Training Log Archive: AliC

Travel Day: Aix-les-Bains -> Geneva -> Amsterdam -> JFK -> Grand Central -> Croton-Harmon -> Poughkeepsie. Whew.

Warm up in the arena, listening to how the race was progressing for the first leg. They kept mentioning Sam which was a good sign!

Relay:

Sam rocked it and came back only a few minutes back and in 12th place, sweet! Not in a pack, just with Team Hungary 9 seconds behind. Figured I just had to have a nice solid run, not rushing, not trying to run beyond my abilities given not-awesomeness of the middle. Plan kinda worked to 1, 2, 3, I wasn't at all fast, but I was careful and found the controls.

Then I made a similar-feature error to 4 that cost me 15 minutes. Such a bummer! Disappointed I made the mistake in the first place and then more disappointed I just couldn't figure it out for sooo long. My plan was to run straight south to the little trail, then run along that for a bit and then pop over a little hill and end up in the nice bright yellow depression, and continue on from there. Plan was derailed at the 'popping over the little hill' bit- I tried that too early and fell into the dull yellow depression to the east. So many things should have told me that was wrong- maybe my brain was just too fried from so much orienteering in the crazy woods, I don't know...!

Didn't relocate well either, had to go way out, hence the major time loss. Rest of the course was ok, didn't get lost again, but not speedy. Was upset at the finish- it's not nice to mess up a relay when your teammates are involved, and it was my 3rd quite bad race in a row, particularly humbling after such a good start to the week. Sandra and Beatrice were awesome though and I got the glum out after a bit. The Canadian gals had super races to come in 12th, so cool, next year will have to try to give them a closer race! =)

C • Mostly good 11

Bah, not so good. Don't completely know why. Legs were pretty recovered, felt focused at the start, went over how I wanted to approach controls with Sandra right beforehand, but still, just didn't go well. Probably too excited to go fast...

1- Decided to go direct on line picking things off, but then veered off. Got a warning bell of not connecting map and terrain (at 2nd trail by cliffs), but I didn't listen, really wish I did!! Didn't figure things out that quickly either, already caught by my +2 back, bummer start.
2-7- In crazy woods, but I did ok with most of it. Rachel Rothman came by at one point, together for a few of them, but always navigating on my own, splits of ~30th for most. Cliffs were bigger than on other maps, kinda like Blue Mountain on a slope.
8- Rachel headed off one way, I stopped at 7, made a plan and went for it, and it worked pretty much exactly how I wanted, hit a bend in a little trail, then contour then up at the cliff and into the little dot knoll in the green from the cliff corner.
9- Was slightly low, but thought I was high, so went the wrong way from the clearing on the trail.
10- Headed off in not-right direction, still caught by trail, but went the wrong way after popping over the hill to find cliff, really should have gone on the fact that it was just off the side of the highest point of the hill!
11- Straight, many cameras at that control.
12- Woo, I win a split!! Doesn't say much about my orienteering skills though, as it was the taped loop through the stadium, with just a pit in a bit of yellow to find at the end, but I did pretty much spike that little bit, at least.
13- Again, went straight, when now it's pretty clear the trail on right would be way faster. Got stuck and had to go around downed trees.
14- Terrible terrible. Totally made a plan: go straight until a distinct reentrant goes off to your left, then go down it until the hillside on the right starts to flatten and head along that edge to form line reentrant. But my straight got thrown off by wanting a totally different reentrant to be the reentrant I was looking for, ignoring my bearing, then trying to find the edge of the steep and going way too far, running into indistinct fence... from there took many ages to finally figure things out. Became a battle to just find the darn control, at some point, really did not feel in the race anymore, which is pretty much true.
15-16-end- Racing Judith Wyder of Switzerland who ended up coming in 3rd, do have to report she got me into the chute...

So seems like I was just a bit rushed through the race, especially 2nd half. I do want to race faster, but I can't rush to do that because disaster ensues. Have to keep figuring out the line of orienteering fast but not loosing sense!

C • Thanks for the write-up 2

Made sure to get a better warm up in for the legs, they felt way better than the long day.

Whew, and rest day. Biked over to McDonald's to finally get on the internet, and that'll be all my activity for today. Hamstring muscle feels a bit better, but a muscle I must have been using to compensate for it is now pretty sore (either groin or inner hamstring, unsure which). Still, think the rest day should do lots of good, and got a massage from Sandra last night and Alex this morning and keeping hydrated and now it''s in compression too, because that feels good... trying to do just everything so that it feels good enough to give a good effort for tomorrow's middle final!

