Training Log Archive: Mark3In the 1 days ending Oct 28, 2017:
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Saturday Oct 28, 2017 #
Orienteering - Forest race (OMM A-Class) 8:05:37 [5] 37.83 km (12:50 / km) +3094m 9:07 / km
ahr:128 max:168 shoes: X-Talon 225 (July 2017)
http://www.omm.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#96&cours...
First attempt at the A-Class at the OMM. Nervous but excited. Based on my LDMT experience I was overdressed at the start; hat, gloves, full body waterproofs. The weather was light rain, wind and fog, but relatively mild.
The hat and gloves came off up the first climb (just a casual c.400m or something) as it was quite sheltered, but once we hit the ridge the wind picked up and the gloves were right back on - and there they would stay for the rest of the day. Mark nailed the control (which was to become a theme for the day) and we were feeling good. Straightforward #2; no issues.
We had been debating route choice to #3 a lot; up and over Bowfell and Crinkle Crags, with path running most of the way and maintaining the height, or down, along the stream and up again, which was shorter but the terrain was more questionable. We had both initially thought up and over, but once we felt the wind were in two minds - I made one of my few navigational inputs over the day and pushed for down/up; which we did, and it seemed like it was a good choice.
Easy macro route choice to #4 but finding it in the fog was tricky. Neither of us were 100% sure but Mark thought it was probably to the right. We went right. We nailed the control. I was about 80% sure it was left. I picked a good partner for the conditions.
I also made the call on our route choice to #5 and navigated most of it as well. Actually finding the crag at the end however proved to be challenging in the fog. We both thought we'd gone too high and must have missed it. We'd seen various looming shapes to either side but both agreed they looked too small to be mapped, but we were a bit unsure. Were it up to me here I would probably (?) have gone to look at some of them. But Mark said the other than the crag, there were no features on the hillside to relocate from, so we should have confidence in our bearing and if we missed it we'd come out at the top and then could attack from there. This was excellent logic. We continued with our bearing; 30s later we were at the control.
#6, enjoyed this control as it was the only one where Mark had a navigational wobble but I was both confident and correct. Weather-wise this was probably the low point of the day (appropriately on Wetherlam); literally gale force winds and rain; starting to get a bit cold now although nothing like LDMT.
We'd debated #7 a lot because it was so rocky and steep around the control. I wanted to approach from Low Water which is what we did, and I think that was a reasonable route, but will be interesting to see what others did as I've just seen a route to the N of Levers Water and up the path/stream which looks good, that we didn't consider at the time.
Lucky on #8 to pick up and indistinct path, which was such good running we followed it for further than we intended to and so contoured more than I wanted; I think gave us a worse AP but Mark nailed the control again. I couldn't add a lot of value here because the ink on that area of map had worn off; also just beforehard there was a lot of picking our way though large, damp, greasy boulders and we discovered that Mark is a lot faster at that than I am and it was the one time of the day he was getting uncomfortably far ahead. Luckily that terrain didn't continue for too long.
#9 we tried to stay on a bearing for a mile but when we were pretty much at the control realised we didn't have an AP and had a bit of a crisis. But this one was some good teamwork; I identified that we were probably at 1 of 2 spurs, Mark chose the one he thought, then I identified what I though was the mapped marsh, from that Mark identified the mapped knoll and then to the re-entrant and we were back in business.
Nice to get out of the wind for a bit down and up through the forest. Then I picked the contouring route round to the control so as to approach the crag from below; Mark thought this was a good shout and we did it well. From this point I was tired and didn't add a lot of value, other than noting that we'd come out too far E on the road and that I thought we'd followed the fence-line rather than the mapped path (which turned out to be true). Then as per, Mark nailed the control ('crag', which wasn't even a crag on the map, just 1mm of grey contour. It was a 20m high [at least] cliff). Easy run down the road to the end.
Given our lack of mistakes and the conditions, I actually expected to be better than 4th; I certainly didn't expect to be 1.5 hours down. I don't think we could have been more than 10 mins faster over the whole day, which isn't bad for an 8 hour race. Mark and I were pretty well matched apart from when it got rocky. Basically really pleased. I could feel lots of niggles but none that would keep me from starting day 2.
