Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

4.33 km listed; 11:39/km

Just another underwhelming middle performance; I'm beginning to build a considerable pile of these. I made plenty of mistakes but had some strong legs as well. I notice that some of my best splits were not ones where I pushed any harder than usual, but ones where I had a plan and followed it carefully and successfully. Weird how that works.

But the terrain though - so awesome. Extremely technical and physical yet also fast and runnable, if only one has the fitness and skill to take advantage (I do not). I'd love to see what world-class orienteers could do here.

The heat was far more vicious Sunday than Saturday - a little higher temp, no clouds overhead, and less cover. Going up hills, there'd be sweat just constantly dripping off my nose, drip drip drip. Only other time I've noticed this was that one time I did hot yoga.

Blue-middle - Splits

15.39 km listed; 8:48/km

Ultralong recap time.

S-1: Still fiddling with my watch at the rather abrupt start, so basically ran in the herd without looking at my map till halfway to the first control. Leader made a slight mistake so Peteris and I actually got there first.

1-2: Is dis de leed?

2-3-4: In the front group with Kerrin Rattray, Eric, and Peteris. Relatively simple legs.

4-5: Maybe my best leg of the course. Left 4 at the same time as Eric, took a different route, got to 5 a few seconds before. A novel experience. In the lead again!

5-6: Rattray came screaming in to punch just ahead of us. He was moving noticeably faster than everyone early on but was making some small errors here and there.

6-7: Didn't drink at the first water control cuz I wanted to be in the lead :) Got passed by Rattray just before the control.

7-8: Longish gentle uphill road run. Trying to keep pace. First nav error here; I made the classic mistake of paying too much attention to others and not enough to my attack point. Ended up too high in the reentrant and was caught again by Eric.

8-9: Felt tired for the first time; decided not to try and hang with Eric for fear of dying 2/3 through the race. Peteris just behind.

9-10: Road run, then made a small error in the circle. Peteris punched first.

10-11: I went low, Peteris went high, we met again and bobbled 11. Many of the hillsides in the northern area were far greener than mapped, which caused problems at times.

11-12: Straight at it. Leaving 12, dismayed to see a group of three coming in.

12-13: I went left, everyone else evidently went right. I made up a few seconds on the pack behind, either by speed or route choice.

13-14: Long leg, but one clear route. I got real clever/lazy on the climb at the end and actually arrived at a spot not one but two spurs away from the correct one. Saw a big boulder - can that be the boulder that 15 is located on? Yes it can.

14-15: Retracing my steps, having now been caught by Peteris & co.

15-16: Another long leg; the group went their separate ways here. I could not see a viable route, so ended up bumbling along for a while with hesitance, which is more or less the worst thing to do. Finally came to a road well south of the line and was with Mikell Platt for a bit, then got away only to randomly bump into Mikkel Conradi.

16-17: Mmm, delicious manned control.

17-18: We caught back up to Peteris on the way out of 17.

18-19: Road run, but treacherous getting down to the road through a patch of very nasty Northwest-style green (without the blackberry bushes). Peteris got stuck worse than me, and I didn't see him again. Met back up with Mikkel.

19-20: I think everyone other than Kerrin and Eric is behind the two of us now...

20-21: Content to be right behind Mikkel on the way, then he made a minor mistake which gave me a small lead.

21-22: Not sure what happened, but never saw Mikkel after leaving 21.

22-23: Trickiest leg on the course, in the hydro-mining area. Super paranoid and careful here, because I was pretty sure I was in third overall and second American. Spiked it, but quite slowly.

23-24: Last leg of consequence. Again, being deliberate and just trying to avoid blowing it with some bonehead mistake.

24-25-26-F: Huzzah! Still plenty left, but happy to not go the extra couple km.

Having never won an individual medal at a US champs race before, I'm thrilled with the result (silver), and pleased with my own physical race as well, regardless of the outcome. I had a strong beginning (1-7) and end (18-F), while leaving something to be desired in the middle portion.