Bit nervous about tomorrow's race since the one control in the crazy woods went so disastrously yesterday, but I feel like with a fresh mind and at least fresher body, things should work better tomorrow! The list of things I was thinking of for the middle qual is below, pretty much will be thinking of the same things tomorrow:
-Options: straight on compass, following obvious features (depressions), out to trail and back, contouring
-Use compass/distance sense more than yesterday (long qual)
-Ignore everybody!!!
-Try to have good attackpoints

C • Middle final 9

C • middle 1

Unhappy warm up with hamstring tweaking out, and jog up to the start which was a good deal of climb.

Long Final

Well, some days are not your day. Overnight, I felt my right hamstring becoming more and more sore, but I didn't actually think it was going to be a problem until I started warming up. Then the legs felt generally really tired, but my right hamstring hurt pretty intensely with every stride. Onset of a mini-panic: should I even race on it like that? Found Sandra, who was amazingly helpful, both calming me down and massaging out some of the knots in my hamstring. It definitely improved from that- small strides no longer hurt, just if I strode out further, so plan was to just think about smaller strides and to go orienteer.

Not the best mindframe to start with, but I told myself I just had to be good at finding controls. This approach worked to most of the first set of controls, even if I felt really slow. Worst was 2, where I was dragged high by a similar feature that was far too early. Then there was the massive long leg to 6. I again probably didn't take the best choice (I went right). How are the course designers so good at fooling me? To be honest, I was having problems telling what was down and up, and that's kinda an important part of the planning... a bit more time and probably could have figured out that the ski lift had its top at the top of the hill...

Then one control that was part of the butterfly loop (#8) I had major problems finding. I think I came quite close more than once, but it was well hidden behind a tree. Not a good excuse, because I should have been sure of the feature and just exhaustively searched it. Actually, looking at it now, the contours are saying something slightly different than what I was thinking then, probably explains a good deal of my confusion. First went back and attacked from the way I came in, then from the big trail nearby. I had the long loop of the butterfly first, which mostly went ok if not amazing. Felt like I was flagging at one point, so took one of the energy tabs Sandra had thankfully made me take with! Messed up 13 though, my plan was to find the lower yellow depression just before the green one I was looking for, and I went right to it, but then decided that it was actually the upper yellow depression because it had a nice string of what looked like yellow extending out of it (actually, lower one also had semi-open spotty yellow), and so attacked like I was at the upper one, ended up on the trail and had to hike back up to it. Boo, the Bulgarian (Nataliya) I had just caught got a bunch in front and I also saw the Chinese girl for the first time who had started 9 minutes ahead.

Heading to the smaller butterfly loop, I almost missed the control hidden in the green reentrant again (now #15), but saw Nataliya emerging from it which totally helped me not go past. A bit disappointed at that point, wasn't feeling like I was orienteering that well at all. And then the biggest mistake, since it's what meant I didn't actually finish, the last control of the butterfly, I took water, read my map, and left. Never punched. Argh!!!! Yes, I've heard you should punch first and then do whatever else, but wasn't super ingrained. Now it will be. Not that this was a good race, but it's even more annoying to fully survive it and not get the affirmation of a result.

After that, had a trail run for a bit before heading into crazy-forest. I was catching Nataliya, but only gradually. And then, I couldn't find #18 for quite awhile. Came in off the trail on the S side, along yellow, turned off at depression. The Chinese girl was also there looking, and she and Nataliya must have found it and moved on. Instead, I found the guy watching the control, but could not find the control for the life of me. Went out to the little depression again, no luck. Out to the bigger trail on the N side, no luck. Then a French and Czech gal came through and I heard a beep just W of where I was. So I'd say I pretty much failed at that one completely, although was mostly in the circle... brain perhaps a bit fried. Raced Czech girl to 19, but then took a different perhaps worse way down to 20 before sprinting in. Tired tired, took almost 2h, and then of course got the news that I didn't punch the control.

Lessons learned:
Punch first, drink second!!
Probably need to think more about calorie intake on a race that's going to be this long. The sports drink was really weak at the feed stations and just had one of those tabs that Sandra gave me.
Back-to-back racing might also require more attention to recovery than I have given. Should test out recovery drink type stuff, and maybe pre-emptive massage.

Warm up in little streets and warm down after *finally* downloading...

