Training Log Archive: Charlie

Last race of Swiss 6-day, at Sunnegga, a short funicular ride up from the apartment. Drizzly, cool. Got up to the start an hour early,and almost went back for my Garmin, sitting on the table back in the apartment. Start was in the cloud for a while. This was the steepest day, and steep enough that going downhill was really hard and slow. Finding the controls really well, one slight overrun at 5, seemed like only about a minute, but Winsplits said 3:30. Maybe it was because I was so slow down the hill, too. When we got out into the open at the easy looking 9, I couldn't tell whether it was a spur or a reentrant, guessed spur, and lost another 3 or 4 minutes clambering around. Once I was home I could see the little slope tag in the depression at the bottom that I had been so sure was a hilltop. Dropped another minute going to the wrong tree at 10, after crossing the steep rocky reentrant. Still not too bad, 72nd on the day, 89th overall.

Then a quick goodbye to Minariks and Wildfogels and off by train to Berne. The river Aare at near flood stage.

Trockener Steg, highest competition day of Swiss O Week, somewhere around 9600 ft. Before the race we took the Gondola up to Kleine Matterhorn, roughly 12,900 feet and watched the skiing, mostly over on the Italian side. Very cool. Then the race. Since I am unlikely to ever be orienteering on the moon, this will have to do. The yellow areas on the map don't imply grass! Instead the rough open is rocky, the darker yellow is mostly hard silt, faster to run on. Quite a few areas of snow to traverse, slower to get through. This was the most fun of the five days so far for me. Somehow it was the least physically taxing, although I wasn't running much, more of a gentle jog. The o was relatively easy, and many of the flags could be seen from quite a distance if you were looking the right direction. I found it hard to maintain a compass line, though, so did a bit of wobbling. The glacial ponds were the best navigation features. Ended up 70th on the day, better than average for me for the meet. Here is the map.

Video of today's race. Really interesting and different area.

Winsplits showed time lost on 1, where I was tentative and stopped short for a bit to examine the map, 15, where I ran by and dropped 1.5 min, and 16, where my line was bad and I got off to the right. But not too bad, and nothing really major.

C • Fairly Clean 3

Middle distance (theoretically) at Gruensee. Very steep, lots of rocky footing with low scrub to hide the rocks. Not a very good run for me today. Started with a good climb to #1, moving very slowly but getting up the hill and reading the contours ok. Easy to 2, could see the feature from a distance. Stayed high on the way to 3 to my regret. Terrible footing and only could walk and scramble over rocks. Even though I went right to it, I think I lost about 3 minutes compared to scampering down to the trail and attacking from there. 4 - 9 all went fine, good navigating, but not moving fast. Going to 10 I got it into my head to go left and climb immediately, instead of taking the road to the right and having an easy attack. This worked out really badly. Too much climb, not that great footing, pushed too far right, and then couldn't find it when I got there. wandering in the area, finding three other controls first. Way more rocks than mapped. A pretty distinctive feature when I found it, but probably lost about 8 minutes or so. Then another fail looking for 11, small rocky re-entrant up the hill. Found one that looked promising, but not the right one, and wandered up and down for a while, probably another 4 or so lost here. 12 was easy, even if it weren't visible from 100 M, Then I had a good route to 13, down the spur and around the big boulder to the so-called re-entrant, but didn't see the flag tucked in behind a small boulder, so wandered downhill a bit chasing an unmapped re-entrant. Finally back up and just spied it over the edge. Could barely walk in. No sprint left in me at the end.

The map.

C • it was tougher than... 1

From the Sunnegga funicular, across to Tufteren and thence on down to Zermatt, passing by over the top of our house, not far up, but too steep to go home that way. Instead continued on to the other end of town and took the lift up to Furi.

From Furi, loop trail including the suspension bridge, then winding our way down to Zermatt again, down Bahnhofstrasse, a short break for some shopping at the Coop, and then home, running into Judy, Liz and Ed near the bakery.

Very nice party at our house for Americans and other friends. 32 people in attendance. Besides the six of us, Jeff, Judy, Sam and Ross, Liz and Ed Kotowski, Gary and Olga, Cristina and Melissa, Sergey V., Rich Parker, Sharon, Sue Kuestner, Tori, Nancy Lindeman, Tony and Wendy Carlyle, Tapio and wife Mari, Jonas Kvall, Beatrice and Urs, Dave and Adam Cady, and our wonderful rental agent Ashley, who seemed to fit right in.

C • Grazie mille per la party! 4

Not as good a run today. Got my most strenuous workout when I found myself at the bottom of the stairs without my garmin, and hotfooted it back up 170 stairs to get it, then had to run all the way to the station to just barely make the 6:36 train up the mountain. Packed in like Tokyo commuters. Steamy in the train. Cloudy, spitting up at Riffelberg. Dennis and Louise opted to go hiking at Furi, and Rhonda stayed home to run and to read, so just me, Leslie and George.

