contours only course and a corridor.

Ran the sprint course for the junior training camp. Forest orienteering with some nice woods from control 3 to 12.

Pretty exhausted from the long travel from Trondheim and some serious jetlag.

Event: Canadian Orienteering Championships
 

Warm-up.

C • Orientererne 2

Final day of the WOC Tour in Open A1. Everything on the line in the overall fight with Thomas. I started with a mistake at the first control, came to the wrong control on a dot knoll, over-corrected and missed again and dropped 1 minute here. Ran well after this, caught up to a train with a NZ guy and a local Norwegian at control 4. Stayed with this group on and off until just before 10, where the group split in the attack. I took a longer route around to get it safe and it worked out. I got the control first and did not see the pack again. However, I was very tired in my running from this point, but had a clean run until the second last control, where I relaxed too much and thought it was the same control as yesterday. Lost maybe 30 seconds here. Was pretty sure Thomas would beat me when I finished, but it turned out he blew it at the end with a bad mistake. A win for me this time! I guess consistency pays off in a multi-day.