76 teams started the day. 8 teams finished. Enough said.
First attempt at the A-Class at the OMM. Nervous but excited. Based on my LDMT experience I was overdressed at the start; hat, gloves, full body waterproofs. The weather was light rain, wind and fog, but relatively mild.
The hat and gloves came off up the first climb (just a casual c.400m or something) as it was quite sheltered, but once we hit the ridge the wind picked up and the gloves were right back on - and there they would stay for the rest of the day. Mark nailed the control (which was to become a theme for the day) and we were feeling good. Straightforward #2; no issues.
We had been debating route choice to #3 a lot; up and over Bowfell and Crinkle Crags, with path running most of the way and maintaining the height, or down, along the stream and up again, which was shorter but the terrain was more questionable. We had both initially thought up and over, but once we felt the wind were in two minds - I made one of my few navigational inputs over the day and pushed for down/up; which we did, and it seemed like it was a good choice.
Easy macro route choice to #4 but finding it in the fog was tricky. Neither of us were 100% sure but Mark thought it was probably to the right. We went right. We nailed the control. I was about 80% sure it was left. I picked a good partner for the conditions.
I also made the call on our route choice to #5 and navigated most of it as well. Actually finding the crag at the end however proved to be challenging in the fog. We both thought we'd gone too high and must have missed it. We'd seen various looming shapes to either side but both agreed they looked too small to be mapped, but we were a bit unsure. Were it up to me here I would probably (?) have gone to look at some of them. But Mark said the other than the crag, there were no features on the hillside to relocate from, so we should have confidence in our bearing and if we missed it we'd come out at the top and then could attack from there. This was excellent logic. We continued with our bearing; 30s later we were at the control.
#6, enjoyed this control as it was the only one where Mark had a navigational wobble but I was both confident and correct. Weather-wise this was probably the low point of the day (appropriately on Wetherlam); literally gale force winds and rain; starting to get a bit cold now although nothing like LDMT.
We'd debated #7 a lot because it was so rocky and steep around the control. I wanted to approach from Low Water which is what we did, and I think that was a reasonable route, but will be interesting to see what others did as I've just seen a route to the N of Levers Water and up the path/stream which looks good, that we didn't consider at the time.
Lucky on #8 to pick up and indistinct path, which was such good running we followed it for further than we intended to and so contoured more than I wanted; I think gave us a worse AP but Mark nailed the control again. I couldn't add a lot of value here because the ink on that area of map had worn off; also just beforehard there was a lot of picking our way though large, damp, greasy boulders and we discovered that Mark is a lot faster at that than I am and it was the one time of the day he was getting uncomfortably far ahead. Luckily that terrain didn't continue for too long.
#9 we tried to stay on a bearing for a mile but when we were pretty much at the control realised we didn't have an AP and had a bit of a crisis. But this one was some good teamwork; I identified that we were probably at 1 of 2 spurs, Mark chose the one he thought, then I identified what I though was the mapped marsh, from that Mark identified the mapped knoll and then to the re-entrant and we were back in business.
Nice to get out of the wind for a bit down and up through the forest. Then I picked the contouring route round to the control so as to approach the crag from below; Mark thought this was a good shout and we did it well. From this point I was tired and didn't add a lot of value, other than noting that we'd come out too far E on the road and that I thought we'd followed the fence-line rather than the mapped path (which turned out to be true). Then as per, Mark nailed the control ('crag', which wasn't even a crag on the map, just 1mm of grey contour. It was a 20m high [at least] cliff). Easy run down the road to the end.
Given our lack of mistakes and the conditions, I actually expected to be better than 4th; I certainly didn't expect to be 1.5 hours down. I don't think we could have been more than 10 mins faster over the whole day, which isn't bad for an 8 hour race. Mark and I were pretty well matched apart from when it got rocky. Basically really pleased. I could feel lots of niggles but none that would keep me from starting day 2.
76 teams started the day. 8 teams finished. Enough said.