It felt more like a Euro long; I never reached that particular level of suffering unique to the Ultralong, where most of your leg muscles are cramping, the fastest you can go is a hobbling limp, and you vow to never do this again.

Surprisingly, heat wasn't much of a factor for me, with the 9 AM start time combined with water stops every 2-3 Blue controls, and not in small quantity. Each time I'd start feeling hot, I'd get to a water stop, dump some on my head, pound two or three cups, and be good to go till the next one. If you could win awards for the most jugs of potable water anyone has put into a forest, these organizers would win all of those awards.

C • Nice job! 1

Ultra-Blue - Splits

Event: 2015 Gold Rush - USA Ultra-long & Western States Championships
 

In the boarding area they were offering $600 to take a later (noon) flight to Boise. I was super tempted. By the circuitous logic in my head it will now be costing me 40 bucks a minute to run a 15-minute sprint this morning. Shoulda taken the $...

C • plane 2

Boise sprint. Came second behind an Aussie guy. So many of the heats. Lost ~40s mainly due to an unfortunate episode of brainfry (opposite of brainfreeze) plus a couple small mistakes. Heat was getting to me physically by the halfway point.

Blue-Red-sprint - Splits

When I google "WOC 2015" my first hit is this. When I google "WOC 2014" my first hit is this.

Also, check out the leaderboard of the 2015 Global Peace Index. With a couple notable exceptions either way, it correlates strongly with the results of your average international orienteering event. Maybe we Americans need to become more peaceful to become better at orienteering! Although it hasn't worked for Canada...heyyyy

C • Sigh 1

Somewhat easy ride along the waterfront to the library and back up. Still resting my foot but optimistic about its progress.

I investigated Bellevue College for sprint-mapping potential the other day. It's got a somewhat complex network of buildings with above-average occurrence of canopies and pass-throughs. A handful of funky monuments/artworks which would make for fun CPs. Lots of scattered trees but few woods, and those little runnable. PLP (parking lot percentage) is high, but mainly concentrated separately from the worthwhile parts. Total area is not large. Would be cool if there were a race-fair way to traverse 148th to Robinswood. Petition the city to build an overpass, everyone.

Grade: 3/5. Not destined to be a great sprint venue, but certainly worth mapping. A prospective early-round SART 2017 (Eastside edition) venue???

C • Race fair? 2

Micro 1

Micro 2

Micro 1 backward

Micro 2 backward

Rode along with Eric out to some training at Salmon la Sac, also known as "Land of the Thirteen-Minute Kilometer." Salmon la Sac is a true orienteering meat grinder, offering the ideal combination of giant rock cliffs, scree slopes, massive hills, horrible vegetation, waist-high slash, and Scandinavian technicality. Starting a course at Salmon la Sac is known as "going over the top." Finishing a course at Salmon la Sac is an accomplishment in itself.

However, scattered amongst the carnage are areas of true brilliance that make you feel like an orienteerer is meant to feel. I've seen nothing to compare to it in my (admittedly limited) orienteering travels.

Event: COC Ultimate Orienteer #6 (Goat) - Moses Lake Sand Dunes
 

6:41/km

Moses Lake sand dunes sprint-goat. We've invented yet another orienteering discipline.

The red group out of the mass start was Eric, Jourdan, Peteris, and myself; with the short distance this was our best chance to dethrone the Bonesaw from his longtime reign as goat champion, but we fell short once again (Bonesaw is my new nickname for Eric that I'm attempting to put into mainstream use). I made three ~30s errors which cost me - leaving 6 the wrong direction and hitting the road in the wrong place, overrunning 9, and on the way to 15 getting stuck in a swampy thicket that looked friendlier on the map than in reality. My legs didn't feel good, but then my foot didn't hurt, so call it a wash. I've been doing lots of massaging and stretching (and not running) the past few days, which seems to be helping.

