Training Log Archive: TomN

NAOC Sprint Course 3 (M55). Much better today. I had a fine run, except for one really bad mistake on #8. Bashing through the woods from 7, passed one little trail, came to a larger trail and thought it was the wide one, saw the junction to my right and thought it was where the wide trail left the road and I was too far south. So I ran north on the trail, it made no sense, came back, saw the junction for what it was (the triangular one) and got back on track. Lost about a minute and a half. One more small mistake overrunning #10, bouncing back off the trail.

I ran really well after that, grabbing a couple of top splits, but the two mistakes drove the result, 10th on the course.

The NAOC was a great production this year, and it was really nice to be a part of it.

Sprint - Course 3 - Splits

NAOC Long Course 7b (M55). A better run than yesterday for sure, but still not very good. Some issues with control finding, just like yesterday, but overall just slow. The rocky ground is hard to run through, and I fell a few times. I was careful with intermediate features (which means slow). And the dense woods impedes visibility (which also means slow). On the plus side, I ran pretty confidently on the trail network and made no real mistakes there, except pulling up way short on #7 and examining the wrong rocky hill before proceeding to the right one. Also on the plus side, a really fine fall day. It was great to be out in the woods.

Long - Course 7B - Splits

NAOC Middle, Course 7b (M55). I kind of figured this wasn't going to go very well. I have trouble with maps in which heavy thresholding was necessary. Not that this was a bad map -- to the contrary, it was clean and sensible, and clearly the right way to map this terrain. My problem is that I can't do the thresholding in the field. I see knolls and rocks that appear visually large, but they're unmapped because they're on elevated bases. And, like #8 on the long course, I fail to see a boulder that appears insignificant among much taller features.

So, lots of trouble finding controls, like #2, #5, #7, #10-11-12. Also problems with cross-country routes when I couldn't properly recognize intermediate features. From 6 to 7, I tried to attack from the rocky spur, but I mistakenly chose the spur just before it, which also had rocks (smaller, and unmapped).

Then the killer, skipping #13 altogether. This is a perceptual issue, just like last week's middle. When I learned that I had mispunched, I looked again at the map and saw #13 for the first time, as though it had been printed in invisible ink that had just materialized on the paper. I had been seeing the line as if it ran directly from 12 to 14.

Middle - Course 7b - Splits