Training Log Archive: AliC

Wahoo! 7th qualifier, only 3.20 back from Minna Kaupi and Annika Billstram, way psyched! Every control was pretty much exactly where I wanted it to show up. And I dealt way better with people than yesterday, saw some other gals out there, but never got distracted when they diverged off my way or stopped puzzled looking at their maps, no running with others at all. I'm a little unsure if my second route choice leg actually was the best way, lots of picking back and forth on little trails, but direct with a good attackpoint. The other way was more around on a big trail, and without a good attackpoint... splits will probably tell later, and will write a bit more too, now for dinner!

Alrighty, and a bit of analysis:
1- To the start triangle and immediately green-bash out to the big trail, I had a bit more direct line than the Estonian. Trail junction came quick, whoa, this is 1:10, good reminder! Then up into the woods between the big cliffs into the right reentrant, vegetation was pretty dense and control scarily invisible, but had confidence and found.
2- Out to trail, then turned right up before the big cliff popped into the white depression and turned up before the two cliffs around the corner of the hill. Was a bit high, realized it, found control lower. The Estonian and Polish women I started with where somewhere around on this control, one ahead, one behind?
3- Out to big trail, left on next big trail, and in on bearing from the corner, noted cliff on my right at the edge of the circle.
4- Out to trail, sailed through in reentrant, on a bearing from the top of it into the next reentrant.
5- Route choice #1: Out to E-Wish big trail on little trails, maybe hadn't fully decided on route, but thought the left on the road looked really nice- was flatter and knew it would be fast, little trails were often slower. Wasn't terrible, but 1:10 lost to the top slit and all three of the leaders of the heats (maps are up) went on the little trails.
6- A little off line to the right, in the field, then up up hill, reading ahead while going up a bit.
7- Turned up after big cliff, trying to decide next route choice...
8- Route choice #2: Saw a little trail route, more straight although finicky but had a good approach to the control, and then a route to the left on the big trail, but I didn't have a good way to find the control from it, so opted for little trails. I lost 1:34 to the top split on this one, but Lena E. was able to put a little-trail direct route together for the fastest time on a very similar leg for heat B, so maybe not totally a bad choice. Might just be I don't have quite the skill to do the little trails as a high enough speed.
9- Down hill to pre-warning control. Some slight hesitation with a nose on the left on the way.
10- Over a cliff? Mmmm, seriously not best approach, should have just trailed it out, some rushing because I knew I was pretty much home-free! Raced the Finnish gal Merja Rantanen into the finish, fun to have company!

C • congrats and good luck as y... 11

Warm up, now on the 1:10 warm up map, still did not go well, had to hurry it back to be sure to be there on time (need a watch that isn't my Garmin!)

Warm down, around the finish area, smiling happy!

Event: WOC 2011 + O'Festival Savoie Grand Revard
 

Warm up from quarantine on little warm-up map, got horribly caught up in green and only possibly got to the depression I was trying to get to, didn't inspire super confidence in upcoming race, but tried not to let it psych me out. Also a wee warm down afterwards, basically jogging along the finish chute a few times.

Woo! And made it to the finals! Super happy.

I felt like I did well through the open meadows at the beginning, then maybe had a bit of a suspect route choice on the long leg (still mostly in meadows), and made a mistake in the crazy woods (~3 min, partly b/c distracted by other gals, bad!). After losing that time, was caught up by heat winner Dana B. and being around her and Amelie C. definitely helped for the remaining controls.

Also, my micro-routes into controls might not be ideal, almost landed on top of the 'control-watchers' twice, once at the water control, coming over the cliff and 2nd into the pre-warning control, was just a bit high...

