Training Log Archive: GM

After catching the 'red eye special' from Perth last night it took me most of the day to feel up to doing something. In the end I felt good and really enjoyed the run. Around the northern edges of Spence and Fraser and along to Fraser Primary then up Mt Rogers, plus some extra meandering along the fire trails then home. It was getting a bit cool, especially after the weekend.

Easter 3 Days - Day3. At the start they said the recent wind storms had blown down a lot of trees so the green near the start was slower than mapped. It didn't look too bad standing there so I thought I would go straight to 1 and just cope. Bad decision. It was really slow and just walking in parts was difficult. For 2 I decided to get out to the fence as fast as possible and run along the fence then come back in through the white. Not a bad choice but probably not any faster than going straight. I meant to go straight to 3 but drifted left and ended up coming through the huge boulders. I thought that I would be able to just pick my way between them but got stuck getting down between the last two huge boulders and had to chimney down between them which isn't the fastest way to get around an O course. This cost me a minute. Funniest sight of the weekend was coming over the rise towards 6 and working out which was the boulder that had the control and then seeing the flag and then seeing Michael Burt standing on top of the 4m boulder trying to work out where the control was. I was trying to work out how he manage to climb up on top of that boulder. The going was very slow through 7 and 8 and I drifted off to the left too far in going to 8 so lost about 30 seconds. On the longer route to 9 I chose to go right but left was the better option in the end. The worst part about the right hand route was getting out of the green - it was harder and longer than I thought it would be and seemed to take an age. Once out I ran past the start triangle and then out into the open paddock before cutting across onto the flat spur above the control. Great way to attack the control but based on other times going left would have been about a minute quicker. Although it is always interesting to see how they went on the next leg. I ran really well but lost about 10 seconds on 10 by overshooting the control - there was so much rock there it was very hard to work out what was mapped and what wasn't. Ok through to the end.

I finished the day in 2nd about 1.5 minutes behind Bernard, and 2nd overall, with Russ a bit back in 3rd, then a long way back to Alex in 4th.

This is the first time I have placed at Easter so I am pleased with that but with a couple of cleaner runs could have been a lot better. Something to work on, as always.

Easter Day 2. I decided that if I did nothing else I was going to orienteer well to the first control and over-read my map. I did and nailed it. I decided to just drop and take the easy running along the bottom of the hill to 2 and was quite happy reading my way back up the hill to the control. Mucked around a bit on 3 by not going straight and getting into the big gully just beyond the control, but lost about 30 seconds by the time I got back to the little gully. Just fast open running until half way to 7 then just dropped some gears and ran slowly up the hill - it is nice to be able to run all the way even if slowly. I came off the big bare rock in the right place going to 8 but then decided to just read my way into the control but drifted to the right so I missed seeing the gully and ended up in the gully to the south east where there were two boulders - the fact that these were next to a large bare rock made me think I was in the wrong spot. I relocated quickly and probably lost about 30-40 seconds in the end. I ran well through to 11 and half way to 12 but then read the control as being in the forest so when I got to the circle I ran into the trees and couldn't find the boulders. When I realised that the boulders were on the edge of the clearing I found the control ok but had lost over a minute! My only other problem was on 15 where I misread the contour. I thought the rock face was half way down the slope and cut in from the barerock to the north but the contours were a bit obscured by the control circle and green and boulder clusters so lost another 30 seconds having to clamber back up to the control.

I had the fastest time on the day but I was only just in front of the Man from Hong Kong, and Bernard. Did manage to pull back some time on Russell and I scraped into 2nd place overall but only by 12 seconds as Russ had another steady run. Looking forward to tomorrow and an early start rather than the late one of today.

Easter Day 1. Started off really well from the maps to the start triangle and made a simple plan and did it well for 75% of the leg but then I couldn't make sense of the how the rocks were mapped plus I was having some problems reading the contour detail around the control. By the time I worked it out and found a way to get down off the large bare rock I had lost about 20-30 seconds. Ran well half way to 2 then thought the boulder was more on top of the spur so moved right but the crappy vegetation meant I couldn't see the boulder and went too far down the spur. Couldn't make anything fit so decided to run back to near 1 and relocate. Nailed the control the second time by staying lower but had lost two minutes. Ran well through to 6 but lost some time on the short leg to 7 when I turned in a fraction early and missed seeing the boulder in the green and everything just looked flat and the same, so another 30 seconds gone. Pulled up just short of 8 and again wasn't interpretting the map well - I saw the rock which had the control but I thought it was a boulder and I was looking for a rock face, so lost another 30 seconds or so before I went and checked. Then I really lost the plot on 9. My plan was to run past 4 and use it to attack the control. I was nearly at 4 when I started thinking "Oh, I should be going to 8 not 4 so I swung away to the left, but a bit too much and the next thing I knew I was climbing up some rocks about 100m south of 9 (I thought 9 was on a spur, but it was actually a gully). Worked out what I had done fairly quickly and headed for 9 but got pushed off course by the green again and ended up missing the control and continued on to be stopped by the rocky hill to the north west of 9. Decided to just run to the open area and use the fence corner to attack the control from the wrong side - this worked perfectly but I had kissed goodbye to 3 minutes. I was happy with my route choice to 10 which was just a little bit to the right of the straight line and using the bare rocks but I just missed reading the rock well at the very end so lost about 30 seconds by the time I swung back around the control. I was careful to 11 and ran well to 12. From there to the finish was just straight, with not much going wrong navigationally but I should have pushed a bit harder with my running.

I finished in 3rd place but nearly 6 minutes behind Bernard in 1st and 2.5 minutes behind Russell in 2nd. An ok result but a really poor effort with 7-8 minutes wasted. A really good area though, much harder than I was expecting especially after the prologue.

Event: Frazzle Rock Easter 2011
 

Easter 3 Days - public prologue - long senior. It was only supposed to be a warm up but I decided to treat it as a proper race. Hard to turn around from the start triangle so drifted left and then saw a flag so ran to it. It was my 2nd control so lost about 20 seconds by the time I got to 1. I quickly got into a good rhythm and caught James Lithgow at 4 and kept on going. I tried running across the dam wall heading to 9 but a large tree had fallen down across it so I ended up having to run down into the bottom of the dam and out again. Lucky WA has had no rain for ages. Leaving 11 I was pushed right and then swinging back left missed the control by about 10 metres so had to stop then double back so lost 10 second. Really stuffed up leaving 15 - I started going straight but then curved around and started reading the clearing to the east of the control as the clearing to the west. Fluffed around in the rocky knoll to the east then realised what I had done but had lost nearly a minute and James had caught me again. Fast through to the end. Ended up 4th in the long senior about 50 seconds behind Geoff which was ok but wanted to be clean.

Run through Kings Park in Perth just before it got dark

Cockies WNT from Al and Rob's place in Cook, with ALJ, Miss Jones, Heffer, Geoff, Devil. A nice easy run around the back of Cook and then around and over Aranda Hill. Good fun at night.