Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Elliptical.

Did some elliptical intervals for the first time in a while, 4x4 minutes.

I took Barney around a Green course at Patapsco McKeldin, while Alli and Inara worked e-punch. I thought Jan Merka set a really good Green course for the area, and I enjoyed it the whole time.

I had some trouble at #2, where I didn't really understand the mapping of ditch vs trail vs ride as I came down the hill, and so I ended up too far to the right, standing and scratching my head. AP also shows me making an error on #10, but that is just time that the dog took to drink at #9. :)

I thought that we were moving pretty well the entire time, and was disappointed to see that we only managed 10 min/km, and that Jon T smashed me by 15 minutes. Hard to tell how much Barney slowed me down...

Really good to see Turner putting up some top-notch results and logging on AP!

Green - Splits

Event: BAOC: O in the Oaks 2017
 

A longish elliptical session at the gym while on the OUSA BOD call. We had a marathon BOD meeting, with a discussion on the growth of youth and junior programs in the end. A lot of great ideas there, and a lot of inspiration from what is currently being done around the country. Very cool.

Elliptical at work

I really need to be more regular about doing my strengthening exercises. Aiming for at least twice a week from now on...

I took Inara on her first Orange course at the QOC Wheaton event. She did not have much say in the matter, as she was mostly asleep in my frontpack. It worked really well, and I talked through my navigation with her the entire way around. Really fun!

Rising up through the ranks of US junior orienteering back in the late 1990's, I always assumed that Kenny and I would race against each other for the rest of our orienteering careers, well into our Brown course days. I did not anticipate then that those days would come in our 30's...

After Alli and Barney got back from their Green course, Alli took Inara, and I had time to head out on a Brown course. I put in a moderately hard effort and stayed pretty clean, definitely helped by having already gone around Orange with Inara. A really fun day in the woods, plus my co-worker came out and did Yellow with his two kids.

RG: http://qocweb.org/routes/cgi-bin/reitti.pl?act=map...

C • Nice 4

Brown - Splits

For this morning's training, I paired up with AJ for an exercise where we took turns leading legs and talking out loud about the features we use. The more times I implement this exercise in training days and camps, the more I like it. I think people can get a lot out of paying attention to their own thought processes, as well as the approaches used by others. I hope AJ found this helpful.

He orienteered well and at good speed and showed good intuition for reading contours and planning routes. It was fun to watch him orienteer.

Control pickup after the one-man relay.

Event: QOC PWF Happyland
 

Junior (and other) Training Camp at Prince William Forest

I was coaching one of the advanced groups this weekend. My group included AJ Riley, Aidan Minto, and Turner Leigh, who are all up-and-coming junior stars. It also included a couple of guys my age, Nick Grenier and Philippe Cote-Jacques. However, Nick was only around for the second day, and Philippe stuck with his son's training group for most of the day, so today I just had the three juniors.

The first exercise was a multi-technique training. I shadowed Aidan through the line-O and partway through the contours-only section. He was fast and accurate! It was a pleasure to watch him orienteer: very smooth and aware of what's going on around him. I was impressed. Also, I was out of breath. I stopped and waited for Turner to show up, and then shadowed him the rest of the way. Turner has good speed and a lot of really good skills, with tons of potential for improvement. It was also a really good experience for me to shadow him. We managed to screw up one control in the compass exercise and had to do it over again. The rest of it went quite well.

After sending out my group on their route choice / attack point exercise, I went out to collect some controls. I walked the whole time and collected 16 flags.

Kenny's night-O!

I did the short advanced course pretty much immediately after dinner, which was not conducive to speedy orienteering. As I have been noticing recently, my body and brain seem to be currently capable of about 20 minutes of solid orienteering, before both start to give. This was the case tonight, as my navigation was quite good for the first 20 minutes, and gradually getting worse after that. I totaled about 4:30 in mistakes, which is a bit too much for this course. Two of the mistakes involved trying to find ways around patches of dark green. In one case, I simply failed and ended up right in the middle of it, while in the other case I went way further than intended to get around the vegetation.

As usual during Night-O, I had a blast. Thanks Kenny for a great course!

Edit: The Long Advanced course had the same first seven controls as the Short course. It appears that I would have won the first four splits and the sixth one even on the long course, which is nice to see.

RG: http://qocweb.org/routes/cgi-bin/reitti.pl?act=map...

Night - Short Advanced - Splits

Barney and I went out to hang flags for the training camp at Prince William Forest. It snowed and rained on us some, and Barney managed to fall into a creek over his head, making for a sad, wet dog for a little while.

C • Aw 1

Barney and I are back in DC, while Alli and Inara stayed in Missoula until Monday. It's weird being without them.

I took advantage of one of the last days of my parental leave by taking Barney on a nice long walk in Rock Creek and then hitting the gym for an elliptical session.

Stretching after the elliptical session.

Recumbent bike in the basement while watching biathlon with family.

Afternoon skiing with Inara, Alli, and her dad and his girlfriend at Pattee Canyon. I was pretty tired from the tough skiing the day before and couldn't go very fast.

Alli and I drove down to Chief Joseph Pass at the border between Montana and Idaho, just above 7000 feet. There is a lovely ski trail system up there that we wanted to check out. They had groomed the trails on Friday, but the snowstorm of the past couple of days dumped several new inches on the ground, which made for slow and tough going. I pulled Inara while skating, and Alli started out skating, but then switched to classic, which was a wise move. This was a really beautiful place to ski, and I'd love to come back someday. The temperature was about 19F, and Inara seemed to have been fine in the chariot despite her dad having forgotten to put blankets in with her...

On our final full day in Canada, we drove to the Nipika Mountain Resort on the edge of Kootenay National Park for a long ski with Inara. This was nearly heaven! One of the best places I have ever skied. A stunning setting in the mountains and forests and along clear rivers, on a great trail network that would be excellent for ski-O, and with perfectly groomed tracks. I could not ask for more! Alli classiced, while I skated and pulled Inara. Just a wonderful way to finish off our getaway.

https://goo.gl/photos/q7wdZH6EgJqKBjzy9
https://goo.gl/photos/Fe5RmjR2TpUZbHjEA (Inara didn't quite fit on the bridge)

I got out for a quick morning ski at Panorama nordic trails about 20 minutes west of Invermere. The setting was beautiful, the snow was plentiful, but the trail network and grooming were underwhelming. I skied classic and had to break trail in several places. Still, it was nice to get out and make at least one use of my classic skis on this trip.

After getting home and grabbing a quick lunch, I joined Alli and Inara for another skate on the Windermere Whiteway. The conditions were once again excellent, though it was overcast today. There was less wind, and so coming back towards the beach did not feel as "uphill" as it had the day before. We took turns pulling Inara in the chariot behind us and were virtually the only people on the lake today, with just a bald eagle in her (his?) nest for company.

https://goo.gl/photos/gAy12G3T4EuipncP8
https://goo.gl/photos/t8u1evnk6eyamZ7o6
https://goo.gl/photos/32pokAe9YWVXzi919

C • So nice to see pictures! 2