Training Log Archive: iansmith

I showed up at the sprint site at Lausanne - Dorigny at about 8:30, 43 minutes before my start time, but later than I planned. I was already changed, but the Swiss 5-Day info listed both a 30 minute walk to the start and a 10 minute call up. I made last preparations, bought a nice Vapro control description holder, and scampered off to the start. I ran faster than I would have liked, and arrived just as I was called for the 10-minute call up. It turned out to have been largely unnecessary, as we just loitered in a corral for the 10 minutes before the race, but my legs felt pretty good, and I had time to stretch and mentally relax. Gimpy foot was irritable, probably from my adventures on Friday on Alpine trails and on Saturday running about Lausanne in sandals.

Today's course was on the WOC Quali terrain and was a runner's course though it did have some route choices and reading challenges.

Controls 1-3: I wanted to justify my HE choice, so I started the race fast and aggressively. Read ahead well, checked CDs.
C4: I settled on a winding route past controls 8 and 9 rather than the two run around variants. My route might have been slightly trickier.
C5: Around to the right.
C6-7: Trivial, straight.
C8: I settled on the easier (and seemingly fast) long run to the right. Messed up 15s in the circle when I confused bushes.

Day 1 HE - Splits

Event: WOC 2012 - Lausanne SWITZERLAND
 

I had an ambitious plan for my final day in Interlaken. The first part of my plan was a transit via Lauterbrunnen to Wengen, from which I took a gondola up to the spur at Mannlichen. I hiked a short distance to the point at Mannlichen, from which I had a magnificent view of the entire valley including the Eiger and Jungfrau, which were partially obscured by clouds. I met Jennifer, a friendly Canadian who also had a T2i camera; we chatted for a bit and exchanged contact information. We parted in Kleine Scheidegg; she returned to Wengen, and I continued on to Grindelwald.

The second stage of my plan was to hike from the ridge north of Grindelwald back to Interlaken. I was well prepared for a day hike, with 3.5 liters of fluid, a fleece, a windbreaker, food, a good map, my compass, and two flashlights. I took another Gondola from Grindelwald to First (a minor peak) and ate my lunch overlooking the radiant mountains and glaciers, off which the sun from a clear sky glinted. I set the Faulhorn and Schynige Platte as intermediate waypoints and set off at a fast pace. The hike up to Faulhorn gained about 500 meters of altitude, but the vista of the lakes and valleys to the north was magnificent. The day was beautiful, and I could even see the Eiger clearly. I reached the Faulhorn at 4 PM, and there were still a steady trickle of hikers along the trails.

An intermittent drizzle started by the time I reached Schynige Platte at 6:30 PM. Clouds started rising over the ridge overlooking Interlaken, and visibility was considerably diminished. One of my backup plans was to take the train down from Schynige Platte, but when I arrived at the train station at 7, I learned the last train had left at 5:30. I then found myself in a predicament: with 2.5 hours of daylight left, I had to descend about 1400 meters from Schynige Platte to Interlaken. I was prepared, but my concerns were twofold:
1. I would injure myself on the descent and be forced to spend the night out
2. I would lose the trail in the darkness and haste

A cloud obscured the mountainside as I started my descent, but I pressed on, at times jogging down the trail. I paid close attention to my map, tracked blazes, and was careful not to go faster than I could control. After a somewhat anxious descent, I made it down to the road at Matten at 9 PM, and walked back to my hostel by 9:30. I had e-mailed Ali that I would be back by 9, but fortunately she didn't worry too much the night before the sprint races.

It was a great adventure, and I'm glad I undertook it. It would have been wiser to start earlier, but I was sufficiently prepared to spend the night out if an unforeseen problem had happened. An injury before 5 PM would have been an inconvenience to others and a delay; after 5 PM, it is not clear that I would have been able to get down.

