Training Log Archive: Ari-o

So, Norway. It's a hell of a society they're running here. Some observations:

* Nothing is open on Sunday. The only thing open is the little Joker convenience-sized stores, run by one person. The goal is to give everyone a day off. So, yeah, you have to plan to buy groceries and such around this, but nearly everyone gets a day off. How nice.

* These little grocery stores? I expected something like a 7/11. But no, it's a downscaled version of a big grocery store. You can get fresh vegetables and pasta and the like, not just candy, chips and soda.

* The people working at these stores (and restaurants and elsewhere) are all well-compensated, so there's no issue of tipping and such. It's done through strong unions. Which everyone seems to support.

* There's a 15% tax of food and 25% on other things. Included in the price. Probably a VAT, I never really found out. And everyone is happy to pay it. Because they have a functioning society and a social safety net.

* One of the things the safety net buys is buses everywhere. Every little town has a bus (or, a buss) which comes by a few times a day. So not everyone needs a car.

* Which is good, because there's something like a 100% excise tax on buying cars (for comparison, sales and excise tax in Massachusetts adds up to 12% over five years, and little thereafter). So most families have one car (if any).

* They also don't salt the roads. Apparently part of the licensing process is to learn to drive in slick conditions. Which you need to figure out.

* Despite sitting on a pile of oil, gas costs $8 a gallon. I've seen about one pickup truck and maybe three large SUVs. It's a country of sedans, hatchbacks and station wagons and the like.

* There's no ADA equivalent here. Lots of little steps, gaps getting on the T-Bane, steep ramps without rest levels and such. Probably makes infrastructure somewhat cheaper, of course.

* But sidewalks get cleared, and if not down to pavement, down to ice with gravel. Apparently in the spring they come around with a vacuum and suck up all the gravel.

* Five weeks vacation. A mandate that you can take 3 weeks in a row in the summer if you want. 7.5 hour days with mandated flexible schedules if you're in an office. People seem happier.

* Everything seems to work. Everyone seems happy. Yeah, the oil helps. But we could learn a bit from the Norwegians about how to run a country. And not just about skiing.

C • Forgot to mention 2

Cold and raw, skiing around to try to get warm. Extra layer today.

Last event: relay. I'd pulled the anchor leg and the goal was to punch all the controls and not lose. Greg came through fine, as did Adrian, so I went out right as the leaders were finishing to ski the course. Fun course today: no huge hills, nothing super scary, and fast, fun conditions.

Word on the street was that we were going down the ravine of death, so I was prepared for that. And we'd seen most of the map before, so it wasn't like it was terra incognita. So Adrian came around, tagged off to me, I had kept the ice from accreting on my map board, and I skied off. Up the big trail and then in to the woods to 1, and then diagonally out to the big trail for the climb to 2. 3 was in an area I'd been to before, so that was a pretty good punch and 4 was also good navigation. Having said that, I'm still not comfortable navigating at speed, but at least not getting lost.

5 was well navigated along the marsh, and I saw someone else but they weren't going where I was, and then a narrow climb up to 6. I got a little lost in to 6 as I had the first time, and a little lost out of it, but navigated well using shortcuts to 7 (lots of short cuts today).

I followed some short cuts to the big trail down towards 8 and reoriented in to the oods, then took a decent route to 9 and then a good route to 10 via the trail that I'd taken in to 8. And then it was time for the luge run of death. As I had been informed, I took off my skis at the second caution sign, and ran. It was great. Loping running downhill on snow I would have been breaking equipment or myself on, didn't miss the corner everyone missed, skis on easily, and up the hill on the other side to 11.

I didn't take a great route to 12 worrying about the esker of death from yesterday, but took a good route out of it. Big trails to 13 but I took a dumb shortcut in to it and had to pause to find it. 14 went well with just a slight hesitation, and then it was down from 15 with speed and alacrity.

The last loop was nubbly stuff in the forest, and I took it slowly to make sure I was going to the right controls in the right order. Punch, punch, punch, punch, stadium, finish. With Alex cheering.

So then I went to download. They held my chip against the sensor, and the guy in the booth looked at me, looked at the computer, looked at me, looked at the computer, and then motioned to another guy. That guy did the same drill: dumb looks at me and the computer. Then a third guy was summoned. This gentleman looked at the computer, and me, and gave the dreaded thumbs down.

What? Great. It turned out, every other team mispunched, or DSQed, and I had to go in to the Red Sone again to find out how I had transgressed. I stood outside tracing the whole map. Went there, went there, went there, etc. THen I went in. Same guy looking at my splits. He looked up and down the list, and then took my chip, and printed out a list, and looked at them, and said "okay, you are good." Wait, what? Apparently there's some Emit backup and they were able to verify the veracity of my punching with it. Well, okay then. Finland and Norway mispunched, but not the good ol' USA.

Of course, we still lost nearly an hour to the Russians.

But it was fun racing, and I'm feeling more comfortable with the trails, and I am not broken, and only one of my skis (and a rock ski at that) is. So, success? Yes, success!

C • Nice going! 3

Off on the East Side again, skittering around narrow trails.