On the way home we discovered the racing forecast in Idaho this weekend: Fri - 99. Sat - 104. Sun - 108. 108! We're all going to die grisly heatstroke deaths.

I have intermittent foot pain which shows up at random times, sometimes in the arch, sometimes heel, sometimes ball. I hope it's not plantar fasciitis, but I suspect it is. My plan is to ignore it for the next three weeks, then see where I'm at after the WCOCs. It's not a great plan but I'm doing it anyway.

Event: COC Wednesday Evening Series #2 - Wilburton Hill Park
 

Setting out/picking up controls for the Wilburton meet.

Easy ride to Wilburton Hill Park to field-check my courses for Wednesday. I felt weird most of today - had a bit of a queasy stomach and a headache. Probably due to travel stress/not enough sleep.

Short Boston recap:
Generally - really fun weekend with lots of good training and racing, and good times hanging with a group of excellent people mainly including Kseniya and Meghan, plus Alex, Ed, and Erin when they weren't super busy organizing things or taking care of juniors.
Personally - I performed better than I expected physically and navigationally. Only made one real error (20s) and one egregiously incorrect route choice (15s). Other than that, pretty darn clean over five races, and felt strong all weekend. But, must go faster.

My flight to JFK got delayed such that I would've missed my connection to Seattle, and thus I continue to be at the party after the party's over and trespass on Alex and Ed's generous hospitality.

Reason given for 2.5-hour delay: "There are too many planes trying to land." This, after all passengers are on board and plane is ready to pull away from gate. The lesson, as always: New York is a crazy place and you should never trust anything involving New York to make any damn sense at all.

Morning race @ Boston Common. Superfast venue - 4:14/km is most definitely the fastest I have ever orienteered in my life. Will and I tied, though we ran different forkings.

Afternoon A-meet/national ranking event/Boston Sprint Camp finale! There was a chase start, a fancy start gate, and an auto-finish, which were totally cool. Course setter maestro Schirminator saved his route choices for this one, so there were a few more left/right decisions than the morning. Still a very very fast race. I pushed real hard and actually felt pretty strong, but young Will was a touch speedier and got me by eight seconds. It's the first defeat Black Magic has suffered at the hands of a non-European.

As the Sunday winner, Will won the delicious apple pie, while I, as the overall points winner, won the delicious chocolate banana bread (prizes courtesy of Alex). I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide who got the better end of the deal.

(The answer of course is that we both got the better end.)

Qualifier 2 Boston Common - Splits

Final Boston Common - Splits

In Euro qualifying, Iceland! Wales! Northern Ireland! Hungary! The Faroes! It's madness!!!

C • Footy 4

Morning training at Franklin Park. Erin divided us into groups of four for a series of O-tervals, starting ~10s apart and switching up the start order. My group, consisting of Addison, Emma, Izzy, and myself, dubbed ourselves the Dream Team and agreed that we were most awesomest of all the groups.

Mass start farsta. I was lazy right off the bat and was led by a couple of the juniors into overrunning the third control on our loop. Also realized at the end of my third loop that I went to an incorrect boulder in a field of boulders on my second loop but didn't realize it because there were no controls, only streamers. Disqualified!

A "starts" exercise with seven baby maps of two controls each, where the objective is to practice flipping the map, finding the start, orienting quickly, etc.

Evening race @ Franklin Park. This park is so fantastic! My favorite venue/race of the camp. Open variable woods with tons of rock features, elevation detail, and even some tricky ruins. There was some greenbriar, but greenbriar doesn't hurt nearly as much as blackberry bushes.

I made one nav error, leaving 9 off by 90 degrees. I had it in my head that I should turn 180 back around from where I came into it, but didn't account for my entry direction changing on final approach, and was confused when I found myself almost in someone's backyard. Maybe 25s loss.

Then from 12-13 there was an obvious tunnel route choice that I didn't take and lost some 15s, which was especially dumb because we had been there during O-tervals. I don't think I've ever once made the correct decision when a tunnel is involved.

