Training Log Archive: W

Okay! Time for the prologue! This is actually my first go at this, so despite my earlier suckage, I was pretty raring to go for this one. You knew it was going to be relatively easy, and physically very difficult.

It was pair starts, and I was with a Finn, who absolutely blasted off the start. In every sport, I'm still somewhat baffled by the 'go really really hard' off the start mentality. Anyway, he put 10 metres on me, which I immediately switched on him by the common number 1, since he took route stupid and I took route planning. After that, I was fully alone on the first loop, which was the longer one. I generally took strong, though somewhat safe routes for the first part. No major problems, though several pauses as I was unsure which of the 3,000 rentrants it was going to be on. Even here, I was really starting to appreciate the use of the magnifier.

The other loop, was a bit disappointing as I missed the one after the hub, when I was a bit too high and overshot to the next re-entrant. That was a 45 second loss, which would have jumped me another 5 places. Then it was time for the climb, where the last 5-6 controls were almost exclusively uphill. At this point there was enough people around and you knew there was no forking that you just needed to spot a guy ahead, make sure you agreed with where he was going, and hammer (but not too much). I was caught by Rost, who start 2 minutes behind, and I did my darndest to hang with him, which worked out for a while, but then he managed to put another 50 seconds in those last few controls.

Maybe I was mentally holding back because I knew there was another race? I would have really liked to try to accelerate right on to his tail, but it definitely was not happening.

Finished 45th, 4:52 back, which was a disappointing sight given how well I thought I performed.

Okay, now its time for the chase. As I mentioned, I was not overly enchanted with my prologue result, but I was pleased to be in the mix with someone.

The start went off like a rocket, everyone was hammering to get in with other people, which resulted in a lot of people running aimlessly. I tried very hard to keep focus and run my own route, which totally paid off to 1, and I gained about 5 spots right away. #2 was downhill, so I aimed to attack it with some overspeed, which brought me back down to earth as I stupidly tried to read the contours when I should've stuck to identifying the yellow and white. At this point Julian was starting to pull up to a group of probably 10 that had formed, as we were all likely running out of our comfort zone.

Julian being superior to us all, was the pace setter and basically the only navigating for quite sometime, as the rest of struggled to hang with him.

I think in the long run of the entire course, had I let them all go, I would have ultimately beaten half of them at the finish, but I wanted to test myself again Julian, so I hung right on his tail for almost.... 10 minutes? Weak. After that the climbing really set in and the wheels came off in a big way. The group completely strung out into uniform distances apart, and unless you were a faster runner there was really no gaining because the route choices were obvious and navigation easy. The only upside came at the long uphill leg to the water station where I decided that chasing the group in front wasn't doing anything and tried to go a route that looked like slightly less climb. I suspect it was and I gained two more places.

I'm told as I ran past the spectator area I was looking pretty.... awful. And I felt awful, really awful. But I actually kept it together and pulled a few kiwis around the last few controls of the course, only to have be in a group coming up to the second to last control, and then the last control. It might've been a sprint for like... 46th place, but I missed the punch, then punched again and it didn't beep, so I had to come to a stop and backpedal a little, and at that point my energy was not going to pull me back 15 strides to make the pass, so it was a pathetic jog to the line.

I really would have liked it if the race was a bit more technical or I was a bit fitter so I could actually battle it out with a least I slightly higher level of guys. I started ahead of Julian, and less than a minute behind Murray, Simon, Yannick, many legit guys. If I have a good race and they have an average race, I can be in there, I just need that fitness.

Or 10 less pounds.

'twas the day before the World Cup Pursuit. There was a model to do, but there was also an Oceania festival race to do, and I wanted to do both. So we did. First was the Oceania race, which was all sorts of variable stuff, some basic forest, some open, and some weird and surprisingly green riverbed that was oddly tricky. Those creeks that zig and zag in every direction are really tough to figure out sometimes.

Although I ran more at tempo pace, I was still frustrated with my performance around the circle. I'm getting better with my magnifier, but on one control it didn't even help me flow into the control at all, I still made a mistake. I was very, very pleased with my route choice decision on the long leg from 10-11 though. That was a sweet catch, and I won the leg by a minute or so, I think!

Pipped over to the WC model to just confirm what we all knew. This was going to be effing painful, and pretty easy. Wide open terrain with big hills. You should be able to identify exactly where you're going from way off. Just have to man up and get there, post-haste.

Event 2 1 - Splits

'twas a travel day of Hastings to Hawke's Bay, and we stopped by a training-ish workout at some terrain that is anticipated to be very similar to the World Cup. Carol set me a course and Helen gave me some technical advice to work on, which I really tried to execute. Make a plan, take a bearing, head up. Yes, I know Magnus has been preaching 2/3 of those things for many many many years, but I think I really lacked ever have a coherent part 1. I can think of many times where all the bearings in the world wouldn't help me because I didn't have an idea of what I was going to do with that bearing. Seems obvious, I know, but probably a pertinent thought I need to really, really drill into my head.

Overall, these races are going to be technically quite easy, but physically effing hard.

Oceania Long Distance Championships. And boy howdy would this have been long. Had I done it all. I started intending on doing it all. The first 5 controls were in the nice open forest that I enjoyed. And then it got thicker, and I started making mistakes. I think I was trying to go faster than I should have, once again. I suppose I see Norwegians flow by so smoothly and that's what I try to achieve, to not break stride and slow down and focus on what I'm doing, but I don't. This race also really had a pinnacle of lack of attention and focus, which really came to light at number 6. After doing the long long leg and crashing around in the green at number 7 for what seemed like an eternity, I packed it in.

In retrospect that was definitely for the best, since Tom did it in just under 2 hours, and we did technically have a race the next day. Probably would have been bad for WC performance to do this.

Long Champs - 1 - Splits

Despite not making the final, we still got to run the same course as a WRE after the world cup, which partly meant that we knew where a bunch of the controls were.

I realize that this was a WRE and a real race, but it was really hard to want to work very hard when you know this was the extremely unimportant sidenote to the real race. I think I made some strong route choices (though not int the important long leg), but also made a mistake at number 13 where I got confused with the shapes of the roads and overshot where I was trying to go.

Oddly enough, given my lack of effort and mistakes, I'm mildly surprised I got as many WRE points as a did.

Sprint Champs - C1 - Splits

World Cup sprint qualification time. These darn World Cups are arguably harder than WOC given now I have to content with 8 damn swiss instead of just three. On the other hand, there were far fewer Euros to deal with. No Spaniards, for instance.

Generally was pretty smooth for the first 8 or so controls, which was actually the only time when I was cruising in a place that would've gotten me in the final. After that I slowly plummeted into the non qualifying zone. Partly I think due to lack of speed, and partly due to sub-optimal route choices and the occasional hesitations. My winsplits suggests I made 20 seconds of mistakes, and lo and behold, I was almost 20 seconds out of qualifying, but also about 2 minutes behind, and that's not even remotely close to be good enough over a 15 minute race.

I can think of occasions where I could done a better job in planning my route during dead running times. Instead I left my concentration drift, and I think that was costly. I certainly think there's still some potential for a ton of improvement in my sprint technique.

Still, though, very disappointed.

World Cup Sprint Qualification - Men - Splits