Training Log Archive: Torino

Back home on the hottest day of the year!! Late afternoon, we walked upstream along the Aare from our place with a crowd of people (a continuous flow all day) for 40 min, and floated, swam downstream with still a pretty strong current! What fun :-) :-). All day, thousands of heads of people were swimming by with no end. This is so impressive.

My 4th O-race in the O-Festival. Got my act together in the morning and drove up to do my race. Managed to change my 08:05 start time to the last one of the day, 10:38. Caught up lots of people and running the course was really entertaining with all the languages heard in the woods. When I grabbed the map and looked at the course, I noticed right away that many legs were the same or very similar as the Middle Final the previous day. So it was very exciting to run on Ali's course (except the loop at the end after the run-through). I managed quite well in this difficult terrain with the very detailed map and the somewhat confusing dark printing. Had some little blunders here and there as some flags were quite difficult to see. But I was very happy with the way I ran and came in 4th in my class of 75 women(?). (but in no contention for overall as I needed to run 5 races)

C • WOC course 2

My 3rd race in the OFestival. This was just not my day. After yesterday's long final race, I could start to relax quite a bit and the whole tiredness of team leading swept over me, so I was in no state to think clearly. Already onto number 1, I misread the trails, searched on the wrong hill until I figured that something was really wrong and I ran over to the correct hillside. On numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6 one mistake after another, just did not read the map right and was all over the neighborhood of each control.
After that, somehow it clicked and things were fine, then we had the long 1 1/2 k-cross-country race to the finish.
The woods were open but still quite complex, full of rocks and detailed contours.
On the upside: for the first time since April I noticed that I could run across meadows again. I had tried and tried in my trainings on a short stretch but still my eyesight had prevented me to run across fields without hesitations. Today, that was gone!!! yipee, another step back, I felt so happy and lucky to actually be able to orienteer again (even with mistakes today, but they were not important at all).

My Number 2 public race at the OFestival. The woods were wet and muddy after some rain.
I had a dream run!! The course and the terrain were very, very difficult, I crawled under and climbed over dead trees, the terrain was very intricate, and I followed my line with the compass steady and the control flags just kept popping up. I was amazed at myself or at my luck?
The course was in the area of the middle quali, I did never check whether we had similar legs.
This is how orienteering is fun and challenging!
And.... I seem to be able to orienteer again, so great.
I was 7th again out of those 75+ women in my class.

My first O-race again since the disastrous performances back in April. My first race of the O-Festival, I had skipped the first day.
It was very hard and difficult to get through, made some errors, but nothing big. Just kept on my compass bearing ignoring little things and concentrating on more dominant hilltops or depressions which was the right tactic. But hard to get through all the rocks, cracks, pits and deadfall. I was amazed that with my time of over 90 min I still came in 7th in my class! It was way too hard for us "older" women. One had to be very agile and nimble.