Training Log Archive: DarthBalter

Flying back to States.

C • The secret 4

Felt very relaxed, they had unice swings at kids playground.

A-final. Warm weather felt good. Started concervative, saving strength for later. Missed first on a parallel error, 40 sec to a minute. Beginning was physical, legs are still good. 4 to 5 was critical long leg, took extra 30 sec to decide + 30 sec in execution, but nailed a control in green native forest. Caught up to Roger (8 min) on 6. Leading on the way to 7 while climbing. Legs are not as good as earlier. Now Roger is leading, we are about the same speed. Just before 7 heard Nickolay F. crushing behind us. I have 2 min on him, that is good news. Now there 3 of us running hard, lead changes, orienteering is straight forward, easy to push pace. Last 3 controls we are 4, caught really strong Sweed, who started 2 min. behind me, passed me on a long leg, but lost some time later.Good and bad news at the same time. 2 in the finish, 2 better guys finishing later with better times. 4-th, 2:12 behind third, 4 minutes to leader. I was not the fastest by far, but good company, especially Roger's, helped.
M50-A Final Map

C • excellent racing 1

To the start and some more. nice and sunny.

Qual. Day 2. No pressure, runnig was effortless, navigation good. Still lost some time on 2, 3, and 4. Total may be 3 min. Finished fourth in my heat, shell be in top 10 starting spots. Will rest tomorrow. 1-st leg was super long and super interesting, the rest was easier. At the end I took safer and longer routes, looking at the splits, straight routes were faster by 30 seconds each. That is something to keep in mind during the final.
M50-1 Q2 Map

C • A final 31

Nice running weather for a change: sunny and cool by local standards.

Very fast, very open pine forest, multiple unmapped rides and roads, made no difference, good visibility helped. Missed 1 low, realized right away but 1 minute was a big miss today. Clean after. May be not the best line to 5. Legs may need some rest.
M50-1 Q1 Map

C • You are fast 5

Liked the pine forest, hated the jungle!

Hot and humid (85F). Very poorly thought of arena, close to 0 spectating opportunities, 1500 runners cramped in a small area with no room to warm up.

Very strange sprint, several controls in the jungle. I lost the race on first 2 controls, all on organizers: 1 - left route had an unmapped fence (taped off area) that made best route impossible. That added about 20 sec of time and a lot of confusion for about 50 % of the folks. Until I finished I could not understand why people were cursing in all different languages wile running up finish shoot. Control 2 was misplaced, not by much, only by about 6-7 meters, but being it was in a middle of jungle and on a wrong side of the stone wall it was invisible from right uproach, I was standing in the circle until another 60+ veteran came from different direction and punched it. I made only one 15 sec mistake, at 4 I missed really tiny trail junction and went around. Also legs gave out on last hill after 100 meters of unmapped mud marsh, but all had that. Couple of times I went almost knee dip. That all said I was capable of no better than 6 place, top 5 are much stronger. Also, very strange that our winner beat all m35,40,45,50 man by 20 sec on a first leg. Controls were 25 meters from each other.
Sprint M50-A Final Map