Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

Okay, it's time. Time, that is, for the oft-imitated never-duplicated fully-comprehensive 100%-authoritative BigWillyStyle SART preview. This is the gas-guzzling, oil-leaking, armored-plated Cadillac boat-tank of SART previews. First, the stages:

Time Trial: College Place Schools - Never been here!
Round 1, Lynndale Park: The committee know this place. Lynndale is a rugged and wooded park with plenty of trails and variable runnability in the forest, though it's generally thicker than not. There's also a school, which has apparently been completely redone since last time the committee was there, so who knows what that's like. We characterize the venue as 60% forest, 30% park, 10% urban.
Round 2, Edmonds CC: Never been here!
Round 3, Lynnwood Golf Course: Never been here!
Rounds 4/5: South Seattle College: Never been here!

Well, mailed that in. You're welcome. Second, the players:

The women's side looks to be a three-way American tossup between Tori Borish, Siri Christopherson, and Julia Doubson. Tori is always formidable in a sprint, while the two juniors have shown cracking form this year and are both currently gearing up for XC season. Julia impressed at this year's WOC/JWOC Team Trials sprint, winning handily, while Siri has been training with more quality of late than just about anybody this side of Peguerinos. The committee's rudimentary math skills tell us that 3! = 6; none of the six outcomes appears appreciably more likely than any other. Let the dice roll.

On the men's side, the competition looks similar to last year, though a name or two or three deeper through the top 10-15. Most notably we've got no J this time around, ergo no prohibitive favorite, so things should be interesting at the top. We've swapped out regular-sized Canuck Ian for the BFG version, while GVOC stalwarts Nate "NBD" Barrett and "Preying" Mantas Jarusevicius are also AWOL. However, finishers 3-6 and 8-9 from SART 2016 will be present and accounted for - those being Messrs. Woods, Rennie, Enger, Bone, Smith, B. and Jones, E. Gentlemen and scholars, all.

But those cats are passé by now - what's new and exciting? The top dark horse candidate who may surprise: Canadian junior David Bakker. Winning could be a tough ask, but the committee's proprietary predictilator formula gives the young SAGE product a coin flip's chance to crack the final and bump one of the more complacent established contenders. Other newcomers - and oldcomers - with top-10 potential: Peteris Ledins (returning from a summer in Latvia), Mark Prior (Bay Area adventure racer/MTBer extraordinaire), Thomas Laraia (Minnesota JWOCer, younger brother of Michael).

Finally, the predictions (in descending order):

15. Vladimir "Galloping" Gusiatnikov
14. "Cobra" Kai Mihata
13. Tori "Showtime" Borish
12. Julia "Child" Doubson
11. Mark "Not the Cubs Pitcher" Prior

Mark easily has the speed for a higher placement, but we've received intelligence that familial obligations may prevent him from running all Rounds, so he gets dinged for that potential unpredictability. Kai continues to improve, while Vlad turns in a second consecutive top-15 finish.

10. Siri "Don't Call Me Tyra" Christopherson
9. Eric "Jonesaw" Jones
8. Peteris "Pan" Ledins
7. Thomas "Laraia Part Deux" Laraia
6. Eric "Bonesaw" Bone

Again, any of the top three women absolutely has the ability to break into the top 10, but the strength and depth of the field this year may make it difficult for more than one to realize that potential. Siri gets the nod here based on a comparison of recent training. Here we also have three reliable CascadeOC mainstays, and an excellent performance by Laraia the younger. Side note: "Big" Ben Smith would also feature prominently in here somewhere, but we've received word that he's skipping the early races and will therefore be out of the running for the big money.

5. David "Ricken" Bakker
4. Will "Just Happy To Be Here" Enger
3. Graeme "Blade" Rennie (AKA Graembo)
2. Ian "True" Collings (AKA The Virginian)
1. Adam "Tiger" Woods

The final will be dominated by Canadians, plus an Honorary Canadian. Graembo finally manages to not finish fourth in something, while David surprises by earning a spot in the final. Ian has the best speed in the field and is deadly as sin in an unforked race, but he won't be able to bring his full power to bear in a hectic butterfly-looped final. Which is why Adam takes home the giant bracket as the runner with the best combination of youth, fitness, and technical experience and skill.

C • Aw Yeah! 8

C • Accurate 5

C • Jonesaw 5

Event: CascadeOC Wednesday Evening #5
 

Willvision Deschutes Daze Day 3, Lower Dutchman Flats. Blue sky, happy forest. Tough sand running near the end.

