Training Log Archive: smittyo

US Long Champs at Camp Wakpominee. Lots of rock on the map. Lots of slash not on the map. Nice course really requiring all skills to come to the fore. I was happy to once again earn a bronze medal and have a pretty clean race. Today all of that marathon training really paid off. On the walk to the start I was feeling tired, but didn't really feel that during the course and was still making decent time up hills and such through the entire course. Glad to keep it up through the whole weekend.

# 1 - Trail to bend, then over the saddle and up the reentrant. Not quite sure that I was at the right feature when I saw it, so I ended up going around it the long way and approached from the north.
# 2 - Based of cliffs to the saddle then to the tip of the marsh, across to trail and attacked from the trail bend. The first rocky part was about what I expected but not too bad since I wasn't for much distance. The section ofter that looked nice and fast on the map, but was full of slash. Trail route was probably better because of this. My final approach was too low and full of slash, then went up the reentrant to control.
# 3 - Left # 2 to the north to get back out to trail. Much easier going. Trail to just past the little pond, then in on the line of marshes to the control.
# 4 - Stayed on the trail to the big bend, then down slope to base of reentrant, cross the stream near the pond and up and over on a bearing to control.
# 5 - Decided to attack from the trail bend north of the control. Then had to get to the trail. I wanted to go southwest to the trail. But apparently I mistook the ponds and marshes west of the control and ended up north of the big march instead of south of it. Not only was this off the optimum line, but it was green and confusing, so I was pretty slow right there. Finally hit the trail and still believed I was further south until I saw the lake. Then knew exactly where I was. Fast going from there to the control. No problems with the attack. Worked well.
# 6 - Went left of the marsh then crosswise down the hill to cross the stream west of the little lake. Used the ponds and marshes to lead into the control. Was confused in the circle with the reentrants and started to go too far left, but then saw the control and corrected.
# 7 - Down then up and hit the system of indistinct trails and rough open. Should have stayed on the trails, but took a direct bearing instead. Came out a little bit to the right and had to stop and look around before seeing the control.
# 8 - North down the trickle marsh and past the rootstock to the indistinct trail, then west on trail to edge of marsh and along marsh to the bigger trail. Trail to the bend and down spur to control.
# 9 - Took the trails all the way to East ot he control, then tried to attack on the small trail leading in to the campsite. Got confused in the campsite area and went too far north and then had to stop and relocate off of the rocky walls to get back to the control.
# 10 - up the road and cut in
# 11 - Past the south side of building. I headed into the woods a little too far north and then corrected. Surprised that this cost enough for Attackpoint splits to flag it as an error.
# 12 - Trail to road junction then in, across the stream, and up the spur to control.
# 13 - Pretty straight from twelve to the finish area and then just in to the trees to the control.

Long Green X - Splits

US Middle Champs at Moreau Lake. Knowing how badly I messed up on this map last time I was here, I vowed to just take it easy. I was also worried about the Trail-O in the afternoon, so on the bus ride to the start, I just told myself not to worry about today's race. Just take it slow, don't get stressed and stay in good mental condition for the Trail-O. Well that worked much better than I could have imagined. It was definitely a "slow and steady wins the race" day. # 7 was my only real blunder, and I relocated pretty quickly and didn't lose too much time. Tried to have nice attackpoints throughout the course and keep in tight touch with the map.

