Training Log Archive: O-ing

Event: NavDash 5 - Mandurah (Australian Sprint Championships)
 

Mandurah, Sprint Distance, M55, equal 1st.
Great area, map, courses, organisation, and really happy to get my third Australian Sprint title. But... when you are in a dead heat for the win inevitably your mind turns to the minor technical issues that influenced the result.

Start Draw
An unusual one. Pretty sure this was just bad luck, but the “random” draw happened to give one of the top ranked runners (me) the first start in the M55 start block and the other (Geoff) the last. We were both ranked no. 1 in 2010 – me in M50, Geoff in M55. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but when combined with:
Position of no. 1
While you couldn’t see the flag for no. 1 from the start, you could certainly see the first runners punching it, if you were looking. It was 80m directly straight on from the map boxes, but below “ground” level on the beach down a couple of steps. Apparently James Lithgow (GON, M55) starting two minutes later was gobsmacked to see me just standing there frazzled before punching it after a 20 second time loss. Geoff on the other hand had Roch (3rd at Easter) starting a minute ahead and may have seen the punch (Roch also lost time). So, a 19 second advantage to Geoff.
Route Choice to no. 10
On the face of it a choice between left or right of the obvious curved impassable wall. Right looked a lot shorter, but had a massive sting in the tail – a locked gate and short impassable wall. A closer look should have told the story, but clearly many people didn’t see the potential trap. On the Attackpoint splits, 20 of the 46 person field are listed as making a mistake on this leg, by far the most on the course. In fact even Geoff chose right, but changed his mind before over committing. I put it down to a couple of contributing factors. The impassable wall blocking access from the right is only 2mm long. It “blends in” with a paving edge, building line and contour which are all parallel to it and joined up with it (the wall overprints the contour line and paving edge, but runs into the building edge and contour at both ends). This makes this impassable wall much harder to see than the obvious 20mm long curved one which created the “route choice” which is on its own in an Out of Bounds area. Setting a leg on which an obvious route choice has a trap which will cost significant time to those who choose it seems a rather heavy handed way to decide a championship race. Anyway, Geoff gained another 27 seconds here.
Flower Bed at no. 16
The route to 16 seemed to have only one option, unusually for this course, where most had two. On the approach to the flag the person in front of me ducked through a gap in the flower bed straight to the control where there was a traffic cone. Hmm. I looked at the map again, and didn’t see an obvious break in the flower bed, although there certainly was something marked there. One thing I was sure of on this event was that I wasn’t going to get disqualified through doing something like that, so I went around via the steps. All up that took me an extra 10 seconds, and Geoff got another 1 second advantage. Now looking at that area under bright lights and a magnifying glass I still can’t quite make out what’s going on – I think a canopy has been drawn in next to the flower bed, or it could be some internal paving or a step. I’m sure that was enough to cause people to think that going through was OK. Certainly the traffic cone didn’t help – that is the way the local association uses to mark the way to follow to the start, so anybody from WA may well have assumed it was OK. There was nothing in the instructions about traffic cones marking out of bounds. There was a physical gap in the flower bed there, but its fairly clear, with the magnifying glass, that the gap where the cone was wasn’t on the map. With the benefit of hindsight, given the number of runners who reportedly ran through, a far better control site would have been the base of the steps, 5m to the north.

In general, the map was hard to read in the detailed areas – like that whole NE most area, on course 5 particularly between controls 18 and 19, where even with the magnifying class I can’t distinguish what the map is trying to represent. On the day I looked up and saw a way through with no flower beds and a couple of steps, so took that.

So to sum up: Of the 23 legs, in my view there were three minor technical issues which cost me 48 seconds relative to Geoff Lawford. Of the other 20, I had 15 fastest splits for the course and I beat Geoff on one other. Geoff was quicker than me on only 4 legs for a total of 7 seconds (2:20 to 2:27). Funny way to win a championship.

C • Honourable Draw 18

Course 5 - Splits

Perry Lakes. Still heavy-legged.

Kings Park. Leaden legs.

Collecting controls.

Frazzle Day 3. Predictable result - 2nd again, and 2nd overall to add to an enormous number of second places in my palmares. Not clean enough. Lost time at 1, standing scanning the forest floor for a boulder which I eventually spotted over my right shoulder about 60m behind me. Major issue was #4, attempted to go straight and lost confidence when things started not to match up so reverted to looking behind every likely boulder. However, I ran well, I'm not injured, and I got 6 fastest splits (same as Geoff) - so if and when I do get a clean run it will be interesting. Great area, good course.

C10 Day 4 - Splits

Frazzled. M55. Not a good run. A couple of minor issues like yesterday, and a biggy. Passed Richard Robinson going into 9 and ran a little bit too fast and slightly off line, got on the wrong bare rock and attacked the flag 100m too early: -5 minutes.

