Training Log Archive: fzendt

Spending an extra day at Lake Tahoe / Truckee. Today we hiked up to the top of the Squaw Valley Ski Slope. Weather was nice, warm, but not overly so. The smoke haze was low but still very visible so the views were certainly less majestic.

The trail was very nice. A lot of climb but with good footing so it was very doable. Stopped at Squaw Lake for about 20 min on the way up. Very pretty little lake. Trail ends at High Camp, the buildings at the top of the gondola with all the ski slope stuff, i.e. resturant, hockey rink (from the 1960 Winter Olympics). You have to pay to ride the gondola up to the top, but the ride down is free. So we took the gondola down.

Then drove over to Lake Tahoe, Sugar Pine State Park. Very nice park on the lake shore. Finally got to take a dip in the lake, absolutely beautiful, clear water. Water temperature was very pleasant, not nearly as cold as advertised.

US Champs Relay - Leg 1

Excited to run a relay for the first time in a long, long time. Anxious to see if I could handle running leg one, going out with the mass start.

Did exactly what I told myself not to do. Ran with the crowd toward number one without keeping up with the navigating. Got to the vicinity of number one but had no clue where I was exactly. Saw high ground to my left and decided my control must be north of that. Found another control on a boulder and then got to mine. Oh well, definitely need more practice running in a crowd.

Conttols 2 and 3 went fine. Leg to 4 went fine, managed to push rather well on a long leg through the rough-open. Hit the dry creek where the control was and didn't know if I was left or right. Whatever happened to aiming off?!?! Dummy. Went right, wrong. Turned around and forund it quickly after wasting 2 min. Bobbled 5 badly, was high and went past it by 50m. Rest of the run was good. Peggy D. caught me at #5. That was a boost since I knew she was on the same course as me (didn't know if she had the same control forks though). Managed to beat her in by about 10sec.

Fun run, fun relay. But a little disappointing about screwing up three controls.
Dennis Cryor did the second leg in about an hour. He wasn't happy with his run, but one hour wasn't bad. Bill Cheatum ran the third leg in very good time of 39:07.

US Champs Long O at Sagehen, Tahoe/Truckee, CA.

I was looking forward to this, expecting that I could have a good run. The weather was warm again but not too hot yet at noon when I started. The smog from the forest fires had abated a bit from the last two days.

Started off ok on number one, saw the cliff off to my right just I was about to get worried. Followed a straight line to number two, moving well. Got to the control circle and it all fell apart. I thought I was in the clearing just before the control when I guess I was at the edge of the semi-open area a little before and left of that clearing. So I didn't see the boulder and made a couple circles to the left before relocating on some stony ground and heading toward the boulder. Lost about 6 min, ugh. 3, 4, 5 went well. Route to 6 was ok but once again I didn't identify the correct open clearing and overshot the clearing I was using for an attack point. Consequently I was off to the right of the control. Almost the same issue with number 7. Saw the dark green and clearing off to my right, precision compass 150m from there, but somehow ended up off to the left. Saw a control further to the left, went there. Not mine. Relocated on the boulder it was on. Number 8 was again an exercise in identifying the clearings and running through the rough-open. Bobbled it also.

Another disappointing run. Happy that I could keep moving the whole time but sure is annoying to make 12 min of mistakes.

C4 - Splits

US Champs Middle distance race. Air quality was fair at best due to the large wild fires west and north of here. Air was much worse this morning and they almost canceled the event but ended up just delaying from the morning to the afternoon by which time the air had improved enough to not be so noticable.

This was in a very nice area. Fast, runnable open woods. I'm still having lots of trouble deciphering the woods from the semi-open and even from the open areas when moving with any speed - and oxygen debt!

So I blew number one. Thought I would navigate in from a large boulder and then a couple clearings. Never saw them, ugh!. Hit the ditch in front of the boulder but didn't know if I was left or right, and I saw boulders in both directions (of course!). Yesterday on the model map I was off to the right every time I tried precision compass, so I turned left and ran 50m to the control on a boulder. Wrong control, dang it. Turned around, ran 100m back up the ditch to the other boulder and that was mine.

Number two, aimed for a huge clearing less than 200m from the control. The running was nice and once again I thought I was in the clearing when in fact it was just open woods. Went off to the right and ended up in a real clearing but it didn't make any sense. Wondered to the south, found a ditch, followed it to a couple bends and finally pieced together where I was. 50m to the control and I was good.

The remaining controls were almost all short legs, ~200m. Did well the rest of the way around, although the one longish (250m), uphill leg invovled no running - really sucking for oxygen and it's only 6000+ feet elevation.

Finished (29:49) a very disappointing 8 of 11, 7:56 behind the winner. About 6 min in errors was very costly.

C4 - Splits

Event: 2021 Orienteering USA Nationals
 

Went to Burton Creek State Park for O training. Specifically wanted to get on some on the local terrain and forest. It's really, really different from what I'm accustomed to in the SE. Ridge and reentrants are very gradual and seem almost indistinct to me. Woods is so open it's very difficult to tell the difference between forest, semi-open, rough open and open. Plus the map is very old and a bit obsolete. Once I started ignoring the vegetation mapping and concentrated on the contours and rock feartures it got a little better. At this point though I think having a well defined attack point will be critical. Rough compass was difficult because there often weren't any well defined features along the way to check off and keep me updated.

Looking forward to the model event tomorrow. Hopefully the forest will be a little less crappy - there was lots of deadfall scattered around, easy enough to get through but did require some concentration on the running and footing.

On the upside, I did see a black bear cub while running! Probably only 20-30 m away. He climbed a tree immmediately. Then decided I was far enough away and climbed down and ran off. Went out of sight behind a rock outcrop. I wanted to follow him and see him some more but decided momma bear might be nearby and wouldn't appreciate me being so close. So I left the area in a different direction.

Spent most of the day packing and getting ready for the trip to CA.

Flew to Reno, NV in late afternoon. Only about a 45 min drive to the house in Donner-Tahoe. Hard to find in the dark. They don't have street lights here and very few of the houses have addresses on them, at least not that are visible in the dark. Once found though, it's a beautiful little townhouse.