Catching up on European shenanigans: on Thursday, I took the train up from Interlaken to Grindelwald and spent the day in the resort city. The highlight was taking a bus up to Bussalp and beholding the Eiger in all its splendor. I went for a short hike near the Bussalp; since I had purchased a trail map of the Jungfrau area, I resolved to hike from the Faulhorn to Interlaken on Friday.

I spent the rest of the evening in Grindelwald relaxing, walking among the shops and enjoying a band concert by some children.

I am registered for the HE class at the Swiss 5-Day, the spectator races for WOC. It seems I am competing against a few attackpointers, like Mathias Nipen, Thomas Nipen, and Alexei Azarov. There also is some guy named "Matthias Müller" in the class, though whether or not this is the WOC medalist isn't clear (as the name is apparently very generic).

Great interview from Thierry - an indomitable will is your greatest asset. Congratulations to Emily Kemp, the little Canadian that could, for her extraordinary triumph at JWOC.

Today, I hiked around Fribourg for about an hour, taking pictures before taking the train to Interlaken. Ali and I ate breakfast from a baker at a open-air market filled with vegetable stands, cheese stands, bakers, and so on. Two young street performers - on flute and accordian - played some stirring duets and solos.

Upon my arrival in Interlaken, I dropped my stuff off and went for a walk. I stopped at a grocery store and acquired cheese, bread, grapes, tasty beverage syrup, tomatoes, salami, oatmeal, jam, and a frozen pizza.

C • Tasty beverage syrup 12

Middle distance training on Mont Bally.

Middle Distance training course, La Breguette, near Lausanne Switzerland. Quickroute

After a delightful evening in Neuchatel, when I finally met Marc and Sandra Lauenstein, I drove with Boris, Hannah, and Sam to Lausanne. I joined the merry posse because I am adept at driving a manual transmission car. Marc and Sandra graciously lent us Marc's parents' car. The drive was spectacular - driving through Switzerland is an experience I did not expect to have, and I got to see the countryside in a new way.

We stopped at the Breguette map north of Lausanne for some training. The terrain was very different from the Basel middle distance on Sunday - instead of steep, muddy hillsides, the terrain was bumpy with lots of small hills and ridges. There were many open fields, and the woods were thick with challenging footing. Many areas were swaths of felled trees and trashy deadfall.

I struggled to read my map well at first, and even when I grew more comfortable with the map, I was very erratic and jerky. Later in the course, I tended to execute my routes acceptably, but with insufficient information and precision to be confident. I made many mistakes; perhaps it is better to be slow and careful getting into new terrain at first and later try to run at speed.

Control 1: Attacked from the trail junction, but couldn't find the reentrant and bounced off the road. Struggled to interpret the vegetation.
Control 2: I tried to go straight, and found the cliff at the veg boundary to be larger than expected. I didn't have a great attackpoint, and I managed to ignore the bend in the forest boundary directly in front of me.
Control 3: Sluggish approach, as the first clearing had bulldozer tracks and looked like a trail.
Control 4: Concentrated on reading my map - went straight, over the hill, past the cliffs, and over the spur. I was a bit to the left of the control.
Control 5: Scooted left of the cliff, through the depression and to the corner of the field. I punched through some thick vegetation and nettles between the two cliffs, then again just east of the circle. I was hesitant, but accurate.
Control 6: Many of the white woods were felled all but completely, so discerning the open field boundaries was hard. I overshot to the SE and had to circle back to the control from the field.
Control 7: Plan was to go on contour/compass, stay between the descent to the left and field to the right, and catch on the reentrant if necessary. I probably should have looked for the little hill to my right, but I hit the control ok.
Control 8: Oof - plan was to stay just right of line, pass through the two narrow clearings, go between the hill and the cliff, over the next hill, and over the spur down into the control. I instead exited 7 left, and got confused by the clearing patterns. I caught on the tall spur beyond the control and had to circle back. Fail.
Control 9: I paused to let Hannah and Sam cruise past me (didn't want to be a distraction), then went straight over the spur, in at the contour/vegetation bend, hit the first clearing, then sidled west into the control.
Control 10: Plan was to bust out to the big trail, then attack up the left side of the spur. I looked for the rocks, but didn't see anything until I hit the control directly. Hesitant.
Control 11: I should have doubled back and redone this control; I wanted to scoot around to the right and run along the hill; I did ok, but descended too low and was too far north of the control. It took me a minute to figure out my error. Maybe right was a better route?
Control 12: At first, I misread the depression between 11 and 12 as a hill. Corrected and hit it ok, running past the cliff. Yay nettles.
Control 13: Busted through the green slash to the trail, then ran past the clearing to the little trail and in.
Control 14: Clean but very hesitant - north to the clearing, then up left of the line. I skirted the edge of the big cliff, hit the trail bend, and correctly identified the spur with the depression on it. I tentatively explored it before seeing the bag.
Control 15: Out to the trail, then slogging on the trail until 200m from the control. I let myself get pushed right, bounced off the trail, ran south to the hill (which I should have used as my attack in the first place), then into the control.
Control 16: Tricky, punching through thick green to the hill, then descending on a line. I thought I was lost and had to relocate when I hit the bag.

