Training Log Archive: PG

Warm-up before the Wine-O, to see if I was going to do it or not. Hamstring quite sore, but seemed tolerable, and seemed to loosen up just a little.

The Wine-O' -- ocross is what they call it, mass start, a couple of forked loops for the old folks, the same plus one more common loop for the others. It turned out the first couple of loops were the same for all. They started the men first, then the women about 5 minutes later, then the old folks about 3 minutes later, so all I saw of the young ones were the stragglers.

I set off at a moderate jog and the hamstring seemed to deal with it, quite sore (maybe a 9 on the Wyatt scale?) but not getting worse, so I saw no reason not to keep going. Except just before I finished the first loop I got a branch in my right eye and it snatched the contact I wear for distance vision. So now I had 2 good eyes for reading the map, but everything more than a foot away was a blur.

Any sensible person would have quit, since I was right back at the start/finish, but I thought it would be interesting (and good training?) to run the second loop blind. I've had to do it several times over the years, and always managed, just a little slowly.

And that was true for this time, a little off course to the first one, but that was just sloppy compass work, and then pretty clean the rest of the way, except for the finish -- I thought it was going to be by the parking and download station but it was up the trail a ways. Ran right by it, didn't see it. I'd guess Gail got me pretty good "in the chute".

George came in not long after me and at some point started to give me a thorough chewing-out about getting the God of Injury pissed off by some comments I posted after the CNYO meet, and how I'd better mend my ways or I was in for some serious trouble. I really have no idea what he was talking about, but I do know that I still feel great! Fat maybe -- ice cream for the third day in a row, I have to do something to get Swampfox under the G and soon, he is binging and purging all the time, I hear -- but great! (Is that better, George?)

Wine-O' (loop 1)
Wine-O' (loop 2)

Very nice terrain!

Warm-up.

NAOC "long" -- ran my age group (M55-64), pretty good run, first by about 9 minutes. A little slow in a couple of complicated areas, but that was ok. Not sure if I got the best route on the long leg, crossing one marsh and then a big semi-open area were both worse than the map would indicate, but then another marsh was better than mapped, so maybe things balance out. Anyway, pretty happy with the run, certainly better than yesterday.

Only downside was a fall about 2 minutes before the finish, got my left hamstring, bad enough that it hurt pretty good, not bad enough that I couldn't keep running. Will have to see how it is in the morning and if I want to do the Wine-O before heading home.

Maps from the weekend:
Sprint (M21)
Middle (M21)
Long (M55)
Notes on today's long course (though 6.1 km isn't exactly long):
On the way to 1, saw that the trail went reasonably close to the control, and then immediately thought, wait, there's supposed to be route choice, and spotted the left route, which I'm pretty sure was faster.
To 3, resisted the temptation to cut the corner.
To 5, woods south of 4 were trashy enough to make getting to the main trail a priority.
To 6, very hard to read the map, eventually came up from the pond just heading for the center of the circle, eyes open for a control.
To 8, wanted to get to the main E/W trail. Decided to risk the straight route, figuring the first marsh was quite narrow and rest would be not so bad, light green having been mostly ok. So the first dark green marsh was at most light green and I was feeling like I'd struck gold on the route, but then the second marsh had a narrow band of alders (or something similar) on the near side, took me the better part of a minute to go about 10 meters. Got across the open water ok, just a little over knee deep, but then the semi-open area was a lot more bushes and thickets than open, and I had to zig-zag quite a bit on the first half of it to find places I could run. So by the time I got to the little trail on the west side of the "clearing" I felt like I given back whatever advantage I might have gained. And certainly wondered if the mapper had been where I had. (The other place i wondered about the mapping was when I left the main E/W trail -- there was a little piece of semi-open marsh with widely spaced vertical green lines. Started to go across there, but it looked totally impassible, so I went further south before leaving the trail.)
The rest was just keeping track of the trails.

Despite my reservations about the map on the way to 8, the course was a lot of fun, a nice mix of fast and slow, easy and hard, with some good choices to be considered.

C • thanks for posting map and com... 7

Training at Rocky Ridge in the morning.

NAOC middle, M21-34. Miserable run. Actually, that's being a little harsh, so let's say it was a blown opportunity, but still really bummed.

Missed about 5 minutes spread over 3 different places. Plus a couple little bits elsewhere. Didn't get into the map right away, missed #2 both the route execution and around the control (need to go visit the site tomorrow afternoon, still don't understand what went wrong) and #3, a little off course and very slow to correct. Had a moment of thinking, well, I've already blown today -- when you run slowly, you can't afford any mistakes -- but then at least had enough discipline to bear down and just keep trying.

4 through 8 were ok, then spiked 9, only there was no number on the e-punch box, it was covered over with duct tape. I was pretty sure I was right, but no number, so I assumed that it was a control already out for the next day, just with the number covered. Spent a minute looping around, back to the same point, only then did I notice the number on a placard on the side of the stake. Shit.

And then I really screwed the next one, not a good route at first, then at some point I shifted my focus on the map to #4 and was heading towards it. Realized that a couple hundred meters before 4, changed course to what was now a much more difficult approach to 10 and blew it. Or more accurately, lost contact, stopped, couldn't figure it out, went a little farther, same problem, saw a high point with rock off in the distance, ran to it, at this point I could have been anywhere on the map. SW-facing rock face, checked about three of them on the map and none fit, then saw one more on the map partly covered by the circle. Hmm, if that's it, my control should be just around the corner. And there it was. But probably stood there for more than a minute....

Rest was ok. Time wasn't a disaster, a bunch of people did worse, some a lot worse, but 35 was certainly doable. Best was Johnny F. in 29+, good for him!

Event: 2006 North American Championships (Golden Leaf Orienteering Fest)
 

Warm up for the sprint.

NAOC sprint at MacMaster University campus, M35-44, same course as M21-34 and M17-20. Ok run, best was 15:23, a couple of little 5 second misses, plus I really need to practice my e-punching, bet I could have been 20 seconds or more faster.