Training Log Archive: Runner99

Jogging to start, then walking back to the finish and going back to the start.

Today was the second stage of the OO Cup and the map, ______ was probably the most complex terrain that i have ever run on. I was slowed down more by how much I had to read, rather than the footing of the terrain. The fastest guys were sub 40min so I see that there is a very large gap that needs to be closed in my middle distance orienteering skills. Map reading and running at the same time in a very complicated section is probably my greatest weakness other than just running.

The race went fairly well, I made 3 significant mistakes, the first was early on where I didn't make the best plan (you couldn't really make a simple plan) and I had to stop just before my control to regain contact with the map which was about a minute. Then later on I entered inbetween 2 incorrect cliffs as I was attacking a control and I lost about 1min there too hooking around. My last mistake was when I got on an elephant trail, and I misread the map thinking that it was the trail that was part of my plan. That cost me 2-3 min in my opinion.

C • Complex terrain 3

Event: OOcup/2016
 

Did a via ferratta.

Climbed 3 routes. Didn't send either of the ones i led, toproped one.

Long distance, came in like 35th. Decent for the shape im in right now.

Event: Swiss-O-Week 2016
 

Just going to add some thoughts quickly to my log about the last few days.

Messed up the long in short. I ran the wrong leg after the spectator chute. I was about 5 min ahead of all of the Canadians at that point (don't quote me on that), and then once I checked the code at 20 and realized my mistake, I was mentally destabilized because I didn't know if I was 10, or 6min behind (turns out that I was 2 from a non-optimal routechoice, and probably 4 from the optimal). From there I lost head space and didn't push adequately for the rest of it thus losing time to that. I finished as 3rd Canadian, and had I not ran to the wrong control, I would have been first. Otherwise I would say my race was very good navigationally, I only made 1 additional routechoice error (which cost me one minute) and that was it. Through the most difficult sections I spiked all of the controls. I lost 1-2 minutes on each hill leg due to being slow and that summarizes my errors. I never really lost contact with the map for the whole run, meaning technically it was as good as my sprint.

Mistake-wise my middle qualifier was the most perfect race that I've ever really had. I made no navigational mistakes whatsoever. The only mistake that I made in the qualifier was that I did not run it aggressively enough, which might have been partly due to the rubber studs on the shoes I was borrowing, but mostly it was just the mindset that I began my race with. I finished as 2nd Canadian 1 min behind the first Canadian who was Leif and told be about the mindset he had after he made a 1 min mistake on the first control. He said that he booked pretty much each control after that and that was the mindset that I was missing.

Today was the middle final, and after getting to the start after losing my warm-up map over the course of putting on my shoes, and then getting up to the call up 2-3 minutes late, I felt quite in my element. I started out really hard after I knew where I was going and pretty much kept that up for the whole race. I pushed really hard each time that I could. I sort of remembered how hard you have to go if you want a good result. I only made one small navigational mistake where I got pushed over by a hill coming out of a control, having a bad compass bearing. I only lost 30 seconds to that, and lost over a minute on the hills. I ended up as first Canadian by at least 2-3 minutes.

I'm quite disappointed to be running on the 2nd relay team, as I would say I was consistently within the top 3 Canadians, and had I not mp on the sprint I would have been first there, 3rd in the long, 2nd on the quali, and 1st in the final. The relay is going to be more similar to the middle q and f which is my strong suit.

The explanation is that Canadians are running it as a "training" and just for "experience" which makes it difficult to push for my whole team when they are not taking it seriously. Ironically most other teams take the relay as the most important race. If it just is a training to experience different legs then it should not matter to the rest of the guys who are on the 1st team if they run on the 1st or 2nd team.

Oh boy I haven't been up to date with my log in the last month or so, though ironically I've probably done more orienteering during that time period then all this year (which in itself is not a great thing), but maybe if I get more motivated with my new sprint maps then I'll begin training seriously next year!

I'm not doing a full race analysis for the sprint today, I might do it tomorrow, or I'll get all of it done next week, idk we'll find out. So I'll do a little summary.

T'was a pity might I say, in conclusion, as I only really made one navigational mistake on the sprint today. I don't want to think about it too much because it really feels like a nuisance, and a relatively tiny unnecessary mistake that I should not have made. If you have seen the Men's course, then you will have seen the string of controls 4, 5, and 6. In short as I was reading the map with high frequency, I somehow overlooked 6. I believe that it was because I made a plan (which was very simple; straight) then as I looked back at the map I began reading 7 which required a more detailed plan which I then started executing. I sort of forgot about 6 in that fraction of a second, I might have refolded my map, but the interesting part was that such an insignificant leg totally killed me.

Ironically the skill level required for that control was equivalent to that of a 4 year old that doesn't know how to orienteer at all. And this simplicity was just under my radar, as I was expecting more or something harder.

Its comforting to say at least that my technical navigational skill in a sprint are adequate enough to flawlessly follow the plans that I set out, and that my only deficit is lack of training throughout the year, and just simple competition experience. Not difficult competitions with high stress and all of that, but just a larger proportion of trainings or mock races where I'm just orienteering as fast as I can to each control point. Which I haven't done nearly enough of this year and the past 8! Thus there is nothing to be down about and I just need to look forward to the next race and put this behind me.

Tomorrow is the Long, arguably my favorite event, and I reckon that it will be a special one.

Event: JWOC 2016 - Engadin, Switzerland
 

Warm up to start.

Ran a mock middle race on Lavin. The first three controls were quite shoddy as I got into the map, but after that it smoothed out.

1- Overshot it a bit, was reading the clearings too much and the scale caught me off guard
2- Went a little too fast, and dragged a long parallel mistake through most of the leg, losing about 30ish seconds in all
3- bad route choice, went left around the cliff instead of right
4- massive climb, which I got rid of by doing immediately by going straight to the second road, after which I cut off, hit a rock, and compassed into the control.
5- easy bearing
6- around the edge of the open, cut a bit off of the corner of the forest, then ran up the trail and attacked from the open
7- bearing, should have looked up into the terrain and have found the fastest micro route
8- straight down to the path, sprinted along the path, and attacked right after the edge of the clearing
9- went left which was faster due to it most likely being shorter
10- made a tiny mistake at the end of going into the control, missed a form line hill on the map, thinking that it was a knoll lost about 15 sec due to that
11- nailed it after planning
12- nailed it
13- misread the re-entrants and pretty much walked into the control, but didn't think that it was mine, until I realized 10m further
14- nailed it
15- pretty much went straight
16- cut the first corner and then followed the path to the control
17- straight

Lost about 2:30 in all on the course which would cut my time down to about 46 min

C • Good analysis 4

Going back to the start and then to the cars