Training Log Archive: tdgood

Course was supposed to be very 3 dimensional.
I started off well. Control 1 was a tunnel. I found the control ok but the tunnel was too dark to read the map. I had to stop under a light and hold the map up to it in order to see where #2 was. Then I was blinded when I ran back into the sunlight. I was doing ok up through #8. (I was in 3rd place, then things fell apart. I went to the right around the building going to 9 (on the side of 10). Since I was no approaching from the 10 direction I started running back towards 8 thinking I was going to 10. I didn't get to far before I realized my mistake but I had the slowest leg to 10. Then leaving 10, I got confused by the purple lines around the buildings. I was thinking they were out of bounds areas so went out of my way to avoid them. I took a horrible route to 11 and then screwed it up also. At that point my race wasn't worth much. I tried to keep moving but was tired.

I was the first leg of the relay team : Me, Boris Granovskiy, Joe Barret. All the courses were supposed to be roughly the same but with forking.
I was in the front line at the start so was near the lead when we reached the start control. I cut off at the turn to the steps. It was going to be a rough course. My first control was the farthest up the hill. So while I was near the front by the time I joined the rest of the pack I was way back.
There were no separate control descriptions and the ones printed on the map were printed to small to read. I had to continually slow down/stop in order to unfold the map and see what I was supposed to run to.
Overall I ran fairly clean but was so tired. At one point I had to walk along the road as i couldn't breath. Gregory Balter caught up to as I was standing next to the control right after that being confused. I though the control was a parking lot but it was the field. Once he punched I realized my mistake. I largely followed him the last few controls. It turns out we had the exact same course.
Near the end there was a dog leg and Carol Walker came up behind me and was totally blocking my exit. Instead of allowing me to pass she was block me and trying to reach around me to punch. I basically had to push her aside to get out.
I could have been faster but overall, given my conditioning, was happy with my run.
Team was the 4th team in and 3rd in the 4pt category.

Sprint 2 - Splits

Back to the same crappy woods.

I lost all the time at #2. Instead of taking the trail around I decided to cut through the green. It was passable the day before. This section was impassable. I ended up have to lie on my back and shimmy under it. I was not happy with the inconsistency in the green.
Later on for the long leg I was going to take the road but saw the out of bounds area between the roads. Rather than deal with it I took the trails. One of the key trail junctions was missing (someone said it was behind a root stock) so I had to go cross country through the crappy green. I was really surprised to see the controls from previous day still out and used my previous day control as an attack point. I used it again later.
Overall, just happy to be done with this park and courses. looking forward to the sprint races.

Green Long - Splits

Event: BAOC: U.S. Nationals
 

Not much nice to say about this race.

Long Bus ride and the driver got lost going there. I finally had to go to the front of the bus and give him directions. Yes the guy from Maryland who has never been in the park is giving directions to the california bus driver.
Long walk to the start. Start was totally disorganized. Once started you had to run to the start triangle. I got there but still couldn't find the start triangle on the map. I was running back to the map area so say I was given a bad map when I finally found it. It was hidden under the number #8 on the map. Very bad quality control. It took me 90 seconds to find the start triangle then more time to get back to the actual start.
I took the road to 1 which after the fact was a wise choice but you couldn't tell that from the map. I screwed it up by cutting off the road to soon. But I corrected ok but still missed the control. I found three other controls before decided to bail north to the road and look for #3 on the way. I found 3 and went back to #1 and was still off. Either my compass wasn't pointing correctly or map has problems. After looking in the thickets I finally found the control in a open forested area.
Mapped green was very hit/miss. Some you could go right through, other was very slow but none of the fight was impenetrable.
After #1 I orienteered ok but was slow.
Courses had some problems. Too congested in the 1/2/3/4 area with stuff printed on top of each other. Other courses had the same leg as us but in reverse. Our first control was used by other courses as well.
General impression. Not worth orienteering here ever again. Unfortunately tomorrow was in the same park (and it turns out the same location).

Green X Middle - Splits

fly to California for champs.

Shevlin Park Sprint - Splits