Training Log Archive: immy

Long wait for the buses, and then they were stuck in a traffic jam...I missed my start. It was very stressful.

Luckily I was not the only one this happened to so they did give me a new start time.

O-ringen day 1. I had very modest goals for this race: 1) have a clean race, 2) achieve #1 by stopping at every control to be sure of my exit direction, 3) not take more than 50 minutes. I achieved 2 and 3 , but I did make about 5 or 6 minutes of mistakes on some of the earlier controls. Mostly it was due to getting distracted by clearings which didn't fit with what I expected to see and consequently doubting myself. But for a first race in Sweden I can live with that. Didn't run very hard as navigation was more important today. A bit of a shock how slow some of the terrain is to run through (marshes were very wet and slow, and also a few mossy areas were quite tough).

I came last - a bit depressing, but that's what I signed up for so I can't really complain. Not so happy with my time after all when I realized that Tove took just under 28 minutes on the course - I was expecting a winning time around mid 30s.

I enjoyed the race though which is the main thing :)

Event: O-Ringen 2012
 

Everyone else had a race today at O-ringen, but not me, because I am running D21E.... Was a bit bored hanging around by myself, but did finally go for a jog in the evening on a map of Galgberget where O-ringen town is. It was pretty cruisy. Found a few controls and practiced my compass skills by trying to go direct to a number of them, even through the green. Unfortunately did not see a patch of stinging nettle and ran straight through, yeoww!

Pretty keen to do the races now!

In Gothenburg today with Gene. Watched the relay over the Internet, very exciting :) then caught the train to Halmstad.

Jog to the start.

Final race of the Swiss 5 days, at Chalet-a-Gobet. Flatter than than the other days with the main issue being finding the optimum route and deciding whether to go straight and power through the green, or take track routes. As Lundanes proved yesterday, if you are a very strong runner and good with your compass, straight is often the way to go! I really enjoyed this race and liked being able to run hard. For once, I felt physically very good, which was awesome! And I remembered to take a gel which also helped. A lot of the race went quite well navigationally, however, I made a massive mistake at control 4. Something is really wrong with me that I cannot correct my mistakes quickly enough! Anyway, this one started with a bad exit direction, as many of my mistakes do, and ended up with me on a track perpendicular to the one I wanted... Realized and thought I had corrected the problem, but the was in the wrong block and didn't work this out for far too long :( so frustrating to spoil a good race with such stupidity! Argh :( must stop making these massive mistakes, it is too depressing.

Also could have been a bit more aggressive with route choices and tried to go straight more often.

C • Is that exit direction issu... 2

Swiss 5 days rest day. But in the evening I felt a bit restless, so went for another exploratory run around the lake. Tried to keep up a good speed to get my legs back in the habit of running fast! Enjoyed this run.

Jogging to the start.

Day 4 of the Swiss 5 days. Epic, epic race. The longest I have ever taken on an orienteering course I think? The race was in an alpine area at around 1800m, and comprised a mix of forest and open areas on some very steep slopes. I made a number of mistakes during the race, but not as large as I have been making lately, so again things are looking up. Physically, this was by far the toughest course I have ever done - extreme amounts of climb - and I can't believe it was only 380m! Felt like at least double that. But I have no garmin to confirm.

In terms of the navigation, I messed up the first control, losing probably 3min :( but then went quite well up until control 10 or 11. Not sure if my route choices were the best, but I was reasonably happy with all of them. After control 11 or so though I really started to feel tired and was having trouble focusing on the navigation... This was also the hardest area of the map. Evil course setters. So I started to lose a minute or 2 on several controls :( then was a fool at 17 and didn't pay enough attention, so was searching through the green for my control and lost 6 minutes :( also not great for 19. The penultimate control was another massive climb and then the finish chute was more uphill torture. So glad when this was over!

I think I should have been able to do under 2hours without my mistakes, and with remembering to bring some gels! What a day to forget these. Also would have benefited a lot from a later start time as there was no tracking for a lot of the controls and so I did a lot of bashing though undergrowth. But I can't see the winning time of under 1h 40 with my current level of fitness. These girls are machines, I don't know how they do it! I need to do more mountain running.

Warm up jog to the start.

Middle distance, day 3 of the Swiss 5 days. Really wanted to see some improvement in my orienteering so tried to focus and have great map contact and good plans for all controls. A bit slow but accurate for the first 7 :) then number 8 happened... What a massive mistake. Basically didn't go far enough down the hill and was searching around in the green a number of contours too high. Argh. But really everything went wrong with this leg from the start as my exit direction was bad, requiring me to change my plan for the control.

Next few controls after this were also bad as I was frustrated. Also am still struggling with being able to push myself physically.

But yeah, the map was really cool, quite slow and rocky but good fun despite my errors. And there were times of good navigation during this race so it does kind of feel like progress...

Oh nearly forgot to mention the worst part - somehow my garmin fell off my wrist during the race, and I didn't realize until I went to stop it at the finish. :( :( no one picked it up and despite going back and trying to retrace my steps there was no sign of it. Pretty sucky :(

Jog to the start.

Day 2 of the Swiss 5 days. This was meant to be a longish middle - I turned it into a longish long. Extremely bad mistake at control 1 for a number of reasons: 1) not being used to the terrain and therefore choosing a route that was difficult to execute, 2) thinking I had memorized my control descriptions correctly but getting the order wrong, 3) not using my compass whenI really needed to, 4) letting all this make me very stressed and basically giving up mentally. It's a long story. A number of other controls near the start were also bad. But then pulled myself together and changed the negative mindset, and things improved :) the rest of the course was a lot better. Still managed a couple more mistakes though... But the aim is to learn and at least I felt like I was learning as time went on.

Warm up jog from the campground to the start - was a bit longer than expected.

Sprint around the same area used for the qualification yesterday. Gosh it was a boring sprint... just running really. Still, I started to get tired towards the end and then was sloppy with my navigation, so lost some seconds on a number of controls. Just wasn't very enthused by the race in general.

Also made a stupid mistake at 8 which was a multilevel area - I looked at it well in advance and thought I had worked it out, but was wrong and ended up on the wrong level. Stupid :(

Garmin distance was about 4.4km - no wonder this felt so long!

Event: WOC 2012 - Lausanne SWITZERLAND
 

Run around the lake in Lausanne with Keith, and also Georgia for some of it. Then went to watch the sprint, which was fantastic. So many supporters and such a great atmosphere :) It's crazy how all the Swiss runners are like celebrities here.