Training Log Archive: wilsmith

Travel day. And what a bad one. Started out with a 5-hour wait in Pearson, then made it to Frankfurt on time, only to land in a blowing snowstorm (!) - who would have guessed?

Of course, my flight to Prague got canceled, so I was re-booked on the next one. Scheduled to arrive at 1815, rather than 1700, so not too bad. Patrick and Mike would have to wait a bit for me (car rental in my name), but that's not the end of the world.

Then another announcement, another gate change, and a further 30 minute delay.

Then a further announcement with gate change, and now we're delayed a further hour.

Finally, we end up boarding but it's so late leaving that we're waaaayyyy late arriving - we eventually arrive in Prague at 2100, some 4 hours late. Yeesh.

Luckily, my bag arrived (for once), and we were able to hop into the car and start the long drive. It took nearly 3 hours to get to Prostejov from Prague, so we pulled in just after midnight. The Finnish team was just checking in and slowed things down, so it was after 0100 before we got into our room. Needless to say, apart from running around the airport in Frankfurt, no training today.

Just a light run around the mapped area, after Katarina finished. We were in a rush to get back to the airport, so only one of us could race. And since I'm heading off for a week of orienteering, it made more sense for her to get the chance to race today.

Beautiful weather, wonderful day out there. I am sure 17+ kms would have killed me (especially with 4% climb up muddy, slippery slopes). But maybe half of that would have been fine.

Anyway, off to the airport for a 26-hour trip that will end in Olomouc, Czech Republic for a week of abuse on hilly, continental, WOC2008 terrain. Can hardly wait....

PHOTOS!

Now available (some of them anyway) for viewing online. Mainly action shots of National Team types, so we can build our portfolio for use in future marketing. Uploaded some of Sam Saeger as well, just in case the US Team wants action shots for their own uses.

See:

http://www.orienteering.smugmug.com

C • Thank You 4

US Sprint Champs - race 1

Campus sprint, dead easy terrain except I read the dark green hedges as forbidden to pass, so added 2-10 seconds onto each of several legs unnecessarily. Oops!

No high speed at all - can't move the legs fast enough. Was happy to be within ~10% of the winner (Falcon).

I suppose without the extras added in I'd be much closer to the winning time, but would not have been able to go under 15 min today, I imagine.

For the above.

US Sprint Champs - race 2

This was the forest sprint, and mad did I feel DEAD tired out there. Within about 4 controls, fatigue really set in and that was that.

On the long leg, there was a MAJOR mapping error. The straight option looked OK - you would simply run down to an open, flat field, straight across, and then up the hill on the far side.

Unfortunately, there had been significant work on the land since the map was made, and apparently this was missed by the controller and course setter. A tall, uncrossable fence was extended blocking the way, and if this wasn't enough, excavations had created a large area of broken ground as well as a pond that effectively cut off access to the nice flat field, at least from where I approached it. And on the map, it should have been totally unobstructed, white forest transitioning to open field. Instead, I was forced to sidehill run along the leg, which was decidedly NOT faster.

Anyway, if it was my championships I guess it should have been voided as it was clearly an unfair race, particularly in a sprint situation. But as it was not my own championships, I didn't think it worthwhile to lodge any kind of protest. Considering even with that loss of time I'd have still be well back out of the medals.

Legs VERY tired. Ouch.

For the above.

Event: Flying Pig XII
 

The Pig WRE. Except that it wasn't a WRE - not for me anyway.

We dutifully got up at 0330 (after packing until midnight), trekked to Timmins, flew to Toronto, and there a problem developed... The guy who was supposed to offload the bags from our flight onto the US Customs belt apparently felt sick at work and just walked off the job, without telling anybody about it. So we waited and waited (along with about 10 others from the same flight - all heading off to southern vacations), until finally they were able to pinpoint the problem and deliver the bags. Sadly, by that time it was too late to get through customs and onto our flight, so we missed it and sat in Pearson for a few extra hours.

Drove like mad from Columbus to the Pig venue, but arrived only 5 min too late for Katarina's start. Since it was a WRE, we were out.

She raced it anyway, and actually won by over 2 minutes despite feeling as bad physically as she has ever felt in the past few years.

For my part, I started quickly but a mistake on #4 and then I lost my will to push around this "extended sprint" sylte of race. Cruised around, in a not-too-shameful 42 minutes, considering I haven't been out orienteering since the US Champs last fall, and haven't seen anything remotely resembling forest or orienteering terrain in 5+ months.

It felt awful being out there, but it will come back quickly - it always does.

C • so sad 1

For the above.

Not feeling great, but it had to be done. Actually only did 3 sets, what with the upcoming weekend, to be followed by a week straight of cruel and unusual punishment in Czech Republic's WOC terrain along with MrPither, Falcon, SandyHJ and the Norwegian team. If it feels anywhere near as bad as today, well - it'll be rough.

Poor sleep again, thanks to Princess Mia, as well as a late-night truck versus transport truck incident on our local stretch of the Trans-Canada. At least there were survivors this time - the two other recent transport-related crashes locally involved 75% fatality rates (all VSA on scene).

C • vsa? 3