The map. Tentative to 1, but found it fine, then I was too low at 2 and stopped to try to figure out if I really had to climb that rocky hillside, mapped as open yellow. I did. The guy who started a minute behind almost caught me there, so down a good minute by then. Punching in the snow. Then a pretty good uphill leg to 3, executed well, and easy navigation, but difficult uphill running to the tunnel under the train at 4. Long leg to 5, contouring. Tony Carlyle passed me and said hi. A lot of other people passed as well, but said nothing. I was stiff, no energy, trying to run, but pretty sure I was just walking. Crossed near the aid station, and drifted right. Must have been lightheaded when I got near the area with the control because I was having all kinds of wrong ideas about what I was looking at, and pretty soon had no idea of where I was, leading to about a 10 minute walkabout. Finally thought I was making progress, and decided to go up and look at a control on a boulder. Happily it turned out to be mine, although the clue and the map seemed to think it was a cliff. I didn't get lost again, but lost time on 6, 7 and 9, running by them and looking back after. Mostly in contact, but apparently not quite. Seemed like a long slog, even when I was going right to 10-17. 104th on the day out of 127 who finished the course.

Leslie was the most successful of our group, finishing right before me, and George not long behind. We tried to get on the train back to Zermatt, but the doors closed right as we got to it, so we waited a bit and took the next one up to Gornergrat at the glacier. Pretty interesting scenery, but much too tired to get off and look around any more, and a nice ride back to town. In dire need of a nap, which I took a few hours later.

C • When we were there, course ... 3

Walk to the start finish area from the lift and assembly area at Schwartzee, quite a bit of downhill. Cold, in the cloud, spitting off and on.

Swiss O Week day 2 at Stafelalp. Much better run today, although not all that much running involved. Completely open, but very intricate terrain. First three controls were all cup depressions, and it seemed that there were cup depressions everywhere, with flags in about a third of them. Soldier along on compass, try to make sense of it. Found 1, 2 and 3 without incident, but wandered a bit checking some other flags to 2 and 3, but not losing much time. Then the long leg to 4 was intimidating. Lots of up and down, lots of unmapped rock features, but eventually got the shape of the big rounded plateau above it figured out, so only had to check a couple other flags on the way. It certainly would have been faster and more efficient to find the stream and climb it, but I just didn't think of it. Then I settled down, and made it the rest of the way without incident, a little anxious on the way to 8 but hitting it fine, and nailing the rest of them. No particular running until the last two legs, 13-14 and 14-F, reasonably good footing and no attention needed to be paid. It's a tough crowd. I had what I thought was a pretty good time, but still 51st on the day, with perhaps some more fast guys coming in behind me. 2 seconds behind coach. Certainly the closest I've come in several years.

Not sure why, but the Wahoo app is not sending my track to AP. I had to upload to Garmin Connect, then export a .gpx file. Interesting. It is sending all my other tracks.

Here is the Map, and interesting to find out I went almost to 8 on my way looking for 4, and almost to 4 on my way to 8.

winsplits

And here is a link to video of today's race.

Steep hill back up to download after the race at the Schwartzee lift. Or at least most of it, because I didn't start the watch until we were a quarter of the way up. Steep.

Event: O-Ringen 2014
 

Sprint in Zermatt. Raining off and on, contact in out and in again, good choice because it was raining pretty consistently by the time I started. Three problems on the way to #1. Overran the walkway I wanted, because it looked like it didn't go through, then stopped myself about 50 m later and headed back. Then cut a corner through a field to a crossable fence, except the fence was waist high with pickets. Climbed over with a bit of difficulty, while a younger person next to me jumped right over. Then I got to the right entryway, but didn't see the flag. Huh? Where could it be? Checked the next one, milled around, then back to the first one. Here came a lady down into it and then she disappeared! Oh. Around the corner into a dark little alcove. 2 is fine, 3 is fine except for the two people standing in front of the flag. 4 is up hill, acoss the grass and into a patch of woods. Wicked slippery! Slid about 25 feet down into somebody's yard, not possible to climb up, so back out and around and try again. Trying to hang on on all fours, sliding some more, map covered with mud and grass, finally into the woods and up to the boulder. Then slippery getting out, but mostly ok to 5, slow through fields and paths to the cliff at 6, then more slow following cobblestones downhill. 7 and 8 fine, then got confused going around to 9, running past it around the walled cemetery and punching a wrong control. Checked the code, huh? I had gone too far, but confused, went a little farther before figuring it out and backtracking, at least 2 min lost there. Then ok the rest of the way.

Mistakes really took a toll. 93rd out of 141. Dennis had a very fine 18th, coach around 60th.

Map and route.

Winsplits

Jogging from the house to the start and then part of the way around this morning's course, with Rhonda. Avoided the slippery hillside controls. Nice and easy. A little Achilles twinge toward the end, more ice, more vitamin I.

Event: Swiss O week 2014
 

Map hike on one of the training maps, Stellisee, with the group, Dennis and Louise, George, Leslie and Rhonda. Up the funicular and the lift to Blauherd at 8435'. To more or less leisurely perambulation around the NW third of the controls. Steep, rocky, intimidating, but not so bad for navigation at a slow pace. Lovely day with beautiful views. On a sidehill, downhill section I exposed a deficiency I wasn't previously aware of. My left knee suddenly very painful and insecure, so I had to do my downhill aiming to the right, with some hopping to keep the knee intact. Quite tender now.

Then lunch and a trip down into town to watch the sprint qualifying round. R & I ran into Jeff and Judy and we watched from near the finish, seeing some of the best Swiss runners, as well as Sam, Ross & Cristina. Seemed to be a very difficult course, spreading the runners out by a lot. Sam in particular had a very bad first leg, but then got it together to run very well the rest of the way. The start was on the hillside west of town, steep, with some low cliffs that were hard to find. Once in town, there were some traps that caught a few runners. Not just a track meet.