Training Log Archive: NikolayIn the 7 days ending Aug 18, 2014:
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Saturday Aug 16, 2014 #
Event: WA vs WA
Hike/Walking race 23:46:30 [2] 95.0 km (15:01 / km)
Team Bulgarian Latvian Friendship
Here is a detailed report from the recent 12th World Rogaine Championships (which I prefer calling 24 hour navigation race)
My partner Peteris Ledins and I have planned to participate from couple of years ago, and were exited as the race approached. This spring Peteris's knee got bad and the participation was in the air. I was already looking for another partner, and Peteris could not run even 5K without pain. Time passed / rest and physical therapy and cycling must have helped.
Finally Peteris' knee did not complain in a local 8 hour navigation race a month ago, and we entered as a team relatively last moment. Our training included Peteris commuting runs and bike rides and mine more infrequent long and ultralong runs. Both of us were in a somewhat shape, and planned to do the most we can with it.
All travels were ok, slept fine in a nice hotel a little further out, 35 mins from start area in Spearfish. Bags and plan not to come back to HH for the whole 24 hours were ready by the evening, and we had a relaxing morning drive and preplanning time around the start area. Which is not my usual mode of operation. But thanks to Peteris here we are all ready with 1 hour till map handout.
After the map handout we discussed the overall mile high view of our race plan and route. Upon initial CPs/sq. km estimate we agreed to go counter-clockwise heading out west initially. The SW part of the map had the highest number of high valued CP and many mid valued CP with no low valued ones. From there the path moved E then NW and ending that part of the map at #60. On the other side of Rockford Rd we continued E then N along the edge of the map all the way to #77, then back S to #82, and up to #86. From there go W clean the NW part and come back towards the finish to take a string of low valued CPs.
We were pretty happy with the plan as it allowed for many modifications and shortcuts and still being close to optimal for each new shortened path. On the flip side if terrain appeared fast, we had an acceptable plan to pass through and take skipped CPs in case course seemed to be clearable. (in case of no deadfall and all forest being as the NE part of the map it should have been easy for the top teams to clean it)
So we lined up at the start just before noon, waved at the drone camera and took off. As both Peteris and I have experienced bottlenecks at the first checkpoints at previous international races, we took off fast and punched the first CP25 first. There was our first lost time of 1 second having to wake up the SI station. This swelled to 5 seconds time lost as we woke up the next 4 CPs as well.
Our optimistic planned route was 100 km on straight lines. Usually I measure the actual path, but didn't bother this time. We agreed to throw 15% - 20% extra distance for our actual travel time if we needed more precise estimates. But for this race measuring and estimating as the crow flies was enough.
The first Uh-oh moment came at the 5k mark (all measurements are as the crow files) and time of 53 minutes. Oops, for a first hour of our race we are not that far from our average speed. The deadfall apparently was going to play a big part and course clearing was not in the game anymore. The second and third and fourth hour came, we settled to hour pace, and slowly drifter from over 5km/h to close to 4 km/h. At that moment we decided to begin cutting low points on the course. So the fate of #37 which we cut earlier was joined by #46, #76, #48 and #85(for which we heard multiple people spending heaps of time looking during the day and decided smartly not to push hour luck at night.) By this aggressive cutting early on, the optimistic plan now was that probably we will reach the north part to #86 and #66 and turn back home from there, skipping the NW part.
On the E part of Rockford Rd we skipped #42, #36 and #68. There was nothing else easy or worth skipping all the way to #86. So we dug in and made sure we kept our pace never stopping outside of the water drops. The NE part of the map was cleaner of deadfall and the woods were much more open, so the last hours of the night and the morning were at a higher speed than our expectations.
During the night my stomach refused to accept any more sweet calories and I was running close to empty, maintaining some calorie intake with boiled salty potatoes and some chips. This was not enough to last through the whole night and the remaining 6 hours of daylight, so with the encouragement of Peteris and my resignation to the fact that I'll be throwing up soon, I downed 2 gels. Felt really bad but held my dignity, and 2 mins later I was able to jog again. Throughout the night and early morning my stomach was unhappy with me forcing in food, but reluctantly did its job, and I had enough to keep with our pace. After our last CP - #23 we pretty much sprinted the 3 hills to the finish happy to have handled the course strategically and physically as best we could. Ironically from navigational point we end up with more time lost than I would have liked (probably around 45 mins total).
Race stats:
3240cp - 95 km - 23:46:30h
Extentions from our actual plan base on us and forest being faster:
+650cp +19.5km for a 3890cp - Last NW loop to be taken in the morning
+430cp +18 km for a 4320cp - accumulation of skipped CPs along the way from start to N part of map at #86
+130cp +7 km for a 4450cp - Low value CPs loop around finish
+50 +4 km for full 4500cp and course clear. Obviously unreachable, But was still an option after first 3 hours of racing
I think our planning was great. Still no results, but I would be surprised if another team with our number of CPs collected is close to our score. And expecting people with ours or better scores to have way more CPs.
The recovery for me is pretty good. It's 4 days after the race and I am ready to head out and practice for the 24 at Cleman Mountain.
