Training Log Archive: smittyo

Forgot to stop my watch when I got to the start area, so the track shows more time.

Canadian Champs Long Course. Since I wasn't eligible for awards, I didn't really worry about my performance so much. In a few cases I took the route I found most interesting, even if I didn't think it would be the fastest. But in general I had a nice, clean race. My legs are starting to feel tired from all the racing this week and I found myself slowing down for no good reason a few times. 7th place in class.

COC Long - C-6a - Splits

NAOC sprint race. This was a fun day in the city of Carcross. The course had three distinct feelings to it. (1) Crazy very short legs in the small downtown area with a lot of detail. (2) Long running legs through the town. (3) Terrain detail legs in the forest.

I had difficulty with one control in the detail area. It was between two close together small buildings on a lower level. I started on the upper level and didn't see it. Went below and still didn't see it. Then I checked the description and determined exactly which corner I should be going to and headed back up. Finally saw the control, but it was just below me through a small fence. Took a good look and determined the fence was mapped impassable, so ran back around for a third time to finally punch.

After control number 9, I took off to the north and then turned left, realizing that I had just cut through olive green when I paid closer to the building and the road. Finished my course, but turned myself in as a DQ at the finish.

NAOC Sprint - C-4a - Splits

Relay race at NAOC. We made a team with Sharon Crawford, Sage Thompson, and me. Even though we had enough points to be in the easier category, we chose to enter the middle category (Advanced) so the navigation would be a little more challenging. I did the third leg which was slightly longer than the others. The race was at a biathlon range which was a lot of fun. We had a great arena, fast running with a lot of trail options, and cute little archery target animals scattered through the woods.

My race was fine. The navigation was not very difficult (yellowish-orange) and I didn't have any errors. Just my legs feeling slow after the previous days of racing. Sage had a bad error that cost us about 10 minutes, but we all had a good time and knew we wouldn't be competitive anyway. It was nice to have a fellow LAOCer on the team.

Relay - Advanced 3 - Splits

NAOC Middle. This was extremely tough. The woods varied from thick and slow to some fast open patches, but the technical difficulty was extreme. Lots of depressions and hills and in some places vague terrain to get lost in. I had a 15 minute error on control number 7, eventually going to the top of a ridge to relocate and still making an error on my approach from there. The good news is everyone else had the same sort of problems. I ended up seventh overall in F55+ and second North American.

NAOC Middle & WRE - C-6a - Splits

NAOC Long race. Gold Medal! I was hoping to medal but didn't really expect this. Very excited. I was second overall in F55. First place was a woman from Ireland who bested me by 10 minutes. I did make a few mistakes, but at most about 3 minutes worth (Attackpoint seems to think it didn't amount to anything). Biggest error was going to control number 5 instead of 3. It was a very long leg ending in a cluster of close together controls. I just went to the closest one instead of noticing that wasn't the correct next control. Figured it out when I punched my split watch. Since the controls were close together, it didn't cost me very much.
Also had a small blip at number 1. I crossed a path before the control and thought I was still further away so connected it to the wrong path on the map. When I first saw the control, I was sure it wasn't mine, but then I considered that I might be mistaken and went over to check. Glad I did. If I had kept going, I might have lost a good 5 minutes before realizing the error and coming back.
Overall, a really nice race. I like the woods here, except sometimes they are a little slow. Looking forward to more technical area tomorrow.

NAOC Long & WRE - C-6a - Splits

Event: NAOC 2018
 

NAOC model event. I usually take these very easy and concentrate on checking out everything that I can on the map. I did spend a small amount of time going a little faster to check my pace count on the two different map scales we will be using in the woods.