Training Log Archive: GraceE

WOC Relay, me-Vanessa-Kathryn.
Same arena. Long run to the start kite, steady early part of the course. Left c4 out of sight of the leading pack, so chose my own route to c5. I did the leg ok and had a couple of people behind me, but maybe we weren't pushing the pace as we dropped a little further back on this leg. I made two misses (of about 30-40secs) on some green controls, before having a long track leg back towards the arena. Hung off the back of NZ and Canada to finish in 19th! What can I say? Best terrain race of the week? But again not a good result. Vanessa and Kathryn ran well and brought us up to finish 13th.
I'm not going to let Norway knock my confidence. I know that I am not good in the low-vis, knee-high undergrowth that is Norwegian forest, and I can't see me racing there again :) It was great to see the Aussies again and I had a fun week (ooh yeah - and it was awesome watching Simon right up there on 1st leg, punching each control ahead of Hubmann!).

WOC Middle final, 'Smistad'.
37th. Slow and shaky early in the race. Wobbly and hesitant to c4 (lost ~1min). Got most of the way to c5 fine but then lost +1min faffing around on the edge of the circle. Got caught but the next lady here, but we took different routes on the long leg around the 'made-up' out-of-bounds area. Most of the rest of the course was ok and I dropped the other runner (small miss at c11).
Sure, it wasn't a great result. But I couldn't have been more than 3mins quicker which would have been 20th place. I'm not overly disappointed, I just did the best I could :s But the course was the least enjoyable that I have run at a WOC.

Model map, 'Solemsasen'. Felt ok running, and got a few mistakes out of my system.

'Bratsberg Ost', control pick with tags out in the forest (10mins track running).

Middle Qualification, Jervskogen.
There were only 9 controls so I'll make some comments:
c1 - saw a control on a knoll but didn't match feature to map. Ran up wrong gully until I thought I was in the right spot - no control. Really unsure, went south and hit the correct gully and amazingly came across the boulder on the spur. Phew!
c2 - kind of just went straight but no plan for the control circle - lucked upon it.
c3 - long leg - map contact to halfway, then went down the wrong gully. Checked compass which told me I was 90degree wrong. Corrected and then had a bit more map contact until messing around near the circle and finding another control first. Rach caught me here.
c4 - picked up map contact 1/3 in, then read features into the control, wow.
c5 - Rita went right and I thought that was safest, I'd do that too. Read map well into the control circle and got it well.
c6 - got confused with various levels of crags. Looking at gps I went down a different gap than what I thought, hence the confusion. Rach was dropping with confidence so I dropped too. Cheers Rach.
c7 - a typical run and relocate. I didn't want to lose Rach but we ran to the wrong spur. I relocated off a gully in the green and headed down to the control.
c8 - fairly short easy control with photographers to show us where the control was.
c9 - running leg to the last control. British coach yelling at Rach to go high so I went high, cheers Dave.
Wow, really unsatisfied when I finished, felt so scrappy and just didn't get into the map. Moving slowly too. Of course very relieved and a bit surprised to make the final, placing 13th in Heat B.
Before my back problem I had planned to do some forest training on Friday, so without that I guess I was pretty rusty. Now I have time to do two forest trainings before the w/e. I will be more prepared by then and there won't be so many people in the forest. So pleased for Matt who had a great run to get 8th in his heat!