# 1 Aimed off a bit to the right to hit the tip of the line of swamps. Then to the left around the cliffy hill and down to the control.
# 2 I think I went over the hill to get to the skinny spot to cross the swamp, then straight to the control.
# 3 Aimed up the hill to hit the trail, then took the trail to south of the control, then followed west edge of swamp as a handrail into the control.
# 4 straight on a bearing
# 5 followed someone through the big swamp and was a little annoyed because I wasn't as sure as I wanted to be of where I came out. Kept going on a bearing trying to match up the swamps. My route shows a little blip that I don't remember - perhaps I was checking the cliffs east of the control? I do remember that hit the proper swamp I was a little bit north and had to run south to the cliff.
# 6 Just followed the line of swamps
# 7 Aimed off to the left toward the big swamp. Hit it really nicely just where it gets skinny and went around the cliffs and started following north between the cliffs. Somewhere I passed the second set of cliffs and eventually ran into the larger swamp. This confused me. There was a smaller swamp to my right that seemed like it should be the control, but wasn't. I went to the smaller swamp and relocated, realizing I wasn't far enough and then in to the control. Estimated time lost about 1:30.
# 8 Northeast to tip of swamp, then south of the line to the gap between the two swamps, then north along the ridge to the control. I actually didn't go all the way to the top right away and was just below the ridge line. Got pulled off a little when I saw the similar cliffy top in the west part of the circle, but went to the proper place.
# 9 East to the dotted marsh, then over the hill. Made a point of using the hilltop as an attack. The control was visible from the top.
# 10 Went pretty much straight and counted paces from the bottom of the reentrant. I felt pretty lucky on this one. I was hoping to see the small marsh just before I hit the control, but didn't really notice anything marshy as I passed this area. I thought I might be off, but then looked to the left and saw the control. Still didn't believe it was right until I checked the code.
# 11 Around the swamp and over the hill to the small stream connecting the uncrossable to crossable swamp. Then over to the reentrant and up the reentrant. I did see the streamers in the area, but didn't follow them directly since I wasn't sure if they would be the most direct route.
# 12 Up to trail and then to control, then to finish!

Walk to and from the start/finish area.

Yikes! I got 7 out of 15 correct. This is one of my worst trail-O results, although I do think much is to blame on the map and/or course not really being Championship standard. Especially the map and terrain. It forced the course setter to set many less than optimal controls based on little concrete information.

# 1 - Saddle - problem because the saddle in terrain was much closer to the trail than mapped, leaving one trying to decide between the control on the feature or the control in the circle (relative to the trail). I chose wrong.
# 2 - Reentrant - I just clearly made this too complicated. It looked like B was the obvious choice, being in the main reentrant. But I overthought the fact that the formline was not in line with the main reentrant and started lining things up. Didn't take the same bearing off a small trail bend that the course setter intended for this purpose. Instead used the side of the lake and ended up convincing myself that C was correct.
# 3 - Beaver Lodge - This one got thrown out by the organizer. Lots of problems with the fact that it was mapped as a point feature, but was of such an interesting shape that determining the center was tricky. This meant people had varying decisions on what was East from the center of the feature. I picked Z because I thought East landed between two controls. Even if I had picked a control (I was debating if the gap was large enough to really call a Z), I think I would have picked the wrong one, but it was a close call.
# 4 - Foot of Knoll. Nice control. No one seemed to complain. Just had to identify the foot and determine that the control was on the correct side and there was no other knoll around.
# 5 - Between the knolls - Organizer accepted two answers. The knolls were mapped as point features. One knoll was somewhat elongated. One control was between the centers of the knolls, another between the foots. Hmmm. Lots of debate on what was actually the rule here. Something I will need to study up on and clarify prior to Finland. At any rate, my choice was one of those accepted (I picked between the centers). I think this control would have been less controversial and just as interesting if the controls had been scattered between all the different knolls in the area.
# 6 - Reentrant - got it right. nicely set with some knolls that helped with determining how high up the reentrant each control was.
# 7 - Reentrant - classic Z control, made a little difficult by the waviness of the formline and the subtlety of some of the reentrants. You really had to be paying attention. Well set and I spiked it.
# 8 - Spur - missed it. Lots of debate on this one. Seemed to be a place where varying methods led to varying answers. Distance from trail seemed to be the main criteria cited by course planner. I thought this seemed to point more to the closest, but it's clearly my weakest skill. Marsh seemed too far away in reality and the contour seemed to point to a different answer.
# 9 - Reentrant - missed it. difficult to assess from below exactly where the form line went. Sharon thought it was obvious that the higher control was above and the lower was below, but I didn't. I took a bearing from the same spot course planner did and still got it wrong. Wonder if the degree distance between controls was within tolerance from there.
# 10 - Spur - missed it. Lots of debate on this one too. I didn't have the trouble some did with identifying that a form line was there, but I did try to use the contour below that which was total garbage. Also pace counted MANY times between the trail junction and trail bend. Still came up wrong.
# 11 - Side of depression. This was tricky. Some didn't like it. The contour was difficult to define in the terrain. I eventually solved it by discovering that the controls all lined up in a NW direction, so there was nothing in the North part. If this hadn't been visible from somewhere on a trail, I probably would have missed it.
# 12 - hilltop - missed it. At this point, I think I had settled into the pace count and bearing mode that was the course setter's primary toolkit. Unfortunately, I probably should have spent more time really trying to identify the extent of the hill in the terrain. People who did thought this was a good control and got it right. My pace count (not as good a method) came up incorrect.)
# 13 - Spur - correct, but not a great control. It seemed to me to be about the right distance in from the trail, but not correct relative to the contours and bend in the reentrant to the north. Also, again my bearing from the trail junction didn't really match up with course setter's expectations. It was other things that led to my final correct decision.
# 14 - Edge of green. I thought this was fairly set and got it correct. Some people less happy with the lack of definition of the edge of the green symbol. I can see their point, but still thought it was pretty obvious that the further control was inside the green and not on the edge.
# 15 - Rootstock - missed it. Apparently totally brain dead when I did this one. I took an appropriate bearing, but somehow decided that what I was lining up on was NOT the answer, when it was, so picked the north control instead of northwest. When I went back to check this one out, couldn't figure out why I made such a dumb error.
Once again - not the national champ, but still practicing for Finland. A little worried about the effect on my ranking. Sharon is talking about setting next year. That will be interesting.

