Trail Run warm up/down (Warm-Up) 20:00 [2]
slept:10.0 shoes: Integrators 2005
Warm-up run to the start with Erin, and then some more warming up at the start. Legs feeling really good.
Orienteering race (Middle Distance) 29:33 [4] *** 4.5 km (6:34 / km) +65m 6:07 / km
spiked:11/17c shoes: Integrators 2005
A very tough race. Technical, rocky and thick in some places made for very slow times and lots of mistakes throughout the field. I managed to have a pretty solid run and somehow came out on top. Pretty amazing feeling to win a North American Championship already.
A more detailed race analysis is now below.
Splits and route commentary are up.
Routegadget animation is up with my routes.
Trail Run warm up/down (Cool-Down) 10:18 [1]
shoes: Adidas a3 Prowl
Cool-down after the race. Full of adrenaline from the win.
Note
Middle
4.5km - 29:33 (6:34/km) - 1st place (53 secs ahead)
I have to admit, while it is hard to analyze a race where you realized all your goals, I know that this was by no means a perfect race and there is plenty that I can learn from it. I knew that the terrain was going to be quite technical, and quite tough running both due to uneven, rocky ground, and thick woods. I had been out on the training map the day before and it was much thicker than I had remembered it from the training camp in January (it shouldn't have been surprising, but somehow it was). I knew that I was going to have to rely pretty heavily on my compass because the terrain was too detailed to read everything and it was too thick to see much anyway. I had talked with some finishers before going to the start and had heard that that it was basically exactly how I had expected it was going to be, and that the main thing was to just be confident and push ahead rather than try to stop constantly and do extremely detailed micro-navigation.
I got myself pumped up as much as possible before the race so that I would be ready to blast through the terrain. I had also heard that the first control was visible from a good distance, so my goal was to start out fast on a compass bearing to get the agressive feel right from the beginning. This seemed to work perfectly, although I did hit a control along my way which I thought was going to be mine since I hadn't been reading the map that closely. When I discovered it wasn't mine I was forced to take a closer look at my map, but I was able to quickly realize where I was and that my control was just ahead (I saw it almost immediately after that).
After the first control I forced myself to be a little more detailed in my navigation because I could see that the upcoming controls looked especially technical, and there were a lot of short legs. Short legs don't give you any margin for error in your navigation. I had caught Greg Balter at the first control (he started 2 minutes in front of me) and was still running with him on the way to the third control when I spotted a control off to my right. I knew that I hadn't gone far enough yet, and that it was way off the direction I was running in, but I immediately got the feeling that it was my chance to get away from Greg, and so I started running to it almost on instinct. I started to get a bad feeling right away, but I went in anyway to read the code before I was able to acknowledge the mistake I was making. Fortunately it was not that far off the line that Balter was still in sight and I was able to chase after him and hit the third control right behind him despite my mistake. This is a really interesting kind of mistake, and one that I seem especially prone to. I made the same mistake two weeks ago at the CNYO A-Meet. It always happens when I am running with other people and feel the need to try to break away from them.
I got a little careless in my navigation on 5 and 6, again getting carried away with the idea of running away from Greg, and I kept realizing as I was approaching the approximate distance of the control that I had no attackpoint and that I wasn't 100% sure of the terrain and what I was looking for. Each time I was able to correct by forcibly stopping myself and studying the map carefully to figure out where I was and what I was looking for. On 5 I lost 23 seconds to the fastest split time and on 6, 13 seconds. I am really happy about my discipline when I realized that I wasn't spiking the control because that is something that I have been working on lately and that is probably the main reason that I was able to sneak away with the win, but I have to really work on avoiding getting myself into such situations in the first place. I can't expect to lose 15-30 seconds on these short legs and still get good results in bigger competitions and so I have to be more disciplined about reading the map more closely in the detailed areas and stopping as soon as something doesn't look right, or I am not sure.
I made the same kind of mistake on control 10. Nothing looked right in the area leading up to the control, but I was confident that I was going in the right direction and decided that the easiest place to relocate was near the control because that was the first area with distinct features. This was probably a pretty good idea beacuse it saved me the time of trying to figure out a particulary bland area leading up to the control, but I lost too much time relocating at the control circle for it to be really a successful strategy. I hit the big boulder at the top of the swamp and thought it was the one in the control circle. It tooke me a while to figure out that I was to the right of the cliff in the circle, but again I was disciplined about it and fell back to the techniques that I had practiced for such situations. This kept me from wandering off and losing lots of time, and so I was able to minimize my total time lost. I am really not sure what I could have done strategically to avoid this mistake as it was really due to not seeing all the relevant features on the map, and not noticing how easy it was to hit the wrong feature and think you were right. I guess I could have just been more careful in reading the area around the circle, but then again you have to take risks like this and simplify enough that you can move fast. I think that one reason I may have not noticed the big boulder at the top of the swamp on the map at first is because of the north line running between it and the control circle. Even when looking at it now that line forces my eye to concentrate on the features left of the line around the control circle. I guess I'll have to try to be conscious of that and try to be more careful. in reading features around north lines.
Again I got a little sloppy in the green area towards the end, continuously finding myself not sure of the terrain and having to relocate near the control circle. This may have enabled me to maintain a higher speed, but I can't imagine that it was the most efficient way to get through the course. I also made a really stupid mistake just before control 16, cutting off the trail too early because I thought it was bending left and up the hill. I imagine this was due to me picking up the pace on the trails at the end and going into oxygen debt too early before the end. PG had warned me against this before the race, but somehow I just got carried away on the trails because the last two controls looked so easy. This is another thing that I am prone to, and PG is completely right when he says that the few seconds to be gained from picking up the pace towards the end are extremely minor when compared to the possible time lost from a stupid mistake. I will have to be more disciplined about waiting until I see the final control before picking up the gear. You can't navigate when your brain turns off, and since I am always running just below that threshold in an O-race, picking up the gear will always push me into the red zone where navigation and execution become impossible.
The two main things I need to focus on are:
1.) Avoid having to relocate. Be more disciplined about not going anywhere until you have read that piece of the map in detail and know which features to expect. If simplifying, always have one or two features every few meters to check off. Stop as soon as things are not looking right and go into relocation mode.
2.) Don't pick up the pace until you see the last control and no more navigation is required.