Thanks Peteris for a great race and great partnership, and Duska for the understanding and accepting of my obsessions.
Here is a detailed report from the recent 12th World Rogaine Championships (which I prefer calling 24 hour navigation race)
My partner Peteris Ledins and I have planned to participate from couple of years ago, and were exited as the race approached. This spring Peteris's knee got bad and the participation was in the air. I was already looking for another partner, and Peteris could not run even 5K without pain. Time passed / rest and physical therapy and cycling must have helped.
Finally Peteris' knee did not complain in a local 8 hour navigation race a month ago, and we entered as a team relatively last moment. Our training included Peteris commuting runs and bike rides and mine more infrequent long and ultralong runs. Both of us were in a somewhat shape, and planned to do the most we can with it.
All travels were ok, slept fine in a nice hotel a little further out, 35 mins from start area in Spearfish. Bags and plan not to come back to HH for the whole 24 hours were ready by the evening, and we had a relaxing morning drive and preplanning time around the start area. Which is not my usual mode of operation. But thanks to Peteris here we are all ready with 1 hour till map handout.
After the map handout we discussed the overall mile high view of our race plan and route. Upon initial CPs/sq. km estimate we agreed to go counter-clockwise heading out west initially. The SW part of the map had the highest number of high valued CP and many mid valued CP with no low valued ones. From there the path moved E then NW and ending that part of the map at #60. On the other side of Rockford Rd we continued E then N along the edge of the map all the way to #77, then back S to #82, and up to #86. From there go W clean the NW part and come back towards the finish to take a string of low valued CPs.
We were pretty happy with the plan as it allowed for many modifications and shortcuts and still being close to optimal for each new shortened path. On the flip side if terrain appeared fast, we had an acceptable plan to pass through and take skipped CPs in case course seemed to be clearable. (in case of no deadfall and all forest being as the NE part of the map it should have been easy for the top teams to clean it)
So we lined up at the start just before noon, waved at the drone camera and took off. As both Peteris and I have experienced bottlenecks at the first checkpoints at previous international races, we took off fast and punched the first CP25 first. There was our first lost time of 1 second having to wake up the SI station. This swelled to 5 seconds time lost as we woke up the next 4 CPs as well.
Our optimistic planned route was 100 km on straight lines. Usually I measure the actual path, but didn't bother this time. We agreed to throw 15% - 20% extra distance for our actual travel time if we needed more precise estimates. But for this race measuring and estimating as the crow flies was enough.
The first Uh-oh moment came at the 5k mark (all measurements are as the crow files) and time of 53 minutes. Oops, for a first hour of our race we are not that far from our average speed. The deadfall apparently was going to play a big part and course clearing was not in the game anymore. The second and third and fourth hour came, we settled to hour pace, and slowly drifter from over 5km/h to close to 4 km/h. At that moment we decided to begin cutting low points on the course. So the fate of #37 which we cut earlier was joined by #46, #76, #48 and #85(for which we heard multiple people spending heaps of time looking during the day and decided smartly not to push hour luck at night.) By this aggressive cutting early on, the optimistic plan now was that probably we will reach the north part to #86 and #66 and turn back home from there, skipping the NW part.
On the E part of Rockford Rd we skipped #42, #36 and #68. There was nothing else easy or worth skipping all the way to #86. So we dug in and made sure we kept our pace never stopping outside of the water drops. The NE part of the map was cleaner of deadfall and the woods were much more open, so the last hours of the night and the morning were at a higher speed than our expectations.
During the night my stomach refused to accept any more sweet calories and I was running close to empty, maintaining some calorie intake with boiled salty potatoes and some chips. This was not enough to last through the whole night and the remaining 6 hours of daylight, so with the encouragement of Peteris and my resignation to the fact that I'll be throwing up soon, I downed 2 gels. Felt really bad but held my dignity, and 2 mins later I was able to jog again. Throughout the night and early morning my stomach was unhappy with me forcing in food, but reluctantly did its job, and I had enough to keep with our pace. After our last CP - #23 we pretty much sprinted the 3 hills to the finish happy to have handled the course strategically and physically as best we could. Ironically from navigational point we end up with more time lost than I would have liked (probably around 45 mins total).
Race stats:
3240cp - 95 km - 23:46:30h
Extentions from our actual plan base on us and forest being faster:
+650cp +19.5km for a 3890cp - Last NW loop to be taken in the morning
+430cp +18 km for a 4320cp - accumulation of skipped CPs along the way from start to N part of map at #86
+130cp +7 km for a 4450cp - Low value CPs loop around finish
+50 +4 km for full 4500cp and course clear. Obviously unreachable, But was still an option after first 3 hours of racing
I think our planning was great. Still no results, but I would be surprised if another team with our number of CPs collected is close to our score. And expecting people with ours or better scores to have way more CPs.
The recovery for me is pretty good. It's 4 days after the race and I am ready to head out and practice for the 24 at Cleman Mountain.
Thanks Peteris for a great race and great partnership, and Duska for the understanding and accepting of my obsessions.