Training Log Archive: Nick HarrisIn the 7 days ending Aug 18, 2014:
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Sunday Aug 17, 2014 #
Trekking race 11:56:00 [2]
WRC 2014 - Black Hills, South Dakota
We never really got on the front foot.
We didn't realise how slow the forest would be - deadfall trees badly affected the speed of terrain and the ability to hold a bearing. Consequently our ambitious plan was 10 or 20km too ambitious. IF we'd planned for less distance I think we could have scored more.
As it was, we launched into our ambitious plan, navigated well but found after a few hours that we were too slow. Running out of water earlier than anticipated catalysed a route change through a water station and dumping a large chunk of points. As we tired and it became night we made niggly errors in the circle and lost a bit of time and mojo until we hit our "night loop" which we chugged through quite well, until we hit the big hill.
Our approach to the hill was wrong for starters, then we dropped a control at the bottom thinking it risky (#71) which devalued the climb. Two controls later had a debacle with #79 where we missed it on our first pass, floundered around for too long before relocating off the stream and hitting the control a touch before sunrise. Dunno how much time we lost in there but it was too much. We were both woolly & indecisive. At least we found it...
Then we dropped off the hill via #73(?) to go around the bottom for just 160 points tarnished with another costly error in the circle at #77(?). Then missed #83 and short on time had to drop it to rush back via the 100
pointer at the top of the hill plus a 60 & a 40. We had a pathetic morning, error prone, low scoring, blisters and tired legs sapping our speed. A flawed plan and flawed execution, failure to adapt well on the fly... arrrghh. All in all a very frustrating performance.
Which is not to downplay the fact that it was, at times, genuinely hard. It was hot, thick with deadfall, draining and slow, vague. Controls were hung flat against the trunk of trees - hard to see from the other side. The map was a workable rogaine map, I thought. Its not that I expected runnability to be mapped, but I did become frustrated that there was no way to know what vegetation you might expect in the next reentrant or across the next hillside - it was mapped all white and you just had to cross your fingers.
Our previous two races in approx April and June both went very well. We were happy with our plans, and our execution. We were focussed and deliberate in addressing any nav problems, worked well as a team and we (mostly) moved well, covering good distance without running. In THIS race, we battled on all fronts - saved our worst for World Champs. Go figure.
We never really got on the front foot.
We didn't realise how slow the forest would be - deadfall trees badly affected the speed of terrain and the ability to hold a bearing. Consequently our ambitious plan was 10 or 20km too ambitious. IF we'd planned for less distance I think we could have scored more.
As it was, we launched into our ambitious plan, navigated well but found after a few hours that we were too slow. Running out of water earlier than anticipated catalysed a route change through a water station and dumping a large chunk of points. As we tired and it became night we made niggly errors in the circle and lost a bit of time and mojo until we hit our "night loop" which we chugged through quite well, until we hit the big hill.
Our approach to the hill was wrong for starters, then we dropped a control at the bottom thinking it risky (#71) which devalued the climb. Two controls later had a debacle with #79 where we missed it on our first pass, floundered around for too long before relocating off the stream and hitting the control a touch before sunrise. Dunno how much time we lost in there but it was too much. We were both woolly & indecisive. At least we found it...
Then we dropped off the hill via #73(?) to go around the bottom for just 160 points tarnished with another costly error in the circle at #77(?). Then missed #83 and short on time had to drop it to rush back via the 100
pointer at the top of the hill plus a 60 & a 40. We had a pathetic morning, error prone, low scoring, blisters and tired legs sapping our speed. A flawed plan and flawed execution, failure to adapt well on the fly... arrrghh. All in all a very frustrating performance.
Which is not to downplay the fact that it was, at times, genuinely hard. It was hot, thick with deadfall, draining and slow, vague. Controls were hung flat against the trunk of trees - hard to see from the other side. The map was a workable rogaine map, I thought. Its not that I expected runnability to be mapped, but I did become frustrated that there was no way to know what vegetation you might expect in the next reentrant or across the next hillside - it was mapped all white and you just had to cross your fingers.
Our previous two races in approx April and June both went very well. We were happy with our plans, and our execution. We were focussed and deliberate in addressing any nav problems, worked well as a team and we (mostly) moved well, covering good distance without running. In THIS race, we battled on all fronts - saved our worst for World Champs. Go figure.
Saturday Aug 16, 2014 #
Trekking race (Rogaining) 12:00:00 [2]
WRC 2014 - Black Hills, South Dakota