C10 Day 3 - Splits

Frazzle Rock. M55, 1st. Really good start, and spiked the first 7. Then the wheels started to fall off when the climb began, and struggled. At 7 I was 4 minutes up on Geoff Lawford, so could have made this 3-Day interesting. As it was its nearly back on form - Geoff won the next 7 splits and was back to 45seconds down, then we both fluffed the second last and I ended up a minute in front. Not nearly enough for 3 days but a goal for the weekend achieved at least.

C10 Day 2 - Splits

Event: Frazzle Rock Easter 2011
 

Event: NZ Orienteering Champs 2011
 

Willoughby. The 30 pointers were all nearby, so just got them.

C • Last minute training? 2

Mitchell Park. Another Sydney Sandstone Shocking Performance. Lost 10 minutes on the 3rd last and last after a really good run up to that.

C • Ahem 4

Division 1 - Splits

Includes a new record commute for the Lane Cove option - 33:30.

Marsfield. 390 pts. Pushed some bits hard.

Cold, took a long time to warm up at work.

Long Distance, two minutes longer than yesterday (Geoff was quicker than on the Middle!). Wet, not good for the Inov8s. Two major errors - veered off and overshot 4 (-1:30 didn't see an indistinct track junction) and stopped early on 8 in a gully that I couldn't make fit on the map (-1). Otherwise just not as fluent as Geoff.

Event: ACT Championships
 

Collector Hill. M55. Wasn't expecting a match race with GLawford quite so soon, but thats what it was. Geoff was to start two minutes behind me (No. 1 ranked M50 and M55 2 minutes apart in a Championship). So I waited at the start for 30 seconds, so as to reduce the possible advantage I would have to get near the end, as I figured he was going to catch me at some stage. I didn't have to wait long as he arrived as I was figuring out the lack of contours at no. 2 - prominent gully and hill not evident. Anyway got it first and took off. Opened up a 10 second gap before the long leg, but chose to go around the bottom of the ridge on the long leg - got stuck, Geoff back in front. Sped up again coming back west, but failed to pick up where I was in the subtle big gully before the ridge. Geoff trundled by heading for one of the two hills, so I gambled on the other one. Wrong. Switched off after that, 2nd. As it turned out I was 1:32 quicker on the third last control, so my start strategy could have worked if I'd been in the right position.
EDIT. Re the missing hill at no. 2 - it was on the map last year!

Mild cold still making me coughing. Probably not the best time to have changed asthma drugs (Monday) but it seems to be working out OK, and the new one isn't on the WADA banned list.

C • WADA 2

Neutral Bay. Sluggish, legs heavy.

Caths track (?)

raining. urrgh. Note - need one more commute to pass 2010's total cycling km (958km). Doctor - Singulair.
Doctor yesterday. BP 154/75 (had had 3 coffees). New asthma treatment - daily pill: Singulair (Montelukast) to treat rhinitis as well. Encouraging start. Mild cold with sinus issues better last night, although still a bit gunky this morning.
Asthma drug history: Becotide [glucocorticoid LABA] 1978-86 (+Ventolin)
Intal [Non-steroidal cromolyn sodium] (+Ventolin) 1986-1994
Symbicort [glucocorticoid LABA/SABA] 1994-2011
Seretide [fluticasone/salmeterol - LABA] on occasions - definitely during 2002.

Lane Cove Weir overflowing again.

Event: NSW SL#2
 

Wattle Ridge, Hilltop SL#1, M55, 3rd. Okm 5.2, 235m. Shocker. Can't read the map in or near the circle. For 1 and 2 confused myself on detail under the circle line (-1, -5). 4, 5, 6, no idea (-5, -1, -1:30). 10 not used to having cliffs marked as stony ground - however the legend does add "rocky outcrops" to that symbol which is halfway there (-3). Mistake time loss - 16:30. Pretty impressive performances by Jock, Jo A and Shep (and Ross Coyle who won M55). There are very few competent orienteers in this stuff.
Adductors sore after yesterday - not running fluently. Note: Biggest km running week on AP- 37.1km. Not in hours though - 4:07 doesn't quite beat Inisbofin 2008.

Stingers Sprint Training. Good Fun. Started off with Grant so sprinted the first two, Then was paired with Jules, so stuck on his shoulder. When he went went past the building I was expecting and stopped, I couldn't work out where we were (-1 min). Next up I went off with Grant and Tracy, who got me on route choice to the finish control. Took the slower route up the next hill. Next was a mass start - on Jules shoulder again and was second to the tape - but it wasn't Jules because he went straight on. It was one of those (Muzz?) who went the shorter way left.
Back to the bags with NMFC and one other. Next loop hit a "restricted area" sign, so jogged. Then came an easy dash to the trees. Got bushed on a bike rack. Finally a big mass start race - just jogged around to the left - could feel various things tightening up.
That was followed by a 2.2km course. Went off with Grant and some of the Juniors. Was soon on the heels of the W21s and picked off a couple until we caught Cath. Knowing that she was just jogging and had had loads of time to look at her map, when she went left from 11, so did i (- 1 min). Cranked it up from there to get back up to Trace.

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