Got invited by a friend to fill in on his shootyhoops team - another sport that I haven't played in years. My stat line was 4 points on 2-5 shooting, something like 8-10 rebounds, 1 turnover. Worst part was 0-3 from the line, yikes. Very rusty. I played a year of JV basketball in HS and a lot at Gonzaga; at a school like Gonzaga pickup basketball is one of the key masculine rituals and if you don't play it's a disadvantage in the grand game of the collegiate social ladder.

Anyway, it seems clear that orienteering and soccer are far more complementary than orienteering and basketball.

C • Yes 5

Well, going from the magnificent Dutchman map one day to an outdated 1:24000 USGS map with 40' contours the next day is unfortunate. Like going from a Tesla S to a Yugo. This was nominally a 3hr event but I came in a little over 2hrs in, and only lasted that long because there was a giant hill between me and the finish that I had to get around.

#hottakealert: Here we find all the classic hallmarks of why IMO rogaining is the worst: long, mindless climbs and road runs, poorly or non-mapped roads and major trails, painfully-easy-to-find controls, painfully-difficult-to-find misplaced and vaguely-placed controls, and a map so generalized that you can only navigate via the most obvious and cartoonishly large of features.

To clarify, I place no blame on the organizers and I thank them for their efforts. I just do not enjoy rogaining. And I haven't even mentioned the name, which is quite possibly the dumbest name for anything ever. No offense to anyone who thinks "rogaining" is a cool name that will attract new people to the sport.

Well that was pretty negative and now I feel a little bad about putting rogaining on blast. My apologies, rogaining. On the plus side, this did take place about 45min closer to home than Bend, so that was nice. And the landscapes were very pretty. I thought about using my last hour to hike up the giant hill for the views, but since it was about 1000' of climb I decided I couldn't get up there and back in time. Wish I'd had that idea earlier.

C • Seems like... 6

C • Ahaha 1

Smoked this course pretty good if I do say so myself. I was a little off in the circle on 3, 4, and 5, no more than 15, maybe 20s each. Could've had a better plan on 3, but 4 and 5 were a bit bingo-ish. Pretty clean and fast other than that. Got Bonesaw by 2.5min, though he said he was taking it a little easy.

This terrain never disappoints.

After the race, I got dropped off at the top of the Dutchman Flats map. I had pondered doing the bonus/practice course and/or hiking up the big hill on the map (Moon Mountain?) but it was suuuuper smoky up there, which was quite unpleasant and ruined all the views to boot. So I decided to get out of there down the trail. Took the Met-Win to Mrazek, which is a sweet ~15mi trail with about 2000' net loss most of the way down to Bend.

Daze Day 4 @ Lava Butte.

This one was a motala-style race; Eric and I ended up having a good battle. I had a couple small mistakes on my first loop, but second loop was clean, and I started my third just a few seconds after Eric. We took different routes to the second control and he gained 7s by taking the road, but then made a mistake a couple controls later which allowed me to leapfrog into the lead by ~10s. I held him off through the end of the third loop and most of the fourth, but made an error on the penultimate control which allowed him to jump back ahead. I closed the gap a bit when he took a weird route to the finish, but came in 5s behind.

C • motala-style? 2

Rode down Pilot Butte w/dad, then we messed around on the trails around the base, until we got separated and headed home separately after fruitlessly searching for each other for a bit.

Event: Labor Daze
 

Daze Day 3, Lower Dutchman Flats ("Witch of Many Boulders"). Mappy.

Pretty erratic for the first 3-4 controls. I saw Eric leave the start taking the trail around to 1, but that seemed pretty lame so I went straight, which turned out to be better even though I headed to the wrong rock outcropping and lost a small bit of time, maybe 20s. On 2, I was wary of dropping too far, so naturally I was too high and had to double back and down, close to 1min lost. 3 was the first one in the notoriously technical microlava area; I missed to the right, but recognized it quickly and did a bit of circling for a loss of ~70s. Then I had my map flipped and did a classic 180 out of 3, which cost me ~30s.

I was a lot cleaner after that - my only other loss was ~30s on 11, where for unknown reasons my direction suddenly became janky on the last 100m of the leg and I did a weird zigzag, even though it was a straight shot through open forest.

Got Bonesaw by 1:50 for the third win in a row! He had some issues, namely the route to 1, but mainly I had better speed and was taking seconds from him pretty consistently.

Mark Prior had invited me to bike from Bachelor back down to Bend, so I joined him in that endeavor. Temps were comfortable up at the mountain in the AM but as we descended and the day progressed you could slowly feel the heat creeping up toward 95F. About 2/3 of the way down Mark had to bail to the highway to get back to his place by 2, so I continued on my own. I was flagging after about two hours and had run out of water, so hit the highway for the last few miles.

Really fun biking, though Mark is a better/faster/more experienced technical rider than I (and has a bike that's like 10 times better) so I felt like I was slowing him down somewhat.