C • Breguet? 1

C • Map 1

Sprint training course, Lausanne Switzerland. After the middle, we dropped stuff off at the hostel, then drove into the city carefully avoiding the embargoed area. We started at 1 minute intervals. My performance was sluggish and choppy, but it was a good challenge and a fun race in wholly new urban O for me. I dueled with Boris (started 1 minute behind me) for most of the run. Quickroute

Note that the 9 CHF maps had their circles off center - a few mm up and to the right. I need to read ahead better and have a good, systematic plan for each control. I also need to practice making sprint decisions, and I need to run faster. I did an acceptable job checking my control descriptions during the race and accounting for their devious locations.

C 1: I chose to immediately run right before noticing the left route; it probably wasn't too costly.
C 2: Through the passageway.
C 3: Obvious way, read ahead ok and executed well.
C 4: Oof, disaster; we all misread the control as low at first. I ran around left and found Sam and Hannah studying their maps. As Boris approached, I realized the control had to be on top of the bridge, and ran around and up the stairs. Fail.
C 5: In the lead, over the bridge and in.
C 6: I ran first to the right, then left of the church. I considered running right of the church; not sure what the best route is. Also, maybe out to the left is good?
C 7: Along the narrow walkway.
C 9: Left.
C 10: Right, left, down the stairs. Thought about running right the whole way, but declined.
C 11: Boris was gaining on me, so I read ahead and quickly decided to run right and up the stairs past the control. As I was running, I concluded that doubling back up the stairs and running past 8 was best. Dunno. The stairs were bloody slow on my route, and I hesitated at the 45° junction just NE of the bag.
C 12: Boris was on top of me; he pulled ahead when he went down the stairs and I went all the way around. Dumb. Neither of us saw the route through the tunnels to 13, so we doglegged 12; I don't think it was too slow.
C 13: Not sure how, but I took the lead out of 12. I "punched" at the end of the green instead of the gate, though. In my defense, it looked like a wall end. MP fail.
C 14: Held off a push by Boris.
C 15: Boris overtook me after we reached the top of the steps. We stayed high, thinking that 15 could be reached from above, when in fact the map has a passageway. He paused when we reached the stairs, but I figured it out first and busted down the steps.
C 16: I took off in the lead, and ran to the right. Boris rolled his ankle going left, so I had a comfortable lead at the bag.
C 17: Right, though thought about left. I think gentle ascent is preferable to stairs.
C 18: Lost lots of time to Boris; I went right at the second street. Boris ran left through 20 and down the stairs N of 18. I saw him as I was leaving 18.
C 20: Left.
C 21. Right. Wonder now if left was better. Heard Boris catching up to me. He got fancy and jumped over the crossable wall at the bag as we thought the bag was in the corner of the building/fence.
C 22: Put on some speed to hold off Boris, and finished first.

Running to the start through urban Lausanne.