Couple miles of skiing waiting for the race to start.

Ugh, so this happened. Things went well on a macro scale, but pretty crappy on a micro scale. Like, I mostly navigated well, but when I made mistakes, they were painful. If that makes sense. The big takeaway is that I misread a trail overprinted with a circle, missed a punch, and mispunched the whole course. But for the most part I skied well, with some big mistakes costing minutes.

First mistake: out of the start, I followed a very long route to the first control. Now, it's a mass start, and I barely had time to read the map, so by the time I was going I was on the right side of the mass start and needed to make a left. But, an additional issue: I read the map wrong. I missed the obvious route choice and skied probably an extra 300m. Which is why there was no one there when I got there.

Didn't realize that until I read the map later.

Coming in to the first exchange, I forgot to punch the pre-exchange control, but circled back to do so. So another few seconds. I exchanged the map well, though.

The third map was the worst. First, I totally flubbed the map exchange, tossing away my maps and trying to get the first in the map holder with the others still there. Apparently, you're supposed to throw your map away before the exchange, and volunteers will pick it up for you and give it back after the race. I did not know this. So while I'm trying to get the map in the holder, race volunteers, thinking I'm in the lead pack, start pointing me right, towards the final loop. So now I'm lost, because I've been told to go the wrong way, in an orienteering race. It took me quite a bit of time to regain contact and actually find the course.

So I went to 1. Then I went to 3. Well, most of the way to 3, then circled back to go to 2 and then to 3. Then I came through the rest of the course, missed the last control before the stadium, didn't realize it of course, and went for the final lap.

With Greg breathing down my neck.

I beat him through the controls, and rode the last hill well and led in to the stadium. Then after the race I said "well, of course, maybe I mispunched" and got a thumbs down from the official and went to the "Red Zone" (or "Red Sone" as it is spelled here) and was told by a very nice Norwegian man who went through all the controls and said "it is this one, sorry." They are not conversational here.

Oh, well. It wasn't like I was having a stellar race, anyway.

After the race, I wanted to ski on top of the mountain. Everyone else wanted to go tomorrow until it was ascertained that tomorrow was going to be cloudy. Cloudy is bad for the top of the mountain.

So Alex, Stina and Greg joined me today. It was so great. The trails were double-tracked (annoying, but good to see that the art of classic skiing is alive and well in Norway, and not on fishscales, either) so we zigzagged up the maze. The top was beautiful: ski trails as far as the eye could see, mountains in the distance, brilliant sunshine, and skiers dotted along the ski trails in any direction. Hell of a country they're running here.

Then we went down through the maze, which was equally fun. The GoPro video should be good. As should all the pictures.

Then we were tired and went home.

Oh my. We went up to Sjusjoen to ski on the trails there and it was so nice. It was also completely foggy and we couldn't see more than about 50m, but freshly groomed and fast and gorgeous. I could ski here basically forever. We skied out a few k on the Birkebeinerløypa (Birkie Trail, but the real Birkie Trail) and then turned and came back on a loop through more fog, and it was great, and now I want to come back and ski the Birkebeinerrennet and apparently there is always space for foreigners, so, 2016?

Also I am now telling everyone to go ski there. I imagine it's even better if the views are better.

Skiing around the field they had set up as the model. No controls, just some narrow trails to goof around on. Then a quick restroom break, and a good, and off to the start.

Long race. This was heaps and loads of fun. I didn't orienteer really all that well, making a few moderately-sized mistakes, but skiing across the plateaus up high with 100 mile views? That was sweet. I can see why people like skiing the Birkebeinerrennet. Might have to do that some time.

Started at the start and off to the triangle. I made a decent plan through the woods and then got a bit lost, found 1, and then got a bit lost going to 2. But I got there, just ahead of the guy who had started two minutes behind me. 2 to 3 was a long leg, and instead of racing my own race, I looked around and followed people up small trails, up, up and over the top of the mountain. I had no idea where we were until we got to a big trail junction and then I was annoyed because it meant a long narrow trail descent, good for breaking skis and bodies. I had wanted to go around, and should have, but didn't. Damn.

Slowly down the hill, and on to the big trails. I caught the Austrian on the climb and lead him in to 3, and then down the super-sketchy-but-there's-no-other-option hill to 4, and I let him go ahead, and I fell. And so did the guy behind me. The guy behind him made it through.

Then we all trained up and I dropped off a bit to go to 5, and punched 5, and went to 6, and there weren't that many tracks but hey the route was right to 6, and punched 6, and then went to 7 and saw people coming at me and, ugh, I'd gone 7-6-5, not 5-6-7. It wasn't a huge error—they were sort of in a loop—but certainly sub-optimal. So it was off to 5 for me, and I saw Adrian, and he took a different route choice, and mine was better (helped to know the trails) back to 6 and 7.

7 to 8 was another long leg back up the mountain and this time there was no going straight up a narrow trail, no, thank you. Up the wide trails, V1, V2, up to the top and to the control. Map flip!

