Training Log Archive: simmo

WMOC Long Final, 39th of 81 - about what I expected after the rain came in and had to leave glasses behind. GPS 7.92km indicates another large amount of HC running.

Steady to 6, and was happy with how I was going, but a long leg into very vague contours from 6-7 saw me drop concentration and 11 minutes. Quite a few others had blowouts here, including some of the favourites. Eventually relocated 500m from the control. 7-8 was still in the vague area and lost another 8 mins - kept coming across mob tracks of which only one was mapped. 7 and 8 were both form-line gullies; contour interval was 2.5 so these were pretty shallow.

Gradually recovered and picked up places despite a few more errors of 1-2 mins. Found the mapping a little bit questionable, e.g. in some areas a brown dot was 10m high, while in others they were barely 1m high, and many contour knolls were barely 1.5m high. Often there was a line of 3-4 brown dots, but on the ground was a ridge with 7-8 high points. Some of the contour depressions were difficult to work out.

Challenging event - well done to the winners! A few surprises amongst the medallists today.

Long - Final - Men 70 Final A - Splits

WMOC Long Qualification 2. Just never got into the map, orienteered hopelessly throughout and didn't feel like I had a clean leg at all. Three legs were absolute disasters; 20, 10 and 18 minutes. Surprisingly I won two legs, have no idea how, but it may explain how I made the A final with everybody else almost as bad as me.

GPS 7.04kms on a 3.7km course explains how much headless chook running I did, although on the 18 minute leg (7-8) most of the time was spent standing still trying to identify where I was.

Mostly have no idea where I went until RG goes up and I can see what happened.

Long - Qualification 2 - Men 70 Heat 3 - Splits

WMOC Long Qualification 1- 3rd place in my group, despite making errors at 3 controls, including 1 and 2. 10 mins behind winner Ross B. GPS was 5.08, but only went wide on one leg (3-4). Can't get map until tomorrow, and no splits up yet, but I did discover that of the 3 M70 groups, two including mine had exactly the same course and only one guy in the other group beat my time.

Long - Qualification 1 - Men 70 Heat 3 - Splits

WMOC Forest Model, time does not include standing around at controls.

Visited all but 3 controls, had difficulty recognising some of the tracks which were older and covered in pine needles, but the smaller and more indistinct recent tracks were easier to see. Learned that any shade of green should be avoided, as event the clearings and white areas shown in the green appeared to be full of brushings.

Realised afterwards that I'd used the 1:10000 side of the map instead of the 1:7500 side - doh!

WMOC Sprint Final. Not my best run by a long way, mistakes at 2, 8, 10, 12 and 13. Big mistakes too by sprint standards. GPS 2.65kms, so a few hundred metres of extra distance. Final position 25th.

Deserved win by 'Chatty' (and by Rosco yesterday in the Qual), shows what can be done with concentration and minimal time loss.

Ran hard to 1, then lost sense of direction on a short and easy leg to 2, faffing around finding several other controls (including 3 I found out later). Lost over 1 minute. Won the split to 3, and did ok for the next few. Made a hash of 7-8, at the time thought I'd lost at least another minute, but turned out to be only half that, which I can put down to the speed I was running - felt really good running-wise by this stage. Lost another half a minute and a minute on 11 and 12 through not reading the map carefully enough, then 13 was a problem for many people with the badly mapped tunnel. I lost 1.5 mins there - a lot less than many others.

Can take consolation from the fact that lots of really good orienteers handled the map, course and pressure either worse or only marginally better than me, but I think I need to re-think my approach to sprints.

Sprint Final - Men 70 Final A - Splits

Sprint Qualification at World Masters. Garmin 2.2km, so pretty clean. Couple of small errors, but quite a few stops to check the map. Finished 9th in heat, so should qualify comfortably. Haven't got the map back, and no splits up yet, will post more later.

Later: lost time in the circle at 1, going slightly right and getting confused by another control. Took a while to work out a route to 2, and didn't execute it particularly well, but did better than most - very well-set leg. 2-3 another complicated leg which I didn't execute well. Won the split from 3-4, and 3rd 0n 4-5 with the road route, running fast. 5-6, 6-7 also good legs for me, but 7-8 was BAD - didn't see the obvious route, and went in the opposite direction for 100m. 9 was fairly easy, but 10 was a corker - think I picked the correct route which was the reverse of the second part of 1-2. Too slow on short, easy leg to 11, then stuffed 11-12 - couldn't see either of the route choices, and after dithering for a while eventually picked the slowest. Managed a reasonable finish from there, although could have gained a few seconds by being more decisive after punching 12, considering I'd just run within 20m of 13 to get to 12.

A fairly late start tomorrow, will have to be in better form.

C • Good luck in the sprint final! 1

Sprint Qualification - Men 70 Heat 1 - Splits

Event: World Masters Orienteering Championships 2017
 

Oceania Middle, 3.82km on the Garmin. Nice area with lots of big rocks and intricate gully/spur with many depressions - very muddy though, especially for late starters.

Was never going to be fast, and took my time to 1, then 2-4 ok. Went one gully too far at 5, and lost 2 mins on a very steep hillside. 6 was a much bigger and preventable disaster, had a good route and found it straightaway, but read the wrong number on my descriptions so kept going for 300m too far before realising - 5 mins+ gone there! Another 2 mins lost at 8 which was a pretty vague feature in a badly mapped area. Good after that, but the winner was 13 mins quicker overall.

Oceania Relay, 1st leg M65. Garmin got switched off around the 3rd control without me noticing, lots of runners around and bush thick in places so assume it must have happened with the jostling.

