Training Log Archive: P.Stromme

To and from arena, to and from laundry, and to and from dinner

Jogging to start

S6D - Day 4 Darnaway - C38 - Splits

Walking to arena, to start, back to bus, into town, to event center, and back to camp site.

I felt better about my performance today, even though it wasn't a very good race. I think because I felt familiar with the glacial moraine terrain, and the woods were dry.
1 - strong start
2 - veered a bit further left than planned, but I realized it and adjusted my plan to hit the control
3 - too far left and hit the wrong reentrant. Easy fix
4 - horrible. A very short control, I started too far right, but ended up too far left. I think I must have been confused by the white/light green vegetation boundary and the complex network of white and rough open rides through the light green
5 - went right to hit a trail for the easy attackpoint
6 - pretty good. I ended up about 10-15m right of the control, but spotted it easily
7 - there were 5 contours stacked pretty close, so I was looking for a steep slope down. When I had gone too far, I saw that some of them were form lines, so it wasn't as steep as expected
8 - rough open is very hard to run through. I should have hit the trail to the right for faster running to the rough open area, and a shorter distance to go in the rough open
9 - not much detail to go by, and I ended up about 20m too far left
10 - more rough open, but shorter, and there were some pseudo paths to follow for part of it (looked like possibly 100+ year old logging road)
11 - I was in the right spot, and saw the control, but THOUGHT I was in the wrong place, because it didn't look the way I expected. Arghh!
12-15 - good, fairly quick
16 - awful. The first half of the leg was solid, the second half... not so much. It turns out that the area that I thought was medium green was still white. I was all over the place, and ended up going back to 15 to try again
17 - I was right on, but fell for the temptation to check out an earlier control about 75m before my control
18 - solid
19 - clean nav, but I went to the right of the little hill, and should have gone to the left
20 - good
21 - I ran directly to the mandatory crossing point, but when I saw the red and white tape, my brain said "Out of bounds," and I ran a couple of meters past it. A few people passed me there, but I passed them back on the straight run to 21 and the finish stretch

S6D - Day 3 Darnaway - C38 - Splits

Walking around Highland O Fest, spectating the WOC Middle, trail-o, and maze-o.

Maze-O at O Fest

Walking around the Battle of Culloden Museum and battlefield.

Walking to the arena, to the start, cool down after, and back to catch the bus.

Day 2, Glen Strathfarrar. The terrain was very physically challenging. Today went much better than yesterday. I definitely didn't navigate cleanly, but I didn't get completely lost like I did at the start yesterday. At one point i was struck by the sight of an open moor below me with at least 4 dozen orienteers criscrossing in all directions. Something we don't see back home...

First control. I was much more careful (didn't want a repeat of yesterday). But the navigation and terrain were also more difficult. None of the powerlines were on the map; they would have helped a ton. Several of the other runners in the area were complaining loudly that they should have been on the map, but I did see that they announced it in the daily bulletin.

Long leg to 4. I started out OK, but lost track of where I was. This was a leg through a moor along a step hillside (mountainside?) with a lot of marshes and thick bracken along the way. I ended up too far downhill. Fortunately, at the point when I was sure I was too low, it was easy to navigate the climb back up to the control.

Short leg to 16 in a thick pine forest. I went over a spur, and missed the small reentrant on the map. I followed it, thinking it was the bigger one I was looking for. My first relocation was using an uncertain feature. If I was correct, it would have paid off; but I wasn't. Second relocation was better.

C • much better looking track 2

Walk to the event center and back, in search of an electric outlet. Caught the medal ceremony for the WOC sprints and Sprint relay while I was there.

S6D - Day 2 Strathfarrar - C38 - Splits

Event: MNOC River Bend Nature Center MTBO
 

Walking around the campsite, arena, and spectating the Sprint final at WOC. Ali Crocker finished 15th, which I think is the best finish ever by an American.

Run/walk to the start, including a trip back to the arena from about the halfway point to pick up my forgotten compass, dibber, and description holder.

First race of the Scottish 6 Days, in Achagour. I had a major mistake on the first control. I felt confident, but I confused the real trails and the elephant tracks (from probably about 4000 competitors by the time I started). I eventually relocated by finding my control #7.

Other significant mistakes:
14 - had to navigate through some complex archery range trails. I was doing awesome, running past many others who were looking very confused. But I made a mistake right before getting to my control, and had a hard time relocating because of the trail complexity.
15 - just a bad leg in general. I'm going to blame it on losing focus when I broke through a bog and sunk in thigh-deep.
21 - running along a ride, looking for an intersecting ride to attack from. I completely missed that there were a series of straight, parallel trails through the area. I attacked from one of those trails, and when it was clear that it wasn't right, I just ran parallel to the does ride to my control. The problem was that the whole area was a series of furrows and ditches, about 1 1/2 to 2 feet high, and I was going perpendicular to them. Up and down... up and down... up and down...

S6D - Day 1 Achagour - C38 - Splits

Loch Ness, Urquhart castle, packet pick-up

Event: WOC 2015 & Scottish 6 days
 

Inverness