Middle Green X - Splits

Event: 2013 U.S. Individual Championships/Team Trials
 

US Sprint Championships at Camp Wakpominee, NY. I can't complain about this race. I had a really clean run and kept moving the whole time. The day started out badly with my connecting flight from Newark being cancelled and me scrounging to perhaps find a ride. In the end, it was a nail-biter hoping to make it on time via another flight were I was on standby. I did make the flight and then got to the meet just on time. Usually after a red-eye like that I try to get a little rest before the race. That didn't happen, so I'm really happy that I managed to perform well even though I was really tired. It could have been a lot of mental mistakes.

Routes:
#1 Trail to bend to control
#2 Up the small trail then across to the control.
#3 up the stream
#4 meant to take the trail, but pulled off to the south by some other folks. saw the wrong control first and checked the code before going to four. estimated time loss about 3 seconds.
#5 through the woods down the spur to southwest trail junction, short way on the trail, then up to the east to the control. As I did the final climb into the control, I was wondering if an eastern route would have been better. Hmmm.
# 6 Through the parking area to the small trail that led straight to the building
# 7 over to the smaller trail between the clearings, then off to the control after hitting the southern building
# 8 pretty much straight to the control
# 9 At this point I was running with Gavin Wyatt-Mair. We were together starting at about #6. That was a good thing, as it pushed my pace. To number 9 went south through the woods to the power line, then followed power line ride to the buildings. I think it would have been faster to take a slightly more eastern route to be on the trail.
# 10 Lost Gavin here as he misread the course and took off toward # 12. I correctly went to number 10, but stopped momentarily at the first building instead of the second. I hadn't really noticed the other building under the course line. Estimated time lost 5 seconds.
# 11 Less than optimal route, as I got into the rocky ground and took longer than I should have to get up onto the hill. I almost followed the rocky stream, but luckily figured out not to and to get out of it.
# 12 Straight. A lot of people had trouble distinguishing that this was two buildings. I didn't have that problem.
# 13 Up trail to junction east of # 9, then straight through the woods to the control.
# 14 Almost went straight, but as I was leaving # 13 I noticed the small trail and the map and took that. Was very glad that I had seen it. I was doing very nicely at this point and was reading the map well, so did not hesitate and lose time when passing controls that weren't mine. I was solid on knowing exactly where I was going.
# 15 Straight up the hill. This seemed more like a trail than mapped so I was afraid I was wrong and drifted a little bit to the east before seeing the control and correcting.

Fourth place in F50+, but only 47 seconds behind Mary, who was second.

Sprint Green - Splits

Drills this week. Probably would have preferred more running, but at least we lengthened the sprints a little from what they usually are at drills.

Weights at the gym