Really well-set course by Schirminator, whom I got by 4s (I think). Ethan was ~25s back.

Sprint Franklin Park - Splits

Evening race @ Danehy Park. Pretty simple navigationally, but still some binary route choices. One of those races where you have no excuse not to push it hard. I chose poorly once and lost 7s, which allowed the Schirminator to nip me by 2s (though he was the course setter). 10-20s ahead of the young'uns.

I was introduced to one of the juniors today, I'm like hey I'm Will. He says, "Oh, you're Will Critchley!"

C • "Will Critchley" 13

C • Two things 5

Sprint Danehy - Splits

Event: 2015 Boston Park Series: Edmands Park
 

Event: 2015 Boston Sprint Camp
 

Morning training exercises conglomerate. Things are green here and it's 75-80. I feel like I went across the country but somehow ended up still in Seattle.

Afternoon training stuff. I is too lazy to enter them individually.

Evening race @ Edmands Park. I had a clean race and managed to eke out the win by 15s or so ahead of Ethan. Really fun park with open hilly woods. So East Coasty, I love it!

The control pickups.

Sprint Edmands Park - Splits

I haven't felt "good" in some weeks, which is not awesome going into my summer racing season, humble as it may be. Hard to say what the problem is but hopefully it will pass. Or maybe not and I'm on the slow descent to the end.

Here are some of the questions people ask me about orienteering:

Often: "What do you win?" Well, nothing really. My canned half-tongue-in-cheek response: "The respect of very few people."

Often: "How long is a race?" They are expecting a simple answer, which I am unable to give.

Often: "Doesn't everyone just follow each other?" Yes, yes they do.

Often: "How fast do you go?" Slower than whatever you're thinking.

Once: "Do you shave your legs before a race?" I don't even shave my face before a race.

C • Amusing 9

Event: COC Ultimate Orienteer #4 (Sprint) - N. SeaTac Park
 

Event: COC Ultimate Orienteer #5 (Relay) - N. SeaTac Park
 

Sprint / Course 3 @ North Seatac Park, south side. I read 6 as a stairway, rather than a cliff next to a trail, and ran right on merrily by the control in plain sight five feet off the trail. Even with the misinterpretation I should have recognized when I was in the right place and/or checked my control descriptions.

Still not feeling great healthwise. Lots of junk in throat = not able to respirate myself normally. No Jourdan, Eric, or Peteris to compare with but I'm sure I was not fast today.

C • Stairs 1

Sprint / Course 2.

Relay, Loop B. Paired up with Patrick to reprise Team Kanzaga from two years ago. We were victorious (chalk up another to the good for Black Magic). It didn't feel like a relay to me, since Patrick brought us home from the first leg in the lead, so I ran both legs all alone.

C • Lead 2

Relay, Loop A. Started feeling pretty fatigued in the mid-80s heat by the end of this one.

North Seatac is really an underrated venue, especially for sprinting. The disc golf course in the north part has thinned the woods into an intricate mix of rough open, white, and various shades of green, while the south part, though thicker, has quite a few windy trails running throughout which make for good route choice.

C • North SeaTac 1

Bridle Trails test run! My foot only hurt a tiny bit near the end. Legs very foggy, but became less slumberous as I went. Also still recovering from a cold. 15s time loss due to the eating of one salmonberry that caught my eye.

Attention, loyal readers - if you're from out of town and you're considering attending the Seattle Adventure Running Tournament, I'm offering a full complimentary accommodation and transportation package to a chosen few who pass my rigorous screening process.

Finally, wading through the constant drivel on my log pays off for you. You should be proud!

C • What a gent! 17

sickkkkkkness

Some sharp pain in my left arch popped up yesterday; it's still there today. Guess I won't be training much this week. No pain in the heel or ball of the foot.

This is not the first time this has happened. I suspect the dress shoes I wore most of Saturday are the culprit.