Training Log Archive: nmulder

Ran some of the trails, and some tar, to the east of the hotel.

HRM didn't work properly at start, so stats are low.

TE 3.0, 73 epoc, 257 kcal.

Day 5 of the WOC Tour, once again the A1 course.

Can't believe I got to such a high TE again. Once again, nice area for most of the course. Lot fewer people out there today, so I had a good race against 2 other people in my area, both of them with more speed.

Got off to a good start and once again aced the first route choice, to #4. First problem to #8, where I stopped early for another identical control. Didn't loose too much time as it was obvious where I was. Next mistake was when I was too low at #12, 20 secs. Biggest mistake was at #13, where I went walkabout for about 3 minutes. I was going straight in, but a huge bank was rather under-drawn on the map just before the control. Threw me off and I spent some time trying to relocate. Also took wrong route choice to #15.

Watched the Middle Final afterwards. They ran on an adjacent map that looked pretty shitty.

TE 4.5, 215 Epoc, 842 kcal.

From Orienteering Maps

C • Shitty 2

Ran the Open A1 course at the WOC tour, middle distance.

Big turnout, so people were starting on the course at about every 20th second. I had an okay run, getting very leg tired towards the end and started walking some hills. HR seems to indicate that it was beating a lot faster than I would have expected, so my body is pretty run down.

Messed up 3, too low and hit the road before bouncing back into the forest. Got into a big train of runners and I of course decided to stop looking at my map to #8, just when everyone else also forgot how to navigate. Oops. 2 mins of lost time. Had the best route choice to #9, but then the speed dropped off.

Nice area of forest.

TE 3.9, 155 Epoc, 505 kcal.

From Orienteering Maps

Team SA & their supporters took a rest day and went to Roros, a World Heritage Site about 100km S of Trondheim.

Ran the Open A course at WOC Tour today on the Kristiansten fortress in Tronheim town. Felt very sore going out to #1 and 2, but then warmed up. Only 1 stuff-up, at #4 where I got to the area not having read the map yet (had been behind a small girl on the previous footpath and spent too much time concentrating on not running her down).

Otherwise, a perfect run, albeit at a slower pace than normal. Definitely a lot to be said for regular orienteering improving your navigation. Nice, well planned course, but this stuff is too easy after all the forests!

44th place, +3:03 on the winner.

P.s. Too much time in the sun again today...

TE 2.8, Epoc 64, 184 kcal.

From Orienteering Maps

Went for an easy morning jog on the walking paths to the east of the hotel to loosen up before this afternoon's race. Surprisingly, I felt pretty good given the last few days of tough racing. No overly sore body parts to complain about.

WOC Long DIstance Qualifier

I had a latish start time, which meant I would again be running the last part of the course without any other orienteers around.

Got off to a decentish start. First 3 controls were in the green, but I didn't make too many problems for myself, maybe being slightly hesitant once or twice. Can't work out if I had the better route choice to #3 or not, but it did give me a great exit to out of the control to start the long leg to #4 (very happy seeing this route choice).

Got passed by Kiril on this long leg, so also very happy that it took him so long to catch the 2 minutes he started behind me. Didn't take the optimal route out of #5, instead spent too much time trying to climb / contour to the central marsh. May have lost 30s to 45s. Much better for the rest of the leg though, with Smola passing me towards the end.

Hit 6 & 7 good. Slightly too right to #8, where I was still 24th position. Thereafter I started sliding down the field. Took the wrong route to #11 (should have gone north along the marshes - 2 min mistake). Then okay to the next long leg where I should have run around on the path (another 1 minute - didn't see the option). Final few controls were okay, but I was lacking the speed.

So, in total about 4 minutes of mistakes, 3 of them pure poor route choice planning. Finished 28th (would have been 27th without mistakes), which was disappointing placing wise. Time was surprisingly fast though and my world ranking points are the highest ever (by 1 point!). Still haven't broken that elusive 1000 point mark though.

That's the end of WOC now. Only a few spectator races to do.

No HRM data.

From Orienteering Maps

WOC Middle Distance Qualifier

On the finish line I was quite disappointed with my run. Nothing seemed to have clicked during the race. I felt like I was bouncing from tree to tree and out of contact with the map for the majority of the course, with only one clean control (#5) in the more complex terrain. I hadn't run with a watch again (the altimeter makes it illegal), so it was a surprise to finally see the results board and realise that I was actually quite high up. The one thing going for me is that I had not made any major mistakes, which seems to have been quite important today.

1 - Found the scrappiest vegetation to bundu bash through. Stopped short at a ladies control on a knoll (which looked like a N-S facing marsh - huh?). Should have been quite a few seconds faster with more confidence.
2 - Dropped down to the path, and took a good AP at the river crossing. Should have contoured around below the cliffs rather than climbing over. More secs lost doing so.
3 - Slow climb out to the left along the slope. As a result was too low down, which I realised immediately when I got to the lower extension of the re-entrant. Some more secs.
4 - Got taken by surprise. Hadn't read ahead, and didn't know how to start the long leg. Was going north to the path before I decided on the western route choice, so I should have climbed immediately instead. The rest of the route choice was perfect, but my running was kak.
5 - Spiked it! Finally. Got 15th split for my efforts.
6 - Crossed the marsh and found myself going further west than expected according to the power line pylon. This gave me a good contouring option on runnable ground. However, lost contact with map (concentration!). Kept running and relocated on big open marsh, but then was playing catch-up. Thus slightly overran on the high side. My catch feature was the big hill ahead of me.
7 - Contoured and straight down the cliffs. Straight in, but not really very fast. Semi-spike. Found Novikov and Pavel halfway along (they passed me to #6) after Novikov went through his ankle. Pavel stayed with him.
8 - Contoured, but this time got caught out on cliffs. Immediately found a nice niche to descend ot the marshes below, but it wasn't the most direct.
9 - Down the main spur, but kept being pulled left onto the cliffs. Anoying. More seconds.
10 - Aced, but it was so easy.
11 - 'Aced', but once again, stupidly easy. Lost lots of time on the last two in running speed.
12 - Surprisingly 'decent' finish. The steep eroded downhill to start helped.

Ended up 26th out of 34. Beat USA, CAN, ESP, BRA, ISR, JPN, NED, CHN. So a good result, helped by the technicality and slow running speed in the terrain. The big problem was my lack of confidence in the terrain and in my running over it. Some proper racing here before WOC would have helped for this.

Splits

Long Q tomorrow. Hopefully lessons learned today will be utilised.

No HRM data once again.

GPS said I ran 4.3km.

From Orienteering Maps

C • Well done! Awesome run. 1