Training Log Archive: Lizzie

Didn't bother waiting around for prize giving yesterday, which is just as well it turns out. In line with the level of attention given to the open courses this week, it turned out to be too hard for the organisers to combine the results from the 5 days, so they scrapped having any final results or prize giving!

Just an amusing end-note. I'm not bothered in the least, I'm not sure there was ever an overall result or prize planned for Open 2, and I don't think I ran good enough in the sprints to win W21, even if I'd successfully entered myself in it!
I heard some grumbles from others, but I actually really enjoyed the no-fuss organization of the open classes. We weren't the main focus of the week after all. and the courses were well done in the main, even if they were on the 3rd choice terrain (behind A finals, then B-E finals). The sprint starts were a bit of a mess, especially the first day, but aside from that, I don't see how they could have made it much better. Was nice to have free start any time between 10-1 at the forest events, so I could spectate and support and fit my run in when suited.

The result I really want to know about though is the Blair vs Lukas ice-cream eating challenge!

C • One time I out ate Blair in... 2

WMOC day 5.
Pretty scrappy as forest today, but strangely enjoyable. Hit #1 for the first time in 3 days which was nice. Legs were a bit smashed from early on, and the heat didn't help things, but pushed on through.
First multi-day event where I've managed to run all of the days fully and properly in a long long time. Feels pretty darn good :)

https://www.tractrac.com/viewer/index.php?target=h...

longer than expected warmdown running back to the car and back.

More than happy to skip the long model and go touristing today. Went to Kronborg castle, where there were actors walking around acting out scenes of Hamlet. Between the scenes you could find them in parts of the castle, where they'd talk to you, completely in character. Was good fun.

WMOC day 4
Made a right mess of the first control today. A 100m bearing off a vegetation boundary and I ended up 100m off wandering in the vague whiteness. Once I eventually found it, I got sucked in by the presence of contours on the map - opting to take a route S of the hill to #2. Got to the hill to a very gentle slope and max 10m of height. Hmmm.
From there it was predominantly to run straight with little swerves to avoid the worst of the green. A mix of beautiful open beech forest through to tight knit green and pretty much everything in between.
Put a good finish sprint in today (thankfully zero contours in the finish chute after yesterday). I breezed past another girl, but then came up toward a mum shadowing a little girl a few metres from the line. I slowed right down and let her punch in front of me, at which point the chick I'd just passed steamed in and fought her i-dent into the finish control between the little girl and me. The girl's mum was not impressed, but all I could do was laugh!

Tracking: https://www.tractrac.com/viewer/index.php?target=h...

WMOC public races, middle distance.
The flattest map I have ever been on I think. Our whole course bar the finish chute was down below the historical shoreline. So flat as a pancake! There was a single 2 contour ridge running across the map, and a single open sand dune before the coast. Everything else was a point feature or a form-line...aside from the finish chute that is, which had 90% of the course climb - 300m long and winding through the forest up the bank of the old coastline. Bit of a killer!
Still, a fun course. I lost up to 45s on the first control, not understanding the blobs of green and blobs of open that were on the map vs not on the map. After that it was all good. All about compass bearings and learning which kind of fallen tree were mapped vs not mapped ;) Another time loss hitting a cup depression amongst patches of green, and on the penultimate control - again distinguishing mapped from not mapped.
Enjoyed the course, but glad we didn't have more than 4.5km in the stuff.
https://www.tractrac.com/viewer/index.php?target=h...

Just realised my course yesterday was the same as W35A. Turns out I was 1s behind world champion Sam Saeger :)
Ah yeah, but my finish chute was a good 5s shorter, so that's deceptive actually.

Drew myself up a loopy butterfly course on the WMOC model map to squeeze as long a session as possible out of it. Only added one extra control of my own. which backfired spectacularly, as by the time I got to it, I'd forgotten that I'd drawn it on myself, and spent about 1min wondering where the control and the accompanying horde of veterans were! ahahaha. idiot.

Jog around the mountain bike tracks close to our air bnb. Would be good fun to take a bike out on, but with the steepness of the downhills combined with my lack of mtb training, potentially not good for my health pre-WOC ;)

Much better timing today. Skipped supporting Dad in the B final (sorry, not sorry), instead arriving at the event in time to support Mum and watch her win W60 sprint gold :D
Then off to the start to try and fit in my run before prize giving! This delayed start had the added bonus that the long start queue had reduced to a moderate start queue by the time I arrived. Had all of 7min of warm up, but I didn't dare warm up more in case the queue grew longer while I was away. It didn't...instead I stood waiting for 10-15mins, and was 2nd last start of the whole day. Could have switched to Open 1 I guess, as that had no queue.

Sprint course around Copenhagen. Started off in a wharf like restaurant area, pretty pokey and I didn't manage to even orient my map in the 20m to the start triangle. Cue almost standing still trying to figure out which direction to run... Eventually got started and through the first tight controls. I forgot my description holder (duh), so had fun memorising 2-3 at a time. Kind of vital when there's controls absolutely everywhere. There is no way controls were 15m apart in some cases.
Anyway, good fun. More hard running in the middle of the course, although even then I chose a dodgy route choice on the long leg. Then in to very busy little alleys and gardens. I lost some time unable to see on the ground the mapped gap in a very beautiful flower bed, so doubled back around the garden. Then distracted by this, lost another 10s starting off toward the wrong side of a wall on the next leg, before realising and figuring out a correct route choice.
But the biggest loss was the stupidest - hard open running to the penultimate control, and I misread the underpass into the royal courtyard as being on my side of an uncrossable wall, rather than the opposite side. I realised when I was about 5-10m from said wall. Swore. Waved and said hi to the amused marshall who was sitting on top of the wall watching. And then ran all the way back around. Lost 30-35s. In hindsight, it should have been obvious, not least because it would be terrible security to have an underpass from the courtyard to the underside of the wall, rather than from the courtyard onto the fortified bridge. hmm.

Much more fun course than yesterday, although Dad's course looks like it went in the best part of the map. Interesting splitting of the courses between the different islands and areas. Got beaten by the same two girls as yesterday. Still no idea who they are.

Finished as the M/W75 prize giving was going on. So a good 5min ahead of Mum's podium :)
Took a warmdown with Jula afterward dodging bikes and tourists, and the occasional bike with tourist on it.

Mum had about first start today, so at the arena by 9am. Open courses couldn't start til 3.30pm, by which time I was a bit over it to be honest. Motivated myself to warmup, then got to the start to find a mosh pit of people waiting. Spent 25mins or so waiting in line.

Bit of a tame course around DTU. Seemed they'd played join the dots to make our courses, which made a 27 control pick with limited to no route choice between the controls. That said, I didn't really do very well deciding with what route choice there were, which were usually 50-50 calls around buildings. the last 7 or so controls were pretty funny, kind of just playing ping pong from one side of a track to the other as we made our way to the arena. I reckon if we'd used SI air I could have just run along the track and got the controls without trying. almost ;)
Good enough fun. Beaten by 2 girls by about 5s each. Dunno who they are, one from BOK and one from Lynx.

Event: World Masters Orienteering Championships 2018
 

Reached a compromise with myself. Seen as I'm not confident going out to a map alone, but I'm OK running in høiåsmarka, I figured doing some light O around høiås would be a good first step. Then I remembered I still have some rocks to collect from the winter trainings! :D
So a 70% track run, ducking off track to find rocks. Wore shorts and didn't take a compass. Because we all know høiås is super clean underfoot and impossible to make nav errors on... I survived though ;)
8 more rocks to go!