Training Log Archive: mparsonIn the 1 days ending Apr 2, 2011:
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Saturday Apr 2, 2011 #
Orienteering race 1:14:30 [5] 8.8 km (8:28 / km)
Ultra Long at Hueston Woods, Day 2 of Flying Pig. This one's a bit painful to log... Going into the race, I was thinking much more about the distance than the navigation itself- which was probably a mistake, because in the end my navigational errors sunk me so much more than the running speed did. Also, I feel like I should mention that as me and my dad were driving to the park, a black cat ran across the road in front of us... I think that sets a nice tone for the race...
Anyway. Started out ok. Got #1 and #2 fine. #3 was the beginning of my troubles: my plan was to set a bearing, aiming off to the right to hit a fence right behind the control. However, the green was so thick that I ended up in a reentrant way off to the right (north) and beyond the control. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the fence direction- aiming west-east instead of north-south. After that I was able to re-locate and find it, but not after a nice 3-4 min mistake that definitely rattled me. #4 I did not hit cleanly either- passed the control, although I re-located more quickly from that. Looking back I think I was confused because the fence that marked the park boundary was barely noticeable, although the fact that fences weren't reliable or obvious should have already entered my mind, both from the model and #3. Maybe a 2min mistake there. #5 I got. #6 was another disaster. I was back in the terrain near #3, but again, there was so much green that I got very disoriented, stumbled around for a while and got entangled with the invisible fence before seeing a control that I soon realized was #3. This was actually pretty good news- theoretically, all I had to do was set a very precise bearing from #3 to #6 (only about 200m away). It still took me a few more minutes to find it, which did not bode well for the rest of the race.
Thankfully, #6-#7 I made into a very concrete road/trail run, and I found the reentrant pretty easily. #8 was ok too. #9 was the next trainwreck. I ended up making a somewhat classic parallel error, following the wrong stream off the high tension wires. There are so many things that should have clued me into that I was taking the wrong stream- first, I needed to take the second stream I crossed, not the first (although at the time, my decision seemed very justified). Then, the stream I should have been following was aimed southwest, and the stream I was following was headed west. Both streams were somewhat curvy, so I guess that distorted my sense of direction, but still, I feel like I should have clued in earlier. Only when I headed up a reentrant (the one that I thought #9 was supposed to be up) and realized it was actually a new stream, did I realize where I was and that I needed to go over 2 hills to get to the control.
Not happy after that one, but I recovered relatively well as the rest of my course was somewhat mistake free. #10,11,12,13 I all got. #14 was a bit more dubious, as I ended up one reentrant to the north of where I was supposed to be, but I caught that pretty quickly. #15 and #16 were fine. Running into the finish I realized I was actually less tired than I was at the end of Friday's race- sadly, that just shows how much of my race I was just wandering around, in patches of thorns or up the wrong stream valley. Ah well.
Anyway. Started out ok. Got #1 and #2 fine. #3 was the beginning of my troubles: my plan was to set a bearing, aiming off to the right to hit a fence right behind the control. However, the green was so thick that I ended up in a reentrant way off to the right (north) and beyond the control. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the fence direction- aiming west-east instead of north-south. After that I was able to re-locate and find it, but not after a nice 3-4 min mistake that definitely rattled me. #4 I did not hit cleanly either- passed the control, although I re-located more quickly from that. Looking back I think I was confused because the fence that marked the park boundary was barely noticeable, although the fact that fences weren't reliable or obvious should have already entered my mind, both from the model and #3. Maybe a 2min mistake there. #5 I got. #6 was another disaster. I was back in the terrain near #3, but again, there was so much green that I got very disoriented, stumbled around for a while and got entangled with the invisible fence before seeing a control that I soon realized was #3. This was actually pretty good news- theoretically, all I had to do was set a very precise bearing from #3 to #6 (only about 200m away). It still took me a few more minutes to find it, which did not bode well for the rest of the race.
Thankfully, #6-#7 I made into a very concrete road/trail run, and I found the reentrant pretty easily. #8 was ok too. #9 was the next trainwreck. I ended up making a somewhat classic parallel error, following the wrong stream off the high tension wires. There are so many things that should have clued me into that I was taking the wrong stream- first, I needed to take the second stream I crossed, not the first (although at the time, my decision seemed very justified). Then, the stream I should have been following was aimed southwest, and the stream I was following was headed west. Both streams were somewhat curvy, so I guess that distorted my sense of direction, but still, I feel like I should have clued in earlier. Only when I headed up a reentrant (the one that I thought #9 was supposed to be up) and realized it was actually a new stream, did I realize where I was and that I needed to go over 2 hills to get to the control.
Not happy after that one, but I recovered relatively well as the rest of my course was somewhat mistake free. #10,11,12,13 I all got. #14 was a bit more dubious, as I ended up one reentrant to the north of where I was supposed to be, but I caught that pretty quickly. #15 and #16 were fine. Running into the finish I realized I was actually less tired than I was at the end of Friday's race- sadly, that just shows how much of my race I was just wandering around, in patches of thorns or up the wrong stream valley. Ah well.