Training Log Archive: cedarcreekIn the 7 days ending Sep 28, 2007:
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Sunday Sep 23, 2007 #
Orienteering race (Relay) 32:56 [5] *** 2.77 km (11:53 / km) +110m 9:55 / km
shoes: Nike Trail (Blue)
US Relay Championships, Team YipYap:
Leg 1: Orange: me
Leg 2: Yellow: Candice R.
Leg 3: Green: Bob Turbyfill
Leg 4: Red: Gerald Yip
This is my second ever Orienteering Relay. My first was in 1986 at West Tyson in St. Louis. I owe it to Spike and his blog that I have made relays a priority for my own orienteering interests. I asked to set the US Relay Championships last year (2006), and overall, that was an amazing experience. I love relays, and I think clubs need to have more of them.
Gerald and I tried to put together an OCIN team unsuccessfully, so we put our names on a list Saturday morning. With about an hour to go, the sign-up sheet had four names who added up to 8 points. So---An 8-pt team it was.
At the start, there was no way I was going straight up the big hill. The trail was there, and I knew my legs would be dead for the whole course if I didn't take the trail. I was really surprised most people went straight.
Going in to 1, I saw Valerie Meyer and Barb going in in front of me. Barb was much faster, but between Val and me it became a death match. A slow death match. It's been a few years since I pushed this hard in a race.
I screwed up 4, a really short leg, by getting too far right and lost at least 90 seconds. I took the trail to 5, which looking at it afterwards was clearly a big mistake. I didn't see the huge rock wall catching feature, and I most certainly chickened out. Val beat me on this leg by going straight.
She was up the hill toward 6 in front of me, pulling away, but I made up a little on the descent into 6. I didn't see her again until later. As I was going downhill to 6, 3 cadets went by me off to the left. We met at 6 and raced downhill to 7, then into the field and to the spectator control. That downhill field was amazing, and I was moving pretty fast.
In the control picking section, I hestitated at the first break in the thicket, then went to the second one. I did really well in this section, but anything uphill was just a slog. The cadets were comical to watch. They can run really fast, but they weren't good navigators. (Admittedly, these were the less experienced cadets.) On the easy controls, they'd be standing there looking at their maps as I punched, and on the hard controls they'd see where I was going, and then beat me to the punch. A tiny bit more fitness, and I probably could have dropped these guys instead of leading them around the course. Somewhere in the last few controls, Valerie passed me again, and we were struggling to gain on each other. In the end, I beat her by a little bit. The death match was pretty cool. Valerie's a lot more interesting an opponent than the three cadets. And she's usually faster than me in sprints, so...{trash talk omitted}.
Leg 1: Orange: me
Leg 2: Yellow: Candice R.
Leg 3: Green: Bob Turbyfill
Leg 4: Red: Gerald Yip
This is my second ever Orienteering Relay. My first was in 1986 at West Tyson in St. Louis. I owe it to Spike and his blog that I have made relays a priority for my own orienteering interests. I asked to set the US Relay Championships last year (2006), and overall, that was an amazing experience. I love relays, and I think clubs need to have more of them.
Gerald and I tried to put together an OCIN team unsuccessfully, so we put our names on a list Saturday morning. With about an hour to go, the sign-up sheet had four names who added up to 8 points. So---An 8-pt team it was.
At the start, there was no way I was going straight up the big hill. The trail was there, and I knew my legs would be dead for the whole course if I didn't take the trail. I was really surprised most people went straight.
Going in to 1, I saw Valerie Meyer and Barb going in in front of me. Barb was much faster, but between Val and me it became a death match. A slow death match. It's been a few years since I pushed this hard in a race.
I screwed up 4, a really short leg, by getting too far right and lost at least 90 seconds. I took the trail to 5, which looking at it afterwards was clearly a big mistake. I didn't see the huge rock wall catching feature, and I most certainly chickened out. Val beat me on this leg by going straight.
