Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

NAOC Long

Fell and gashed my knee on a rock. Extent of damage unknown but hopefully just a flesh wound.

Re: the long - a grueling race in really epic orienteering terrain. Sort of like a very long middle - you had to maintain focus and map contact almost constantly, with few of the mental breaks you get in most longer races. Very hard for me at times to read the map while moving with any decent speed, and I never felt like I could really open up and run at full speed. At some controls in the more complicated areas I could hardly parse things out inside the circle and just sort of barged in on a bearing and went into search mode. I lost a minute on 2 and several on 3, but got into a solid groove from then on. Only other controls I had significant problems on were 15 (bad route choice) and 16 (overran). Was pretty much alone for the entire course, and felt good about putting the rough start behind me and hanging tough. Still, a race that could've been a lot better.

Long - Blue (WRE) - Splits

Event: North American Orienteering Championships 2016
 

NAOC middle. Despite bobbling 6, I was having a solid race until bobbling 13, then blowing the long leg to 14. Reason: not having an attack point. I contoured around the hill, trusting that I would figure things out when I got close - not a great plan. I came to a vague lumpy area with lots of clearcut/trail thingies running this way and that, and couldn't make sense of them, so wandered for a while trying to find something real to relocate on. Luckily that something happened to be the control, but it was not until about three minutes later.

Middle - Blue - Splits

Tooling around on the middle model.

And the long model. Finding some areas of the map very difficult to read at 1:15000.

Today we continued our roaming ways and eventually ended up at Moreau Lake State Park, so we ran around most of the blue middle from 2013 (?). Very cool area. We had to cut things a bit short as it started to get pretty dark in the forest and I started to get scared. Because I am afraid of dark forests, which is a totally rational and legitimate fear.

Not much clue about time or distance as I've forgotten my watch charging cord at home and therefore my watch has been dead since Sunday. If anyone else has a Forerunner 220 I'd be mighty obliged if I could borrow your cord for a bit this weekend.

Forgot to mention, when we had just arrived and were about to head up the hill from the parking lot the big Frenchman himself came trotting down and chatted with us for a bit. So that was cool.

C • Fear 2

C • I have a 220 and will have ... 1

We roamed around upstate New York today; I spent most of the day pretending I was Hawkeye from Last of the Mohicans. We did some hiking in Treman State Park outside of Ithaca - the scenery is gorges.

C • Gorges 1

Event: Mike's Maze, volume 2
 

Sprint relay, Leg 1. Running with Greg for most of the course; he got me by some 15s in the end. Overall, Tori and myself (AKA Team Willtorious) battled gallantly but we were narrowly defeated by Team España, Greg y Juanma.

C • Team Willtorious! 6

Warm down with Ethan doing the other loop.

Corn Maze Classic. I entered the maze, and promptly got lost! I had not respect for the maze.

Corn Maze Sprint. This time I had learned my lesson and gained respect for the maze - yet I still committed one semi-costly error. Really fun orienteering! Very different from the Cascade version of CMO, where the maze is more geometric and less artsy/stylized. In COC CMO the keys have historically been counting intersections and keeping track of which primary direction you're facing. Over here it's more about recognizing irregular shapes and angles.

Corn Classic - Splits

Corn Sprint - Splits

CC Day 2. I wondered how my body would react to two consecutive days of tough longish races after 4-5 weeks of no training to speak of due to WOC/illness/knee issues. Turns out, not well at all. This race was the poorest I have felt physically in a long time and my worst major result probably since last September. 2016 has been by far my most successful year in orienteering but it seems I've lost my way a bit since returning from Sweden. I was much fitter than this at Team Trials in June; much fitter than this in Wyoming in June/July; much fitter than this at Canadian Champs in July/August. Hell, I was much fitter than this in the one random forest race I ran in Sweden. I'm not sure what the issue is but I'm disappointed and disgusted with myself and this is a shitty way to end the competitive season. After NAOC I will attempt to decipher what has gone wrong.

/rant

On the positive side, my knee seems to have handled the weekend okay thus far - we will see how it is tomorrow. And, congratulations to Alex, Barb, Boris, Ian, and Pat for their elections to the OUSA BOD!

C • Tough day 5

Sunday - Blue - Splits