Training Log Archive: Danny Riley

Red Hawk 6k - fun local race. Legs (unsurprisingly) felt heavy during warmup and I had only a rough guess of what the pace should be, so when I hit 10:35 at the turn around and felt just fine I pushed hard for the second half and finished at 20:01. With an actual pace plan I definitely could’ve gotten sub-20.

C • did u win tho 2

With some guy named Steve

Fatigued control picking at Salmon La Sac.

Sometimes you just gotta be honest with yourself: I made a bad course. In my defense I didn’t really know what the best parts of the map were and I hit a lot of good sections but there was a lot of just plain awfulness. It wasn’t completely devoid of training value — I did still get to focus on keeping concentration while fatigued, but I didn’t get the fast, high detail, punishing training I wanted.

My original plan was to do a long sprint at UW but the store near there that I won a gift card to was unexpectedly closed so I made this course and yeesh, maybe I rushed it. I’m gonna try the store again tomorrow and run the sprint then. If they’re closed I’ll just give the gift card to someone who lives here.

Cause of my stupid biodegradable body. Why can't these flesh vessels run every day, that seems like such an oversight.

Rituals to heal Bridget’s foot

C • healing rituals 5

A very relaxed middle at Quincy Lakes South, the short advanced plus course from COC's 2021 Ultimate Orienteer #2. Took it very easy so as to only really work the mind and not the body.

A few technical difficulties. O-Range refused to download the course for whatever reason (Garmin Connect was down?) so I was doing it the old fashioned way. "Danny your live tracker was shit today what was happening."

Struggled to actually find a crossing point between 6 and 7 (I was looking for physical bridges). As I finished, I passed two dudes who let me know they saw a snake where I was right before I ran past. Surprisingly didn't see anything that wanted to bite, sting, or otherwise maim me out there.

Half of a 13.7km long at Teanaway essentially following the medium advanced course from COC's 2021 Ultimate Orienteer #5. The vegetation started to really suck and it was really difficult to be precise with the map. Doesn't help that I printed at 1:25k instead of 1:15k.

Saw either the biggest deer I've ever seen in my life or a moose near #2 and was very careful to make sure it was running away and not towards me. Easily 3x or 4x my size.

Some cool sightseeing spots. Ran into a mountain biker who saw that I had a map and immediately pointed out exactly where we were, I should've given him the full sales pitch on orienteering.

Teanaway Creek training, an 8.2km classic essentially following the medium advanced course from COC's 2022 Ultimate Orienteer #5.

Some of the semi-open was really closed off (near 5 and 11 in particular). Apart from that it was a great time. I’m a little suspicious of 3’s existence and 7 was very vague.

I’ll post live tracking links for future trainings as well.

C • Live tracking 1

Frenchman Creek based on a prior COC event. Didn’t actually see 10 or 12. Insane 30mph+ wind, I jumped down and was blown quite far away at one point

Frenchman Coulee, same course as the 2017 COC Ultimate Orienteer #1. Accidentally looked at 1-2 instead of start-1 at the beginning so I immediately had to backtrack. Evidently went to the wrong rock for 7, which I considered after leaving the control. The water levels were much higher than what was mapped. (exiting 12 was not fun). Couple bad bearings at the end, but I was literally being blown off track by the wind at times.

Event: CascadeOC Ultimate #7 - Fishtrap Lake (Goat)
 

Fishtrap goat. Looking at the RouteGadget, turns out I was directly next to the actual (misnumbered) 26 when I noticed the other (correct number, wrong place) control and turned towards it. Do I get bonus points for hitting them both?

1 - Followed Will "there's only one black X on the entire map and I know where it is" Enger
2 - I decided to push the pace early but couldn't get much separation.
3 - Chose to stay S of the fence and off the trail, at this point I only saw Will and Adam behind me. At this point I planned to skip 17 and 19 to try to throw off the competition with a quick 16-18-20.
4 - Slow entry/weak attack point let Adam catch right up, so I booked it on the trail to 5.
5 - Passed AJ and Julia and tried to lead them to 5 but something got lost in translation. Good entry into the rock system, bad attack point.
6 - My plan wasn't actually to hit the water control but I did want to get out of that rock system. Quickly finding the trail SW of the cliff system was huge, and in my mind I was out of sight of Will and Adam at this point. The bridge was really sketchy but that made it more fun. Adam apparently was thinking of skipping 6 and swimming to 7. I thought of skipping 7 or 9 but at this point I thought I was far enough ahead that if the people behind me skipped then I'd be level with them and could skip at the end.
9 - I only saw Adam behind me at this point and there was decent separation.
10 - Partnered with Ali to find the control; we knew we were in the right spot but just couldn't see where it was tucked away. Some of the control descriptions were kinda meh but it's not like it had a major impact.
11 - Crossing all these fences was actually pretty tough
12 - Decided to skip 19 and 23 at this point
13 - Saw Adam going into 12 a little bit after I left. I didn't see him again for the rest of the race.
15 - Again saw Ali and we again met at the control
18 - A herd of cows were just barely SW of the control and I got a little nervous as I approached.
19 - Good skip
20 - Started to feel fatigued and was getting sloppier
21 - Happy with my route choice. Crossing the first fence there was another herd of cows staring me down, so I went E to cross and had to go back NW to avoid the OOB. As I did that they started picking up speed and all running directly towards me, so I started absolutely booking it to and across the marsh. Later saw a whole bunch of deer sprinting across N of the second fence and made sure I wasn't going to get T-boned. After the sprint away from the cows I was very fatigued and started to lose a lot of speed.
26 - There was controversy here but I didn't notice it while I was running, I saw a box with my number on it and didn't question the placement. I was willing to accept with how exhausted I was that I was just really far E of the control.
27 - The Big One. I can blame the first miss on the misplaced 26, but the second miss I kept going way too far, partially because I thought I already searched all the low hills where it actually was. Both misses were very close to the control itself but I didn't turn around in a reasonable time. I was so worried that someone passed me at this point and had next to no energy to finish. Happy to say that this was my only real big mistake.