She was up the hill toward 6 in front of me, pulling away, but I made up a little on the descent into 6. I didn't see her again until later. As I was going downhill to 6, 3 cadets went by me off to the left. We met at 6 and raced downhill to 7, then into the field and to the spectator control. That downhill field was amazing, and I was moving pretty fast.
In the control picking section, I hestitated at the first break in the thicket, then went to the second one. I did really well in this section, but anything uphill was just a slog. The cadets were comical to watch. They can run really fast, but they weren't good navigators. (Admittedly, these were the less experienced cadets.) On the easy controls, they'd be standing there looking at their maps as I punched, and on the hard controls they'd see where I was going, and then beat me to the punch. A tiny bit more fitness, and I probably could have dropped these guys instead of leading them around the course. Somewhere in the last few controls, Valerie passed me again, and we were struggling to gain on each other. In the end, I beat her by a little bit. The death match was pretty cool. Valerie's a lot more interesting an opponent than the three cadets. And she's usually faster than me in sprints, so...{trash talk omitted}.
Note
I was really, really impressed with the organization and courses. Joe's sprints and map were fun and interesting, and very spectator friendly.
PG's relays courses were very fun and interesting---I really want to try the Green---and the spectator aspects were awesome. He had a lot better flow control around the event center than I did last year, and he told me the one Red control near the parking lot should have been in the open on the edge of the parking lot to add even more spectator interest.
I am so amazed by Val and Sandy's e-punch set up. It almost runs itself during the download process.
It was a long drive, but I'm so glad I did it.
PG's relays courses were very fun and interesting---I really want to try the Green---and the spectator aspects were awesome. He had a lot better flow control around the event center than I did last year, and he told me the one Red control near the parking lot should have been in the open on the edge of the parking lot to add even more spectator interest.
I am so amazed by Val and Sandy's e-punch set up. It almost runs itself during the download process.
It was a long drive, but I'm so glad I did it.
Saturday Sep 22, 2007 #
Orienteering race (Sprint) 25:13 [4] *** 2.22 km (11:22 / km) +51m 10:11 / km
shoes: Nike Trail (Blue)
Sprint A, Course 3 (Red/Blue).
I had trouble seeing the first leg, so I just attacked the first route I saw, which was down the trail to the yellow, left on the trail, then right. I thought, "Wow---that was quick". I do love 1:4000 maps. (EricW and I had a discussion about them on Sunday). Leaving 1, I felt 2 or 3 bees around the back of my neck, and I swatted at them as I ran away. No stings, luckily.
The first sprint was really fun. The start interval was 30 seconds, and there were people everywhere. There was forking between Course 2 and 3, so people were going in all different directions, which was really cool.
I got too far left at 10, and found some smaller unmapped rocks before I turned right and got 10.
A really fun course. It's interesting to me that sprints are often considered to have trivial navigation. I much prefer this type with lots of quick decisions to be made and essentially non-trivial navigation. If I had one criticism of the courses, and realize this is a total nitpick, it was that it needed maybe 3 more controls added with really short leg lengths. I don't get the "sprint feeling" unless I have a few controls that are crazy fast, close-together, with direction change, and yeah, trivial navigation.
I had trouble seeing the first leg, so I just attacked the first route I saw, which was down the trail to the yellow, left on the trail, then right. I thought, "Wow---that was quick". I do love 1:4000 maps. (EricW and I had a discussion about them on Sunday). Leaving 1, I felt 2 or 3 bees around the back of my neck, and I swatted at them as I ran away. No stings, luckily.
The first sprint was really fun. The start interval was 30 seconds, and there were people everywhere. There was forking between Course 2 and 3, so people were going in all different directions, which was really cool.
I got too far left at 10, and found some smaller unmapped rocks before I turned right and got 10.
A really fun course. It's interesting to me that sprints are often considered to have trivial navigation. I much prefer this type with lots of quick decisions to be made and essentially non-trivial navigation. If I had one criticism of the courses, and realize this is a total nitpick, it was that it needed maybe 3 more controls added with really short leg lengths. I don't get the "sprint feeling" unless I have a few controls that are crazy fast, close-together, with direction change, and yeah, trivial navigation.
