Training Log Archive: TomN

Wow, what fine orienteering! For the most part, the woods were open, the visibility great, the undergrowth minimal or nonexistent. The contour detail was intricate and essential for navigation. There was one bit that had been clear-cut some years ago, slow going and not clearly mapped, but the rest of the map held up remarkably well.

Right off the bat, I messed up the first control. Had a plan, but it didn't work. Hmm, could the scale have been off? Oh yeah, it was at 1:15000. Addie passed me on the way to her control, but if she had been going for mine, she would have beaten me easily. Settled down after that. Control 8, on the east side of the map, was hard. Vague contours on the way there and a number of parallel features on the other side. Again my plan fell short but I scrambled and got back in contact after losing it pretty badly. That was satisfying in its own way. Ridiculously slow on 9, just couldn't understand the streams and ridges and basically stumbled into the control. Then came the unpleasant leg to 11, but the rest was good.

Red - Splits

QOC Training Day, morning outdoor session. After some classroom work we did pace counting calibration then a pace counting exercise. No map, just a course on a blank sheet of paper. Focus on fine compass and pace counting. No controls, so we needed to guess the feature. In a group of about 10, we had considerable fan-out. I think I failed on 2 out of 6 controls, once on bearing and once on distance.

This was an actual course (middle distance style), but still with no controls. Focus on systematics: good planning, good execution. For me, the exercise was all about the tradeoff between time spent planning the route vs. time spent executing it. Clearly, there is a large payout associated with good route planning, in that the execution goes much faster and smoother when the route is already in your mind. Then, the execution is just a matter of checking the boxes as you go. This shifts the balance point towards planning, whereas the impulse in competition is just to get on with the next leg regardless of how it comes out. Funny, it's another version of the short-term vs. long-term gains that plagues the capitalist economic model.

Line-O finale to the training. This exercise was pretty hard. An unknown nunber of controls at unknown locations on the line. Map was reduced to only contours and vegetation. The control locations were marked with mini-bags, hung pretty high, but still, mighty small in the woods. I lost my way just a little on the far side of the course, in fairly dense woods (I would have called it light green/green slash). Although I backtracked and relocated, I missed one control there from lack of precision. Then after a good recovery I missed two others, even though I was on course, due to basic invisibility of the mini-bags. Overall, an excellent exercise.

Warmup to Einstein track, and some strides.

Speed workout. 4x800 with 400m jog in between (about 3 min). Figuring VDOT 46, target tine was 3:20. I didn't get the time on the first 800 due to operator error with the watch (first time on the track with the Garmin), but I know it was fast. 3:16, 3:16, 3:20, 3:17.

Warm-down and jog back home.

Trail run on Greenbelt Park perimeter trail. The heat was a bit much. It was probably mid-80s, no wind, bright sun, and the trees offered very little cover. It's going to be a couple of weeks before the sweat reflex kicks in, and I was kind of dragging. However, I noticed that the dog started to shed today. Two warm nights was all that was needed to trigger that reflex.

Easy run around the GSFC perimeter road. Butterflies this run: mourning cloak (3), anglewing sp., clouded sulphur (2), cabbage white. The mourning cloaks and anglewing probably wintered over as adults. They're really late this year.

Core strength and stretching.