Training Log Archive: tommig

Got some Jukola 2018 Training maps and went up to have a go at one of the Sprinterval training areas. Not sure if these will be the same training areas next year, I assume yes, but possibly different courses. Very technical, lots of pits, slow going territory. Should be fun at Jukola if it is a lot like that. Was fun runnign a cross a lovely bit of the forest, but getting into the technical area with lots of depressions, re-entrants and very scrappy veg, had to really slow down. Unfortunately in this weather slowing down meant being totally swarmed by flies, horseflies, mooseflies, anything with wings and a willingness to draw blood basically.... ended up just doing one of the 2km loops before I was chased out of the forest.... while running it seemed fine, until you turned around to see this swarm following you everywhere you went....! Hopefully we'll have a cold Jukola next year!!

A fun sprint race with 2 sided map, 1st half 1:4000 2nd half 1:2000 pretty simple navigation ith no real routechoice problems, but fun for a change to run properly and with the controls coming up so fast it was still a fun challenge to stay on top of things.

Another day of pretty good orienteering, at least from a control picking aspect.

took the B course, 4.3km as my local club tends to have quite fighty forest territory and figured it would be slow. Also slightly worried about running on ankle so thought I would walk/jog most of it.

1, straight up extraction lane until just path small hill on right, then in on bearing feature picking past small crag and straight onto control dead in front. Couldn’t see it until I was 5m away so when I saw the rock I just knew the control was behind it, and it was. Such a good feeling. 2 came a bit left off spur into valley and started going up hill on otherside before realising I should just stay in the saddle and follow line of crags. 3 aimed off a little to come over end of spur so as to hit the white on opposite slope, with a plan of climbing up to the rocks where the slope flattens off, then contouring round. Again, straight onto control. 4 over top of hill, back down otherside, over re-entrant almost straight onto control. 5. took it really slow as lots of brashings, fallen trees, ankle breaker traps. round spur, through swamp, was a wee bit left but spotted the small clearing on my right, straight over that, bloody huge rock ahead with a control behind it! 6. decided to go straight. Path and road would have almost certainly been considerably faster, but boring, so crashed through green along edge of slope, then onto small hill in middle of green, hitting road just on the bend. Straight up following edge of re-entrant and bounce off little hill on my left, spotted the two knolls and again, just knew that the boulder was the right one and there would be a control behind it. 7 aimed for extraction lane, straight down that, over otherside, up to veg boundary and contour round. Some folk standing around, went straight past them, jumped down crag (was showing off as I knew the control was there and it would look great) and briefly worried about my ankle but it was fine. 8 finally decided a long road run would be best, so sort of contoured round to road and then flew down the hill round the bend to junction an in on a bearing. 9 on a bearing and straight onto control, 10 up contour to little knoll and formline then contoured into re-entrant. Came in between the spur and the sort of spur/platform just north of it, but knew where I was so it was easy. Aimed to hit extraction lane to Finish, but didn’t spot that extraction lane went all the way, so cut over to powerlines and followed them in.

Really happy with everything, basically 2 mistakes to speak of, those being just a bit over-enthusiastic to 2 crossing re-entrant too far, and then route choice 5-6 was too slow, could have run round road in probably half the time…

Started a bit right on 1 but always knew where I was due to the hill shape. 2 easy, 3 bang on, took path route for a bit as could run faster and figured it was a good attack point from marshy re-entrant over the hill to the bare rock. Helped by people punching as I got there, the control was quite well hidden, but would have found it anyway. 4 was a little bit low but safe route along to stream and back up. 5, overshot by 10 metres but knew where I was pretty fast, lost maybe 20s, probably passed by the control by about 2m and didn’t notice it.

Fairly straight to 6, but went over badly on ankle. This hurt like buggery and will need Ice and Ibuprofen. am just freezing ice pack now when I go to Sauna… Hobbled rest of way to 6, and 7 along path through saddle then just off path and straight onto knoll. 8 went up rocky re-entrant over the barerock and straight down onto control. A fast looking boy ran around the bottom from 7 and I def. got there first and he looked a bit confused coming back into it. Coming down onto the control was a good approach direction for 8! 9 around paths, struck off through green off the knoll and onto the other knoll on the spur then contoured around. Went first to another big rock on same slope. Suspect control was actually on an unmapped smaller rock further up re-entrant as I had to fiddle GPS track to make it fit here both on approach and onto next control. No matter, not much time lost. 10, straight up path by marsh and couldn’t miss it. My only leg that I’m not happy with was 10-11. Plan was to run along path, then down marshy re-entrant and attack 11 from ESE, but drifted right and onto slope down towards lake. Worked it out pretty quickly and actually wasn’t a bad way into control, but probably lost time and just a bit annoyed that I had come off plan. Ankle a bit better now, 12 just came over left edge of bare rock, saw crag a long way away, skirted around it straight onto control. 13 up extraction lane in re-entrant and through rocky saddle then jumped into the bare rock on right after passing the big bare rock on left. 14 went just to left of big bare rock and headed for edge of marsh, then came over bare rocky hill top into re-entrant and again onto control. 15 easy, down into valley, skirt to right of rocky spur, then cross second stream and to left of spur and there we are. 16 bounced off road just at powerline crossing and straight over bare rock onto control. Rest very straight forward….

I don’t think I could have navigated that much better had I tried! Faster for sure, but that would have required someone elses legs, about 20kg less weight, and much more dexterity and bravery. I reckon I could probably have been 10-15mins faster had I not gone over on ankle, but may have made more mistakes….

UPDATE: Number 9 was on the wrong rock.

Hugely enjoyable, very good to practice navigating amongst rocky forest, bare rock contours etc.

Hit 1 almost dead on, very pleased with myself. Too pleased.... for 2 decided to take a mostly off paths route to test my own nav and to learn... plan was to go off ski-trail path to hit parallel marsh and line of rocks, then follow this line due north. Did not notice that woudl have needed to go up a slope a bit, and allowed myself to be dragged around the corner. Didn't pay too much attention to compass as was on rough bearing, and so just assumed the marsh I was now on was the next marsh over, not a continuation of the first one. Eventually popped out onto next skitrail and couldn't make sense of where I was. Rather than re-locating, I made it up and decided that if I sort of bent my mind and squinted, the straight path probably could be represented with an 80 degree bend in it (???).... eventually realised that Orienteering God had deserted me and replaced with orienteering dumbass. No wonder I couldn't make stuff fit in the end I was about 300m further east than I thought. Lost a lot of time on this leg, maybe 10 mins or so, the results service reckons I was abotu 15mins off optimum time on that one. From then on decided to go slow and properly concentrate on nav. Including using my nose to confirm I was about to hit a marsh. Very happy to recognise the lovely smell of Suopursu or Wild Rosemary... Happy with all but one leg where again I just lost concentration, saw a path, decided to make some time up by running along it, and went the wrong way.... On all the tricky navigation legs going slowly I was really pleased with my nav and often walking straight past groups of locals to punch the control and have them all pile in after me. But on the longer legs I let my concentration lapse too often. Very good fun, very enjoyable, and nice to bump into friends.