Training Log Archive: W

Okay, it was hard not to be a tad cynical after the yesterday debacle, since this is a middle and... yeah. A middle.

I started off a tad annoyed because I had to start near the front, and we kept having opening ceremonies and criminy I had to start in 10 minutes! So I'd participate and put on a cheerful face and then the announcer would say "okay athletes please get and get ready and take rest". Yeah, right. 8 minute warm-up later, I get to start.

The race actually went modestly smooth for a while. I wasn't taking super aggressive routes, but I was generally spiking many of the controls, a few hooks, and a few slowdowns just before the control. Once again I caught my Japanese friend who started ahead of me, only to completely bomb 17. Its pretty much a textbook bearing on my part. The plan was to take a bearing, and count off the re-entrants, so I went 1, 2, 3, and then I'd be on top of it. As you'll see, my distance judgement was almost totally bang on, but my bearing pulled me just a tad left.

Then a bit of wandering being unable to re-locate, before bailing down the hill and then having no problem finding it. After that, again, it was a chase, leading to silly mistakes at 20 and 21, trying to go faster than I could manage. I suppose I can take consolation that the big mistake at 17 was a, shall we call, "expert mistake". I ran an aggressive route at (modestly) hard pace on a bearing while checking off major features. But, my compass let me down. One could argue I had no particular attack point, but I didn't see one so I went for it.

I don't think three years ago me would have dared to do that. I suppose I can take that as a consolation. Still, hard to swallow a 4 minute loss.

Route is here.

And... the train wreck begins. The sprint at the Vasa Orienteering Festival at Jing Yuetan Forest Park. It went generally smooth, made a mistake towards 4 which I couldn't tell where the olive green started and ended, but the real disaster was at 7. I'm pretty sure what happened was that on my way from 6, I read that I was going to 8. So I got to 7, was very surprised, punched it, and promptly ran to the wrong island. Not quite a 180, but more of a 90. Pissed around on the completely wrong island for around a minute, before realizing it and seeing Christoph pass me. I took 1:13 to control 8, next slowest was 14 seconds. Humiliating.

The rest of the race I was chasing the time back. Which only sometimes works. I crushed 9, 10 was a stair climb, but then was nervous around 11, slow to 12, and then had no plan to 13 and probably took a bad route. Scenic, but bad. Didn't read right up to the control at 13 and 16, which was a recurring theme all week.

I think that'll be the one thing I really need to think about. I'm reading to the circle, but not to the control itself.

DOMA is here.

Morning jog around the park near our hotel with Julian. Good thing I don't live here, that loop could get old, quick. 5 loops was sufficiently pleasant and scenic, though.

Alright, let's get to logging! First up was a quick trip around Jing Yuetan forest park in Changchun re-running some controls of a Vasa orienteering festival from a few years ago. In general, its really nice white forest with pleasant contours. The white is a tad variable, though. Sometimes its glorious, some times.... not so glorious. Check my faceblog for a picture of the glorious ones.

I'd post the map, but... uh... well, I haven't put it on Quickroute yet. The GPS got really wonky and lost signals so the track is bad. Does anyone know how to do a quickroute without GPS data? I keep seeing Oystein's doma with just a line drawn on it, as if he put it on there manually.

Also, on the bus ride, we drove by this new condo development, which is a total rip-off of whistler! I've never been to whistler, but I'm sure this is what it looks like, because it looks like any other Canadian mountain restort. The name of the resort is Whistler, there's an inukshuk outside, and big moose and bear statues. It is ridiculous. I'll have to see if I can find it online and provide an update.

Pretty lengthy travel day that finished started on Wednesday morning at 8AM and finished in Changchun China, on Thursday evening at 10PM.

A brisk trip around an old medium course that went through cloverdale and Mill Creek. Tried to get in the swing of orienteering a bit. I tried quite hard to simplify so I kept a consistent pace the entire way around. Especially considering I didn't have a compass and I know the area pretty dang well.

Tomorrow: Off to China for good times and some Euro scalps.

C • PWT again? 1

Rotary Run 10k. There was 300 bucks on the line, and I initially thought I might be able to take it, then I saw Mark Vollmer was there, who is a real runner, and that hope went out the window. Still, I'm aiming for a PB, and given my last 10k was 10 years ago and I ran a 38:something, I was pretty hopeful.

I think I have some sort of phobia of blowing up, because like in my track 3000m in the winter, I have a tendency of letting any sort of pack slowly pull away, and then I proceed to pull them back 2/3 into the race. I really think that in the first 10 minutes, I'm unwilling to start pushing because I fear how much it'll hurt later. I'm such a pansy.

Anyway, that's pretty much what happened here, Mark went out front, then one, two, three people passed me and formed a group about 30 metres in front. Slowly one on that group pulled away, and slowly over the next 6k I pulled them back until I pulled even with Dusty and Jack, at which point Dusty turned it on a bit and I couldn't hang on, yet, I kind of did. Jack held on to me, and Dusty put on a 30 metre gap and then stayed there. With 2k to go and a slight climb, I pulled away from Jack and slowly and not nearly quickly enough gained back to Dusty.

And, with probably 300 metres to go I noticed I was on 34:00 and I really need to bust my ass to get in under 35. Quite frankly, my glance at the watch was disappointing enough, because I really thought I could be in 34:00 shape (remember how Scott Fraser ran a 29:00 10k on the track? Damn I'm slow).

I kept a pretty even pace through the entire race, which I suppose is a plus. Though I can't tell me km per km pace since I don't think you can add laps to a .gpx file after the fact, and I hate setting my Garmin to take laps every K because then it beeps.

So, finished with a 35:05 for fourth place, which I'm really not enchanted with. I've been feeling either tired or totally out of shape for months now. But, I spend all my vacation time on race vacations, and getting the new coach I want is going to be a painful political process which I haven't the courage to begin. Oh well, hopefully all the Euros will be tired too from NORT, and I'll get some scalps. Then I'll have several months to rest/train my balls off for the NZ world cups (which, I should probably book flights for....)

TL:DR version: 35:05 10k - way too slow for my taste, need better pain tolerance... and fitness.

C • 10k 2

C • Lap times or time per KM 1