Training Log Archive: revy

NAOC Sprint. This was my first sprint event ever. Learned a few things. First of all that i should review the rules on Out of bounds as I got reprimanded by an older orienteer as I was about to charge blindly across a short section of green grass that was going to save me a couple meters. I may have vaguely known this perhaps but I was already a bit hypoxic so I blame it on that... Two sprinting for 20 minutes is hard - pace slowed down towards the end. Three I seem to be ok navigating through urban areas (maybe 10 sec of mistakes) but the park was another story. Entered the park about 1 min behind the 35+ winner but finished 4.5 min behind. Totally couldn't get my head around the tree symbols and made a bunch of silly mistakes. The worst was running up the hill looking for 17 and being totally confused that I couldn't see a building up there. It took me way too long to realize that I didn't need to be up high.

In the end my results show a missed punch although I certainly went to 4 and I am pretty sure my stick beeped. Anyway didn't make a big fuss - placing was not important. Good news is that my sprint time was not twice as long as the winning guy's time:) Only 50% slower today... Can't complain for a first sprint though.

Sprint - Course 5a - Splits

NAOC long distance. Well I maintained my record of taking twice as long as the winner. Granted he was some Scandinavian dude...

This was hard with lots of mistakes on my part. Never felt like I was quite in touch with the map - scale had a little to do with that. Controls 2 and 6 were long scary legs to small features. I started looking for 2 too soon but figured that out after losing a few minutes. Next three controls were fine. 6 was not so fine. Started by contouring around the lake too long (not sure why) then although I kind of knew where I was, I was never that confident. It looks like I was too far right. I was moving slowly but this didn't seem to help. After spending 10 min looking for the control decided to relocate on the power line and found it quickly after that. In retrospect a route that bounced off the power line right of way would have been better for me. Not a winning route but less potential for blowing up (27min control for me but could have been around 10). I must have been flustered as my route to 7 was not ideal but then 8-10 were fine.

The course after the map exchange had a lot more trail and features. Still screwed up two more controls. At 11 didn't follow my bearing well, ended up right and got confused by the trails I hit. On the way to 13 I was initially looking at the map thinking I was going to 15. Once I sorted that out (after hitting a fence that I was not expecting to see) I proceeded to do a 300m detour on the wrong trail. After that everything went smoothly with lots of trail running but I didn't have the fitness to push a good pace. A pretty long run for me for sure.

Overall another fun day although a lot more frustration today. So many of my mistakes could be improved with more practice... Weather was stellar with blue skies which made the leaves seems even more vibrant.

Long - Course 10 - Splits

Middle distance at NAOC. Fun to be doing an orienteering event again. Last one was over two years ago? Had a couple 2-3 min mistakes and a couple 1 min mistakes. For the most part though I kept in touch with the map well and was happy with my run. Fastest racer was half my time though which was very impressive. I am losing 30-60 sec per control just from navigation speed I think and another 30 sec from moving speed. I enjoyed the course - pretty technical map and interesting terrain.

Middle - Course 10 - Splits

Event: NAOC2014 (North American Champs/Ottawa O-Fest)
 

March highlands training map with Courtney. This map was a little easier than yesterday which was good for Courtney I think. We would alternate controls. Had to run a couple km to the start through the mountain bike trails. Some pretty challenging technical trails in this area.

Model map for NAOC. Terrain seemed pretty tricky and the leaves on the ground made the trails hard to see.