Then down to #1, navigating well, and in to the maze. I got messed up with the maze (but it was fun, and so beautiful) but just went south (towards the sun) and reoriented off of the shape of the intersections, found the control, and was off to 3 and 4. 4-5 was a long leg and this time I went around the mountain. Much better. 9 or 10 fewer contours and a descent on the big trail. Recaught the Austrian and put him in my wake.

I didn't really like the 5-6-7 skiing. 5 was fine, but 5-6 was okay. I went high, which was dumb, and then from 6 to 7 took the big trail, because I wanted a break from the woods. Probably slower, but probably saner. I didn't get the point of 7, it seems everyone went up to the control steeply from the big trail and then back down to it; no real route choice. And 8 was a guy on a snowmobile.

8-9 I stayed on the green trails and off of the roads and had a good ski on the big trails, and saw Adrian at the bottom and realized I was going to 13, not 9, but stayed the course and changed a bit in the maze to 9. 9-10 I got a bit confused but found my way through the smaller maze to get to the control. Felt good about my generalization from 10 to 11 (all lefts until a field, cross the road) and started passing people with higher numbers from time to time, which felt okay. Probably should have gone a trail higher to 11, then got a bit lost to 12, starting to get tired, but I'd been on the trail to 13, so that was okay. 13 to 14 I skied low to the big trail, climbed some and then had a mostly contour/downhill ski to 14. 15 I took the trail down to the road, the road to the big trail, and then counted intersections off the big trail to five, and went in to the woods: that felt good. To 16 I followed the narrow trail on a road, and mostly got 17 well except for a bobble at the end. 18 was spectator control, down the hill, on to the barely-readable-at-1:15k small trails near the stadium, same damn downhill as yesterday, but not as sketchy, and in to the stadium.

This was great fun. I pushed harder on some parts, but lost a lot of time navigating poorly and pussyfooting down hills. Well, it's really only my second day doing this. Yup, World Champs.

Since pretty much all of the course was closed to skiing because RACE, I went for a run down the road. Nice Norwegians gave me plenty of room YOU HEAR THAT BOSTON?!

Anyway, had some very minor stomach issues earlier but they seemed to shake out. Getting ready for race.

World Ski Orienteering Championships! This race was a lot of fun, which is kind of the point. I've never skied narrow Euro trails before, so my goals here were to keep contact with the map, punch every control, and not break equipment or myself. And I think I did a decent job of this. Made my start, a few butterflies but surprisingly calm, and I set off to ski.

I took the start triangle bit slowly since it looked gnarly with a lot of people having skied it, and then set out to find the first control. Then crossed the stream to the second, well, and the third, decently. Not skiing fast, but not making mistakes. The fourth I took the "navigate off of features not trails" too much to heart and navigated towards the big trail, so I had to figure out where I was off of that, but it wasn't bad. Mantra for tomorrow: Make a plan.

5-6-7-8 weren't too bad, I was seeing a few other skiers but wasn't being passed by tons yet. Long leg to 9 and I too the big trail which may not have been the most perfect route choice but certainly easier than trying to navigate the little ones. I didn't take the best route in to 9; going further north would have been better, I think, and then got off course going to 10 and had to reorient myself a bit. But did that okay. 11 was okay, and hen there was a scary downhill on a "wide" but really not wide trail to 12, the road crossing, and a ski-snapping (for someone else, anyway) whoopiewoo to the spectator control, and then the big downhill from there.

Skiing deliberately to 13-14, and I went to 15 but came in way below it and had to climb a contour or two; tough to see that even on the 1:5000 map, but not a good ski-through route. Then two gnarly downhills to the finish—a more conservative route choice would have been to ride the esker back to the big trails and take them to the finish, the go control and the finish. I was the first one out for M21, and maybe the fourth or fifth in, and #2 came in a while after, so NOT LAST.

So, a good first race. I didn't ski fast, but I kept contact with the map, didn't get lost, and accomplished all my goals. Goal for the long tomorrow: same as today, but apply more speed. Speed is good.

C • Nice going! 1

Skiing around in circles for a while to cool down, nowhere to go, but needed to cool down.

They started awards and there were six separate award ceremonies (M and F for Euro youth, Juniors and Seniors) and that included six people getting their names called, prizes, etc and then the flag raising and national anthems. I said eff this and went to ski the narrow trails, did for 20 minutes, then came back and they were still giving out the W21 with the M21 still to come. Yay, skio. So much fun to just tool around, although I got a look from the control picker upper.

So that happened. It was a training day, and they held the model event open, and I wasn't skiing the one man one woman mixed relay, so it was just time to ski around and around the few narrow trails we could ski on. So I did. I had a GoPro on to show people what ski-o looks like, and the trails were icy, so it was fun.

Model event ad Budor. Drove up to the stadium and had to ski in a small area within the embargo. They did have signs at the edge to keep you out of competition areas. Enough narrow trails to have fun, and they're all well-groomed and really not that bad to ski on. A few steep hills up and down, and a few other teams skiing around The touch-free punching is great. Skied most if not all of the trails, then discussed how to figure out how to ski all of the trails with as little skiing as possible (or without repetition, but that was quickly quashed as impossible.