Training Log Archive: Thompass

Good day to get a longer run in. I wanted to take the forest down into the city centre, turn around, and come back up, but that immediately failed when I went the wrong direction. Eventually found a map and decided my plan wasn't salvageable, but I did see a road hopping across a few islands that acted as a bit of a roundabout way into the centre, so I went for that. There's a system of city bikes all over and every one happened to have a map, which is how I initially got unlost, so I planned my way around three kilometers at a time, jumping from map to map until I found something I recognized. Glad those things exist. Eventually reached the bay and made my way north, taking a detour because I didn't know how to get to the forest and was guessing my way. Unfortunately I hit 2 hours way before making it back so I stopped and started walking.

I also found at least the Egyptian and Japanese embassies lying among the islands near a lot of wealthier estates. Funny how that works. Would've been cool to find more embassies.

And when I say I stopped what I actually mean is I warmed down to closer to Anton's because I really didn't want to walk the whole way. Oh well.

Chill day today

Easy

Registered on the day since I didn't know about this event until it was too late to register normally. Was distracted for parts by other things. I guess it was a mental game today and I didn't fight it properly. Good to realise the things that went wrong. The nav was mostly alright, but I kept getting interrupted by bobbles.

Another faster orienteering opportunity comes on Monday.

Quickroute

TL; DR I look at the race, there's nothing deep there, don't need to read it, it's more for me.

Already a bad beginning to 1, no problem into the control but that initial bearing was horrendous. My inability to correct my compass course despite being aware that my bearing was off continued into 2, where I wanted to go in the open area left of the small lake and ended up to the right, then tried to follow some spurs and ended up on a parallel spur. That yellow line on the map is the string-o, is not an actual part of the map and was not on my map. Realized when I was at the olive green though so that's a plus, I can still recognize buildings.

From there, things calmed down a bit, with good orienteering on 4, 5, 6, and a bit of a drift into 7. The bearing to 8 was a good boost, pretty much nailed it, and carried that into 9 and 10, which weren't particularly difficult controls.

Unfortunately was not able to carry that beauty into the end of the race. Nailed the first 2/3 of the leg, on the left end of the green, across the path, to that bare rock after the stream. I guess my sense of dimension fell apart, because I planned to cross the marsh/green with the big rock, over the hill, through the marsh, and attack. I must have forgotten to take a new bearing because I continued in pretty much the same direction I had been going and, once again, confirmed I am able to see buildings and recognize I am not supposed to see them. Makes it helpful if it's the same building. Went through a rather vegetated marsh and finished the leg.

12 was interesting. Was doing well, crossed the string course, but then I wanted to go up the spur to the top of the hill before attacking from the top. Should be easy, I even saw the vegetation boundary. I saw the way up the hill and decided it would be faster to edge around it because the footing was better. I just overran it and didn't see it nor the track. Went too far, realized, relocated, got it.

Finished the race pretty frustrated, but it was because a few god-awful legs mixed between a majority good legs. Either way, pace was up from the training, which was good, and navigation didn't completely fall apart. Need to stay on it though because the map won't always be so kind to hand me an easy relocation.

A more physical training than yesterday, was slower despite trying about as hard. Was slowed down because I was making the course as I went along, kind of getting an idea of where I wanted to go then choosing the controls to do that. Was not quite good on the first hill with four controls, but I got a lot better afterwards. Will be interesting to do some faster O.

Quickroute

I was wondering why I was so bad to 3 before I realized I forgot to add a control in Purple Pen so here's the updated version where things make more sense.

C • Can't 2

6x 200, 400, 200 with 45s rest, 2 mins between sets, then 1k cooldown.

Got a good speed session down on a very nice track, legs just about popped during the last 400 but pushed that and the last 200 out with decent pace. Was going to go to Helsinki city centre after but didn't, maybe tomorrow.

Sorvalampi Iltarastit

Wow those are some lovely forests. Took it slow because I didn't want to feel hopeless on day one, focused on some solid nav and did quite well. Two moments where I climbed a small hill I shouldn't have and I had to scramble down a large cliff because of poor route choice but the nav was still quite good. Happy business, hope to acclimate pretty quickly.

3DRerun / Quickroute