Training Log Archive: NotATac

A tough race on a pretty tough terrain filled with endless amounts of similar features. As my times show I did not have a great race. Particularly points 2(23:15) and 3 (23:57) gave me quite difficulty. Point 2 had very weak trails I was unable to follow so I tried a straight bearing. Because of a lot of close by marshes, I couldn't identify which marsh my point was in and got disoriented. Point 3 was similar in the dead reckoning method and again I was lost because of all the hills and cliffs in the area. In all, I should have observed the territory more in depth beforehand and made smarter decisions about how to approach the area, such as moving slower and using directing features. After that I had a pretty smooth race except for point 9, in which I should have taken the road but tried to be ranger and cut through the forest. Physical is not my probably I just need to become smarter mentally if I want to move up.

Long - Orange - Splits

Ran the middle orange at NAOC in Hanover. Ran a pretty good day I only got disoriented at 5 and 6. At five I ran a little to much to the right and missed it so it took me 816 for this split which prevented me from getting first or second. point 6 also took me long than I needed to because I went to the wrong river system. Point 6 took me 417. Overall I felt really good except for those slip ups and I got third place. Next time I need to focus on how to get to the point for more time so I don't spend so much time lost. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Middle - Orange - Splits

The team had a fun day where we set points then had to sprint back and get them. It was a musical chair type game with orienteering points. The person who didn't get the point was out and had to do push ups or sit ups or something. Then we took a point away and it started over again. I lasted until about 10 people left then gino got me out. We did some push ups after and called it a day.

The Old grads designed a nice course for us where we could use Epunch to mark the points we went to. This was at round pound about 15 minutes from West Point. I got lost at point 3, thinking I had reached the correct cliff but I didn't go far enough. To fix this I should trust myself more and incorporate pace count into my bearing work. I ended up walking around the same area for a long time because I didn't go far enough. For my next meet I need to remember this concept and use pace count if I want to get a medal.

Ran the practice course designed by the old grads and learned a lot about the benefit of terrain association over trail running. If the terrain is not really bad and rough then running through the terrain will be faster. Some of those points however involved crossing some hills and it would have been better to take the trails. Hopefully this information will increase my time this weekend. After the course I did 50 burpies.

A good 37.39 Minute run. Ran with the team down to the hudson and along the railroad tracks until we hit 20 minutes the turned around. I dont know the distance but we were pretty far down the tracks I would say. When we got back to Ike statue we did 8 minutes of ab exercises.

Todays course went better than day 1 but I still got majorly lost on one point which killed me. going from 5-6 was terrible. I hit the wrong trail but thought I hit the right one and ended up taking it to a campsite. The road was a very well done dirt road so i figured it could be considered yellow. I now know it must be paved to be yellow so this was my first mistake. Thinking I had hit the right road I followed it and after about 400 m thought i should turn off. When i did i was in the middle of no where in the forest so i set a emegency north bearing to get to the paved road. When i hit the paved road I found my point but it took more time to find 6 than all the time 1-5 c ombinded. Overall this point took 2302. The rest of the course was easy work. Lesson learned: slow is smooth and smooth is fast- take your time to make sure you hit the easiest route even if its slower so you dont get lost.

Sunday - Orange - Splits