Training Log Archive: tdgood

Bike Orienteering at Accotink. This was my first real bike O.

The trails were much gnarly'ier than expected.
My performance can be summed up in handicaps.
1) I have a hybrid bike instead of a true mountain bike. There were places my bike just doesn't cut it. On many of the jumps/ramps, my bike would bottom out on the frame so I would have to stop. On the steeper slopes my tires just didn't have enough traction. I did a lot of fish tailing.
2) I didn't have a map board so held the map in my hand. The maps were not sealed in the map cases so my map ended up as a crumpled ball in the map case. I had to stop repeatedly, uncrumple my map, then figure out where I was and where I was going. I lost of lot of time doing this. I tried to use this as a memory O but wasn't always successful. Because the map and compass was in my left hand, this meant I had less control to use my left brake. This was a severe handicap for control.
3) I wear reading glasses so I can read the map. running this isn' t a problem. On a bike, you look down more so the glasses were in the way.

I think my bike speed was fine. On the flatter areas, there were too many people/hikers so where I wanted to go blazing by I didn't. At one point, I was stuck behind a bunch of joggers.

I never actually fell off my feet but I did constantly have to get off my bike. On steep hills I would run up the hill. I got pretty banged up. The bike hit my ankles several times, my crotch took a beating....

There were no control descriptions. I don't know if that is normal or not.
I mispunched the last control which was close to the first control (146 vs 140). When I got the last control, I thought I had actually mispunched the first control. The last control also wasn't at a trail junction and you can't tell what feature it is supposed to be on looking at the map. You were supposed to be back by 12:00 and I was past that time so I didn't worry about the mispunch.
I only made two mistakes on the course. I missed on trail junction that was hidden from one direction but was able to relocate and come back for it. The other mistake is that I got confused which control I was going to and went to 17 before 16. Fortunately I realized it and did them in the correct order.

There was also a problem with the rules. Don't bike on the fields but several controls were on the fields. I also saw several people bike on unmapped trails which saved them a lot of time instead of going back to a mapped trail and going around.

I biked 6.78 miles.

Score O at lake accotink. I was going to just jog and get a few controls as I was tired from the Bike O. Once I got out and saw how few controls there were I figured I could get them all even jogging. Unfortunately, I got to the far part of the map and thight started cramping so I had to walk the rest of the course.

MTBO Medium - Splits

Ran up around the school to make sure I didn't miss any stakes.

Dist Pace
1.01 8:09
0.99 8:04
1.73 8:16
0.99 7:48

Easy run. Rt 175 + 2 park loops. About a 1/4 mile in my knee area was acting up so I eased off the pace. It let up after awhile but I stayed slow.

dist pace
1.08 7:59
1.19 8:40
0.25 8:40
0.35 8:28
1.02 9:08
0.80 7:54

First run on my toe to see how it feels. It is still sore but other parts also hurt.

Dist Pace
1.05 9:22
1.05 8:27