Training Log Archive: blegg

This will be last day.
I hope to finish at around 10 minutes per Km, but this will depend a lot on my ankle strength.

My big focus will be to maintain forward motion, with a high intensity of physical output. Something I had to learn once before in the Victoria Salal Even when I cant run, I want to be walking hard and minimizing the number of pauses.

Raced hard and fast. Did pretty well, but probably well over 6 minutes of mistakes. Got pretty confused leaving the first control, but recovered ok and did nice on the approach. Had a few bobbles in more technical areas, not staying in contact. But running hard really seemed to work. My focus was keeping up the intensity, and I mostly succeeded. I was actaully looking likely to meet my 10 min/km goal, but had a 3+ minute mistake on the second to last control.
By running harder and not making big mistakes, i mangaged to crawl a few spaces from last place for this race.

Day 3 of RastiVikko.
Did much better at map contact early on, but made some really big (10 and 15 minute) mistakes toward the end.

Very frustraing finish, because they keep making us finish through this very rocky, bouldery terrain. So just when I want to push the pace, they send us throug this area where my ankles cant handle it and I have to walk. I don't like this aspect of the course design at all.

Again I finished in last (although, without the big mistake, I wouldnt have). I am very impressed by the level of competition here. I have lots of rome for improvement, but were are the other inexperianced guys????

Very fast sprint. I started the afternoon watching Finlands best orienteers compete in a sprint, part of the semi-pro orienteering legue. Saw Minni Kauppi, Jonne Lakenin, Tero Fohr, and Pasi Ikonen.

Then they opend the courses up to general public. I think they stole this idea from the highly successful Canadian Sprint Showcase in Willams Lake. The map was fun. Very fast white pine forest, with lots of buildings and trails. It reminded me a lot of the COC campus sprint in PNWOF. The big route choice obsticals were lots of impassable fences, somewhat tricky at times.

I ran very well. My time was almost exactly 33% slower than Pasi Ikonen, who finished 3rd at 14:06
This was really encouraging, after my low finishes lately. I can basiclly chaulk this difference up to running speed, since in any given road race, I would also finish 33% slower than an elite athlete.
I guess this means by basic orienteering skills and running speed arent bad. Where I need to focus is on running through rough forest, where I dont have strenth and endurance. Also long route choices and focusing for extended periods.

And while I had seen a couple controls in advance, I was definately doing my own orienteering. I even second guessed Ikonen on control 7. I had seen him go left, but I still went right anyway, thinking 'Why would anyone go left?' Then I saw the fence.

C • Nice result! 1

Didn't do any better, in fact I finished last, but it was more encouraging. After some rough first few controls I blew up big by contouring out in the wrong direction from number 4. Got completely lost, and the ground was very very rocky. I decided there to make this a training day, and walked back to relocate. I walked several of the next controls, but made a lot of progress learning to read the map.

Basically, it is tough to trust anything. 'Distict' vegatation boundarys could be very distinct or sometimes imperceptable. There are so many boulders that only about half of the mappable ones are actually on the map. Light green areas were sometimes clear as riparian areas, or clusters of small trees, but often indistigushable from white. Boulder cluster symbols mean rockir than average ground, but it is hit or miss wether they are mapped. And the forests have so much undergrowth it can be hard to see contours!!!
But, I think I have a feel for the map now.

Finished on a good note, planning my route for last three controls and executing well.

Day 1
Finished lower middle of the pack, but frustrating. Had trouble running in the woods, and even more trouble reading the map. Restrained my ankle going through a clearcut toward the second to last control. It was very hot out too.