Orienteering race (Sprint) 25:45 [4] *** 2.33 km (11:03 / km) +52m 9:57 / km
shoes: Nike Trail (Blue)
Sprint B, Course 3 (Red/Blue)
Turn the map over, and...a long leg. I totally missed the trail in the big reentrant (I didn't see it on the map), so I clipped the top of the reentrant and went straight at it. I ended up on a trail going down the steep section, so I thought I was perfectly lined up. I ended up about 1cm away WNW on the large boulder (with a flag on it), where I saw the code was wrong. I saw Cristina looking confused going N (to my left), but I was sure I needed to go right. Probably 45 seconds lost. My fastest split was 2-3, 58 seconds, but probably 15 of that was me hesitating, getting left (yeah, I know), and having to change direction to avoid the earthwalls.
I went left on 8, through the little saddle, and on a bearing North. I ended up 40m left of the control, which I think is a pretty big miss. I didn't take the trail because of all the contour lines. Let's think that through: 5 contour lines. 1.5m contours. 7.5m of climb. Compare that to my route: 7.5m climb. Sheesh.
My nitpick for this course. Not enough controls. I think John Fredrickson is on to something there.
Later we laughed about the "long" first leg. It's 375m. Isn't that funny?
Turn the map over, and...a long leg. I totally missed the trail in the big reentrant (I didn't see it on the map), so I clipped the top of the reentrant and went straight at it. I ended up on a trail going down the steep section, so I thought I was perfectly lined up. I ended up about 1cm away WNW on the large boulder (with a flag on it), where I saw the code was wrong. I saw Cristina looking confused going N (to my left), but I was sure I needed to go right. Probably 45 seconds lost. My fastest split was 2-3, 58 seconds, but probably 15 of that was me hesitating, getting left (yeah, I know), and having to change direction to avoid the earthwalls.
I went left on 8, through the little saddle, and on a bearing North. I ended up 40m left of the control, which I think is a pretty big miss. I didn't take the trail because of all the contour lines. Let's think that through: 5 contour lines. 1.5m contours. 7.5m of climb. Compare that to my route: 7.5m climb. Sheesh.
My nitpick for this course. Not enough controls. I think John Fredrickson is on to something there.
Later we laughed about the "long" first leg. It's 375m. Isn't that funny?
Orienteering race (Sprint) 28:59 [5] *** 3.15 km (9:12 / km) +33m 8:45 / km
shoes: Nike Trail (Blue)
Sprint C, Variation 6. (This means my loop order was South, East, North.)
The Sprint Series Final Course. We got to watch the 2 Sprint Finals, with extreme spectator visibility (and PG heckling Sam). The men's race was so amazing---on the second loop, I think, 5 competitors hit the common control at almost the same time.
The first map had the three loops, and a more conventional yellow-course like difficulty, but then, it did have a 3 loop butterfly with all the readability issues---which is part of the game.
The second map was much more difficult navigationally. It had two "long legs" of 400m and 360m (again, that is so funny).
The course was amazing fun to run, and very fun to watch. The excitement got to me, and I was running much harder than I normally think I can. I did walk up the hills, and I used "reading the map" as an excuse to catch my breath. I need a lot of work on reading while running. I'm able to do it somewhat, but I usually default to the cautious, slow method of walking to read the map.
The Sprint Series Final Course. We got to watch the 2 Sprint Finals, with extreme spectator visibility (and PG heckling Sam). The men's race was so amazing---on the second loop, I think, 5 competitors hit the common control at almost the same time.
The first map had the three loops, and a more conventional yellow-course like difficulty, but then, it did have a 3 loop butterfly with all the readability issues---which is part of the game.
The second map was much more difficult navigationally. It had two "long legs" of 400m and 360m (again, that is so funny).
The course was amazing fun to run, and very fun to watch. The excitement got to me, and I was running much harder than I normally think I can. I did walk up the hills, and I used "reading the map" as an excuse to catch my breath. I need a lot of work on reading while running. I'm able to do it somewhat, but I usually default to the cautious, slow method of walking to read the map.