Thought I was up near the leaders through 4, but made a hash of 5 by not noticing that the track just before it was indistinct. Crossed it without noticing and then crossed another track 70m further and couldn't find the control or match the map with the ground. Spent 4-5 mins before spotting a flag and finding it was mine, then promptly lost another 2-3 mins on the next short leg because I was so relieved stumbling across 5 that I didn't really register where it was in relation to where I thought I was.

Otherwise fine, but about 9 mins down. Fortunately our 3rd runner (Steve F) ran a blinder and pulled us up to 3rd, so earned my first medal of the carnival.

Oceania Long Distance, Garmin 6.67km, so quite a lot of running around like a headless chook.

Slow and steady to 1 and 2, with low visibility and vague contours. improved to 3 and 4, but slow across a featureless green area then a 2 min loss just missing 5. Had taken wider track routes from 3-4 and 4-5, but decided to risk a straighter, contouring route to 6. Drifted low even though I thought I was contouring higher than necessary and came out on a main track. Looked at the map and decided I was above the control, so ran along the track to find an attack point but couldn't recognise anything. Ran even further, then back the other way and further still. Finally realised the road I was on was below the control, 500m from where I thought I was - duh! (See gps or routegadget.) 14 mins blown.

Pretty good splits after that, all top 20 with 3 fourth-best times. 27 mins behind the winner, but his time was exceptional, 7-10 mins ahead of 4 very, very good internationals. Helps that he lives nearby I guess.

Long - Course Course 16 - Splits

Event: Oceania Championships 2017
 

Oceania Sprint, stuffed up by missing a control. Should hsve finished top 6 which would have given AUS a chance of taking the class from NZL.

Won the first split with a wide right route. In the lead until 3, when I made a 45 second mistake, putting me down to 8th. Pulled up a few places despite losing 20 seconds on route choice to 11. All this time it had been raining buckets and had to remove and carry my glasses which was a distraction that finally caused loss of concentration. BIG brain fade at 14, where I must have thought I'd already found 15 so headed to 16, then got confused with the OOB markings (well-taped by the way) because I wasn't coming from where I thought I was. 2 minutes to recover and find 16, then reasonably fast to the finish, where I got the big disappointment on download.

GPS shows 2.64kms, will try to put it on Routegadget later.

Sprint - Course - 10 - Splits

Final day of Milford, out to the road end. All in forest, but nevertheless very interesting. Great stopover at Forge Flat, good swimming hole and no sandflies. Only the two youngest of our group braved the swim.

Nice gesture to stop at the Glenorchy pub on the way back to Queenstown for beer and chips!

Relieved, but sorry to finish two great walks (2 of THE Great Walks). The guides reckon we were incredibly lucky to have no rain at all, and mostly clear skies for both walks, especially the Milford.

Overall I would rate the Milford higher, but the middle day of the Routeburn was easily the BEST day.

Day 2 of Routeburn, Lake MacKenzie to Routeburn Falls via Harris Saddle. Wonderful walk, all above the tree line after the first 500m, with incredible views everywhere.

At Harris Saddle PP and I decided to only do part of the Conical Hill side trip, just to the lookout over Lake Harris and the Routeburn Valley. Just as well, it's pretty steep and slippery in places. According to others in the group who made it to the top, the view towards the Tasman was worth it, but we were more than satisfied with the fantastic view from the lookout.

The walk down the Valley was special, even though I was really tired, and the falls at the end a bonus. Too cold to swim though.

Day 1 of Routeburn, Divide to Lake MacKenzie. Interesting walk, quite undulating and mostly in beech forest. Even though shorter, I was quite tired on arrival at the Lodge.

Earland Falls pretty specify.

Rest day - a boat trip around the Sound and out to the Tasman Sea included in the package, then a bus to Te Anau.

To loosen up we walked around 3km return to the Aviaries and saw real live Takahes, as well as a more poke owl and some other rare NZ birds (but no kiwi).

Found a great bar serving tapas for dinner (Black Dog Bar) after watching a short movie about Fiordland.

Day 3 of Milford, Quintin to Sandfly Point. A long day with a few harder bits including a climb up a ledge on a high cliff above the Arthur River. PP and I were at the back for most of the day, not wanting to have too long to wait at Sandfly Point. Even though we could wait inside a shelter, still managed to sustain a few bites.

Day 2 of Milford, over the Mackinnon Pass to Quintin Lodge. I was hoping to be able to walk up to the Sutherland Falls (another 5km return from Quintin), but even though I did the climb up to the Pass reasonably well, I hit the wall on the long (900m) descent. Did the last 4km very slowly and carefully as it felt like I could fall over multiple times on the steepest and rockiest bits. Was absolutely buggered when I turned a corner and there was the Lodge thank goodness!

Had a Nespresso and cake, then waited for PP to turn up.

Great views from the Pass, very tough day, but very, very rewarding.

Day 1 of Milford Track, fairly easy from Glade House, until the last 2kms or so up to Pompolona Lodge.

No gps, as I didn't bring the cable and can't charge the Garmin, so just using it in watch mode.

Time includes several stops along the way for PP to take photos, and to generally take in the views or watch NZ Bush Robins hop about catching worms around aour boots.

Distance doesn't include the 1km from the boat dock to Glade House yesterday, and a guided walk of 2kms around the local bush adter arrival.

Around the Bannockburn Sluices near Cromwell. Interesting gold-mining area, would make a good O map.

Afterwards tried to get in for lunch at a local winery (Carrick) but a snooty woman said they were booked out, despite it already being 1.30 and several empty tables. We went down the road to Akarua, no food but excellent wines including a brilliant pinot. Made do for lunch with a couple of pears that we had bought at a roadise stall a few days ago.

C • Bannockburn 6