Meadow part:
1- Cautious off the start, wanted to know where I was going and have a plan, so was slower to start than the other 2 girls. Followed plan, but cautious just into circle, wanted to be 100% sure for the first!
2- Easyish control, but realized I wasn't super sure about the veg heading in and slowed a bit because of that.
3- Good leg, used fence, straight in, moved me up to 8th which was my highest placing in the race.
4- Mmmm... didn't even see the route choice to the right, which was pretty much a lot better.... Gr!! I don't know why I just assumed it was more hill, it wasn't and it didn't go over cliffs in a ravine or up a crazy wall of contours either. Lost 2 min just in route choice?

Crazy woods part:
5- Was straight on, distracted by a girl who asked me if I was going to 41, which I was, but gr, don't ask!!!!
6- Um, again distracted by the others doing different things was not adding things up and didn't for awhile, thought something was for sure a cliff, and was just rocky ground/boulders on a hillside...
7- Out to the road on a little path, along it, back in, easy, here starts where things were sped up with Dana and Amelie.
8- Down to big road, along and in, again easy, yay for road/path routes...
9- Almost landed on camera crew lady coming from above...!
10- Sprint basically started to this one
Finish- And in!!! Won the finish split of my heat, decided I didn't want to miss the finals by a second or something!

Woo, now to rest for tomorrow!

C • So proud! 11

C • LONG QUALI 11

Wanted to get out on both model maps today, this was the first one, Lachat, major hike into it, but was nice to play on. I found the woods lots opener, still some brashings that required doing, went pretty smoothly. Using bearings to features I felt capable of actually ID'ing. So I felt like I wasn't moving fast, but not as slow as through the greener woods, and wasn't having major issues finding the controls, which was nice.

1- Didn't have a good plan from the start, but stayed on the trail until I did, was able to pick of a helpful dot knoll on the way.
2- Across hill on a bearing, knew when I crossed trail, then picked out the shape of a reentrant or two, and straight in. Probs in circle cause the control description wasn't on arm, was actually on back side of hill, not the cliff.
3- Brashingist leg, a bit high, almost went past, but realized I had to be on the hilltop the cliff was on the S side of
4- Came into reentrant lower than I thought, but just had to go up it and keep looking
5- Up to big trail, along for a smidge, continuing up, straight to it.
6- Hill tops, indistinct trail, over the spur, little crasy spur then control.

And headed over with Wyatt to Chalets de Crolles, most people went to this yesterday, but I was on what looks like the most middle-quali relevant area instead.

Just did the meadow section to see what those are like. Not anything too unexpected. Cow-grazed meadow, trees tend to hang out in steep reentrants, ditches might not be visible and can hide controls. Walked up the hills, need the legs for tomorrow!!

C • Race well! 10

Le Revard II at 1:10,000

Made myself up a little course out of the training controls that were out there, focusing on an area that looks relevant for the middle- flattish with lots of contour detail. 12 controls in all. Went pretty well, except for one which I think I basically went by the first time.

1- Through yellow open area, except I think I actually was always a bit higher, tried to run past, but caught myself
2- Yellow to path to a stripe of yellow and in
3- Out to path, somehow got too far west, was trying to avoid some slash, but realized.
4- Out to path on the rightin from the indistinct path, hard because there were new cuttings.
5- Left of the line through depressions
6- Whoops, tried to go to 7, but ended up on big trail way confused, then I realized I had just been at 5 not 6... ok in from there
7- Used green rocky hills and the depression to their left to guide me in, then had issues jus in the circle, control a bit tucked away.
8- Not good, was not adding things up well along the way, ended up at control regardless, but still not good.
9- Big trail to indistinct trail to rough open depression and in
10- The bad one. Had a nice chain of depressions to follow, but think I basically ran past the control the first time, cliff is much smaller than most others mapped and the control was tucked at the bottom of it... flustered around for quite awhile, think I basically kept coming back to the same place and the 3rd or 4th time actually found the control
11- Bonus slash, bah. Ran too far up the hill to start with, boo.
12- Led most of the way in by indistinct trail, then veered a bit too far left, should have been more careful.

