Training Log Archive: TomNIn the 7 days ending Apr 12, 2014:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « | » |
| » now | ||||||||||
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa | |||||||
Saturday Apr 12, 2014 #
Event: West Point A-meet
Orienteering race 1:08:00 [5] 5.5 km (12:22 / km) +132m 11:02 / km
shoes: Inov8 Oroc 280
West Point A-Meet Day 1. This was the "old-style" map day. Tomorrow we get the revised and improved "new-style" map. I think the issues were in focus today. The main problem I had was finding the feature in the circle. And the ones I had trouble with weren't necessarily the ones others had trouble with, implying that there was a certain amount of luck involved in hitting the controls.
It seems like every control entailed some scrambling inside the circle, and with 18 controls that adds up to a fair bit of time. The worst for me were 6 (seemed like a lot more rocks than mapped and had to relocate off the road), 14 (came over the bare rock and kept passing cliff after cliff on the way down the spur, worried I was getting too low), 15 (again more detail than mapped) and 17 (bad route choice through the swamp, but very difficult to make sense of the situation once I arrived in the right place). i admit to being helped by seeing other runners, particularly towards the end.
Still, I got from place to place in good time and I was happy with the run. Pushed hard, kept my wits, no big blunders. Plus it was a gorgeous day, which always improves one's attitude. It's funny to come across a pile of snow in a hidden crevice on a hot sunny day.
It seems like every control entailed some scrambling inside the circle, and with 18 controls that adds up to a fair bit of time. The worst for me were 6 (seemed like a lot more rocks than mapped and had to relocate off the road), 14 (came over the bare rock and kept passing cliff after cliff on the way down the spur, worried I was getting too low), 15 (again more detail than mapped) and 17 (bad route choice through the swamp, but very difficult to make sense of the situation once I arrived in the right place). i admit to being helped by seeing other runners, particularly towards the end.
Still, I got from place to place in good time and I was happy with the run. Pushed hard, kept my wits, no big blunders. Plus it was a gorgeous day, which always improves one's attitude. It's funny to come across a pile of snow in a hidden crevice on a hot sunny day.
Thursday Apr 10, 2014 #
Road running 35:00 [3] 3.8 mi (9:13 / mi)
shoes: Adrenaline 14
After a European teleconference taken at home, I got a run around the neighborhood in 60-degree weather, on the way to 70 this afternoon. Magnolias are suddenly in full bloom, and some fruit trees and Forsythia too.
Wednesday Apr 9, 2014 #
Road running 44:00 [3] 4.8 mi (9:10 / mi)
shoes: Adrenaline 14
Another easy run on the perimeter road.
Tuesday Apr 8, 2014 #
Road running 44:00 [3] 4.8 mi (9:10 / mi)
shoes: Adrenaline 14
Perimeter road at GSFC. Nice day, sunny and windy. Feelng good in the legs, lower back a bit stiff but not painful.
Sunday Apr 6, 2014 #
Orienteering race 56:49 [5] 4.9 km (11:36 / km) +180m 9:48 / km
shoes: Inov8 Oroc 280
Flying Pig Day 3 Middle Green. OK, finally a good run. No big mistakes, just a few minutes here and there.
The terrain between #2 and 3 looked pretty easy on the map, but somehow got really confusing as I worked my way around the top of the big reentrant system. I came around a little too far and saw a control in a ditch, I think on Brown, then finally made sense of the spur and saw the right reentrant from above.
A minute lost on #6, attacked from the corner of the field but contoured around a little too far, saw what I thought was the control and barreled down the hill, but it was on a rock 80m west and down 2 contours. This area has so few mapped point features it seemed like there was a control on every one of them.
From 7 to 8 I went up to the trail, which turned out to be a good choice. I tried to attack from the place where the trail starts to go up, but I went a little far. Came down along the fence line (but didn't see the fence), stopped when I got to the right pace count, then spotted the tree quite a bit farther downhill and back to the south. The good thing was it was clearly visible from this direction.
I had a chuckle crossing the cornfield diagonally along the line from 11 to 12 when the cornrows lined up in exactly the right direction, pointing the way like runway lights. Take your pleasures where you can find them.
Wretched job on #14, went down to the building without noticing that the control was 2 contours up from it. Then 15-16-17-18 were pretty easy, but I routinely mess up this kind of thing, so I traded off a little speed in favor of certainty. No surprises.
The terrain between #2 and 3 looked pretty easy on the map, but somehow got really confusing as I worked my way around the top of the big reentrant system. I came around a little too far and saw a control in a ditch, I think on Brown, then finally made sense of the spur and saw the right reentrant from above.
A minute lost on #6, attacked from the corner of the field but contoured around a little too far, saw what I thought was the control and barreled down the hill, but it was on a rock 80m west and down 2 contours. This area has so few mapped point features it seemed like there was a control on every one of them.
From 7 to 8 I went up to the trail, which turned out to be a good choice. I tried to attack from the place where the trail starts to go up, but I went a little far. Came down along the fence line (but didn't see the fence), stopped when I got to the right pace count, then spotted the tree quite a bit farther downhill and back to the south. The good thing was it was clearly visible from this direction.
I had a chuckle crossing the cornfield diagonally along the line from 11 to 12 when the cornrows lined up in exactly the right direction, pointing the way like runway lights. Take your pleasures where you can find them.
Wretched job on #14, went down to the building without noticing that the control was 2 contours up from it. Then 15-16-17-18 were pretty easy, but I routinely mess up this kind of thing, so I traded off a little speed in favor of certainty. No surprises.