Sprint Qual, Aix-les-Bains

6th in heat A! But still quite a bit back from winner Linnea in 15.28, fast gal. Generally a good sprint, one mistake, some other hesitations but only slight. Even had the fastest split of my heat in two legs at the end.

Start went straight uphill to the tippy-top of the hilly park, wowzer, burn in the legs! I pieced together a good route, using big paths, little paths and yellow to plop myself right at the control. A few easy park controls before control #4 that almost tripped me up because it was right below a cliff. But a thick black line cliff, so uncrossable, had to go to the edge of it and come back.

From 4, we had a route choice either up and around or down and around. Initially tempted by up, looked like fewer contours, but it had a bit of extra fence that looked like it made it longer, so went down. Had second fastest split to that one, so good. Was hesitant into 6, couldn't make the fences act like I wanted, probably because the lower one was a wall and not a fence... tags mean something!

Then a tumble down the hill through some parking lots then a staircase, had to vault over a banister cause I chose the wrong side at the top, whoopsie, but hard to know... Urban, but not too tricky orienteering to 7 and 8, then 9 almost caught me out because I thought I was further than I was on the road and started looking for the control a block to early.

Worst mistake to 10, caught by a dead end wall just north of #9. Major boo for not having fully read ahead. Realized when I got to the corner, so turned around and went the south route (at that point, north route probably equal, but saw the southern, so went for it). Ran hard to 11, was starting to feel the running that leg, but then just had a sprint in (avoiding the DQ olive green!) to 12 and in.

Initially had no clue about how it went because the whole SI system crashed as I came in, which also meant I couldn't download for 15 minutes as they scrambled to get that together. While waiting got a thumbs up from PG though, saying I was currently in 5th which looked probably good, phew! Also got thrown a granola bar from Sandra, nice. =)

I think the SI hiccup is forgivable, although not awesome, stuff just happens wrong sometimes. But two things were not awesome about this sprint: 1) the organizers recommended shorts, not at all cool when going through nettles and briars is even a remote possibility. As was, fair bit of blood was shed. 2) the olive green at the end of the course DQ'ed 29 men and 11 women (ok, a few must have been other places, but most were this). When such a significant number of folks DQ you have not given enough warning....

Warm up, trying to stay in the shade, few pick ups. Warm down in the super-small area, we were quarantined on that side too...

Sprint Final, Chambéry

Ooooo, mostly really really good, but then also a terrible one that took a minute out. Hmph. So I'm very pleased with still placing top 30, but of course I know where I would have placed without that minute of silly (12th), and am so frustrated by that....

This time knew to expect the huge crowd at the start so wasn't as phased by everybody all of the sudden eyes-on-me when I got onto the start platform. Few smiles, then game face and concentrating. Countdown, grab map and off!

The orienteering in all the city stuff actually went really well. Maybe ski-o is relevant for this stuff? I don't know, but I think I was mostly choosing good routes and executing them well. Maybe should have gone right rather than left to 6 and 12 and then did a little extra to 14.

But then, there was my big mistake. So from 9 I saw that 10 was on the wall on the outside of the chateau that I was currently in. Ok, so which side? Outer side and I need to go all the way around to the bottom; inner side and it's just 200m away, tucked in a little passage behind the church. So first, I swing in the magnifier, still can't figure out what side of wall it's marked. So look at control descriptions, it says it's on outside north east corner. Great, so it's all the way down, I need to get out of the chateau! Except, it's not, which I realize when I head that way and the ladies try to grab my map... sinking feeling. Why did my control descriptions lie? All the way back around I go...

Anyways, after this, my minute-back Ida Bobach caught me, so a bit of running around her, but then was able to make up a bit of time through the final set of tricky controls, so pleased with that and in general how I handled the intricate city-o.

At finish, had time to figure out what went on with 10- I didn't look at the object column of the control descriptions. Instead of outer corner of wall, it was outer corner of building, which totally meant it was up high actually in the chateau. So completely my mistake. For future: on narrow passageways, a control could be on a feature on either side, must check which object as well as location column!

Sprint Model around La Calamine

Tired legs, left quad and right calf even a bit sore, so took it way easy. Poked around the urban controls first, at a jog, made sense of all passageways and such. Then a bit in the hilly park, muddy and hilly but not really tricky.

Psyched to run tomorrow, hoping the legs feel a bit more recovered!

C • Good Luck 4

C • Final Fabulous!! 5

C • Long Final 8