Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Really tired. Underslept and overtraveled. Still, managed to motivate myself by leaving my bike down at the train station forcing myself to get out the door and go for a short loop, ending up downtown and biking back home.

Spectator race, Open Long, run guerrilla style, which is to say without a set start time and without being added into the official results. But also no 30 euro fee, the start crew were nice to accommodate us WOC runners in this way.

A decent effort from me, a couple of places where I lost the plot a bit (and comparing to Hannah afterwards, she crushed me on a couple of the legs). My mistakes seemed to come after big climbs... apparently going up makes me dumb :) But the positive bits were some clean crisp fast controls and a good feeling in the legs.

Still plenty of time between the orienteering and the start of relay spectating. I wanted to get some more training in, and I invited Ken to join for a longish run up to the top of one of the ski hills I had noticed during our training days.

Really lovely run up into the terrain following big trails along the back of the ridge before climbing steeply up over the trees. Chatting with Ken and enjoying the weather and views. We hopped from our first ski lift to the next one further south, keeping a wary distances in amongst the cows, and found our views blocked by clouds rolling in.

We dropped down and back to the road in the valley, and followed that up to the cars. Thanks Ken!

Out to the middle model training map again. Did some of the controls in a new order and then hopped across the road to check out the weird track/swimming pool thing. Then, as there was still a bit more time available, I decided to climb hard to the top of the hill and then back down again.

Got back with plenty of time... well at least with a couple of minutes :) changing in the parking lot was accompanied by swatting the swarms of flies that seemed to think I smelled enticing.

Alex had talked about a cool mountain to climb now that the embargo in the long distance area had been lifted. A nap sounded nice, but I thought that I just might be able to make it up and back before dinner started, and the prospect of a nice trail run seemed like just the right thing.

heading out into the forest, I felt a bit slow as I headed up up up. I got to the base of the steep section in about 20 minutes, then the last little bit to the top took another 10. I knew I was at the top because there was a giant cross in the ground, and a stunning view into the valley beyond.

The way back down to the hotel took hardly any time at all.

C • Running up mountains 3

Rest day. Took the opportunity to spend the day in Venice with non-orienteering friends who were having a vacation in Italy the same week.

Sam and I drove down out of the mountains after the long distance race and met Sean and Ariane having dinner in our hotel restaurant. Spent all of Wednesday walking and sightseeing. We took a boat to Murano to see the glass workshops and crossed a fair few bridges :)

Orienteering spectator race, Open Long. The Men's team used this race as a relay trial. I started well, despite being a bit rushed in the call up lines, we got pushed through quickly and I never got my loose descriptions, which just means a bit more flipping of the map to check codes... all very good relay training actually.

I started well, clean and conservative trail route to the first, trail to the second, no hesitations or mistakes until the 7th, where my route takes me down into the field and then back up the other side. Lost contact with the map as I climbed and needed to stop and figure it out when I got over the ridge. I had over climbed and overrun the control, but not by much, and so I zipped down to get the control and move on.

On control 10, I really blew it. Had a good plan, and was executing well until the very end. Then I inverted some contours as I once more came over the ridge, and got confused when the thing I thought was supposed to be a depression was in fact a hill top. I continued on, massively overshooting and getting lost in the area, trying to make sense of where I was, since I knew I had just come in off of a trail intersection! resorted to checking all the cliffs. That didn't work. Saw Ethan (oops, he started after me) and finally painfully put the terrain back together in my head and figured it out. A pretty big mistake. Sigh.

Okay in the end, missed the best route choice on 13, but able to push fast and hard up the hill to the last control and the finish.

Disappointed in my own performance, but happy that the rest of the team fared much better. Especially Ethan who ran away from me at the end of the course.

Really really really, wanted a spot on the forest relay team, felt very confident in my ability to race well going into the day, but there is clearly a bit more work to do. Not sure how to describe the fact that my confident feeling leading up to the race was actually a healthy confidence and not an arrogant overconfidence. That's just how it felt. Either way, I am opting to take it as fuel to motivate my training. NAOC relay has become the next big goal.

WOC week is going very well. Proud of my sprint qual despite being 30 seconds from qualifying. Also pleased with my sprint relay race for being clean and secure, though maybe I was a bit too tentative with dealing with the slippery footing? Still some room for improvement, and the week is not yet over.

Looking forward, I will be running an open course on Wednesday along with the rest of the men on the team (excluding Eric, who will be racing in the long distance). I hope to race well, and secure a spot on the US forest relay team later this week.

Rocky footing and steep terrain will certainly be a change of pace after all this sprinting :)

C • help needed 1

Relay training on the official training map. Connected the circles into a course and headed out into the Italian forest for the first time. Rocky and open, just as advertised.

Thing were going well at first, but as things got trickier on the far side of the hill, I struggled a bit more. A few times I had to reattack the control multiple times. This terrain is actually a bit harder at slow speeds, I think, because the faster you run the more information you are picking up to place you on the map.

Glad this is only the first training, will need to sharpen up considerably.