Training Log Archive: Gswede

This was a difficult course. Lots of rock detail. Although I am very happy because normally me and detailed rocky areas don't mix too well. A big limiting factor was trying to run down on wet rock. That's very slow.

On my number nine I had an interesting problem. My map had gotten a fold in it. The fold just happened to go directly number nine and its corresponding circle. So I had no details of nine as I ran towards it. I tried unsuccesfully to get the fold out of it while running. That just happened to be the control where I lost 3 minutes :( I should have stopped running, flattened the fold, and then continued. Ten seconds would have been better than 3 minutes.

There was a Finn, who apparently had some aspirations of making the national team, that deciced I was running well enough to follow me. Whoa... that's a first. Needless to say he didn't make the national team. I am not at that level yet. But it's good to have some Scandanavians following me and not the other way around. He also had trouble sticking with me on the uphills. I think the Forest Hill Reps are having a good effect.

Warm up/Cool down

Event: Portugal O'Meeting (POM)
 

Warm up/cool down for the race.

This was an ok course. I had mistakes on most controls, ranging from 10 seconds of error to several minutes. I've run better. Major factors that caused the errors:

-Running wayyyyy too fast and not reading the details clearly.

-Large groups of people standing around the control that took me out of my zone. This was a problem as I got close to the control. If I had followed my instincts then this wouldn't have been a problem. The control was always in the spot that I thought it was... I just needed to follow through with it.

-Losing contact with the map. This was a actually a mixture of the above two reasons. At any rate, orienteering doesn't go well when you stop looking at the map. Lesson learned... again.

Easy pre-race run around Moral.

Night-O training in Valdelatas. The maps only had contours so it got significantly more difficult. We did this as a mass start but we also had to put out the streamers. The first few we did really, really fast. So once I lost contact with Luis and Rorri it was hasta luego. Lots of mistakes, but still did 50 minutes for 5.1km. So not too terrible.

Easy run back home after teaching the teachers English.

A hilly climb in La Pedriza. I wanted to try this out since it was such a beautiful day. You certainly don't do this run to work on your footspeed. It was a fun climb up rough singletrack and got pretty steep in some sections. And the immediate downhill after the saddle was almost only boulders, so that wasn't fast either. But I'll do this run again just for the views if nothing else.

Not one for taking pictures during runs... but I couldn't resist :)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8z1kwrhv1k7ijbl/2014-02-...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9o5j5ehgwxevax/2014-02-...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kz51udx15r3z9sw/2014-02-...