Training #1 at Prepoulain

Heard so so much about this terrain, finally got out on it! Had a mini-course from Sam printed on 1:8,000 with 9 controls. Was in just walking-jogging-checking things out mode and mostly went well. Woods is for sure dense and hard to get through in places, super-detailed and not good but not absolutely terrible visibility. I wanted to just get a sense of what was what and think I got that:

Cliffs are big. Indistinct trails are indistinct, followable but not easily noticable while crossing. White is pretty variable, opener woods, but sometimes a thick patch or tree down and speed highly dependent on the rockyness underfoot. Light green still passable, but thicker woods, stuff more likely to stab you in the eye and just slower going. Hashing is recent felling and is super junky, worse speed-wise than light green. Generally found the yellow made sense, little clearings of knee-ish high grass, often linear along the way a trail just was, or in depressions. Rockier ground was rockier, but wouldn't use it for navigation unless coupled with something other feature like a hill top.

Start- Off the bat, tried to go up wrong little trail from the big one, noticed compass was not going the right way.
1- Looking to go behind spur with first cliff, mistook that for a dot knoll and had to go further, this one actually had a control, so had confirmation.
2- Good on bearing
3- Longer leg, followed some indistinct trail, then a bearing to a distinct reentrant with cliffs, then not super in from there, went in slightly lower reentrant, took a bit to figure out, but would have done so quickly if a control was there.
4- Spot on!
5- Longer again, not great out to trail, but then had nice features to lead me in.
6- Alright, but didn't want to go the way my compass pointed for some reason... did listen to it and it worked in the end....
7- Up up hill, low confidence, wanted the cliff earlier, but kept going, straight to it.
8- Boo, didn't see better route on trails to the right...
9- Short leg, executed poorly, went to high. Brashings do not equal a clearing.

Training #2 at Prepoulin
And... stepping it up to 1:15, eep! Much more crowded on the map, magnifier a must and still have to slow down to read. Had made a little course for myself of most of just the very nearest controls, still just wanting to get into the scheme of things here.

Again, went ok, found all but the first one, but I kinda gave up on that since Emily K had just gone there and said she didn't think it was flagged. I got to a boulder I thought was in the right place and moved on, others said the controled boulder was a bit lower, could easily be, suppose. This loop really taught me that the brashings could be quite nasty. As in, you have to be running on top of dense, sticking-all-over-the-place pine boughs and simultaneously going up and over or scurrying underneath the tree trunks with killer points sticking out all over... To be avoided if ever possible!!

Hiking up Le Col de Chardonnet with Frédéric. Beautiful, but cold and windy, was in 3 layers + buff by the top! Ran only the very flatest bits, and otherwise was trying to keep HR under 160.

From the top, amazing views of les Ecrins, a mountain range with the highest peak outside of the Mont Blanc range in France. Also could see down the other side into la Vallée de la Clarée- where the ski marathon I did last winter was. Neat!

C • un grillon 2

And back down, ran most except the top bit where it was really rocky!

Now to prepare Tartiflette for dinner... mmmmm

Today's vocab:
puddle - un flaque d'eau
cricket - un grillon
stream - un ruisseau

And registered for SML champs, early deadline in 1 week for interested folks! Website Should be fun times and the middle is a WRE that we really should be able to get enough gals at!

And out the door and up the mountain! Gorgeousness! Sun and blue skies and mountains and glaciers!

This was running, or well, mostly hiking with Frédéric. Tried to keep it relatively nice and calm, but was 700m of climb or something, so HR is not really low... (Garmin died partway up, hence only 416m above.)

At the top of the télésiège, met up with Séverine and little Emilie. From there on was a super-duper slow hike (Frédéric carried Emilie and Séverine is carrying her soon-to-be little sis) to the top of the first mountain. Great views all around, and sunny but crisp so by the top I was well layered up.

New French vocab:
calf - le mollet
steep - raide
eggshells - les coquilles
larch - le mélèze

C • French vocab 5