Training Log Archive: smittyo

Relay demo event at the WTOC. This event had three legs, each with 11 controls. The control clusters were the same for every leg, but the actual task varied at each cluster. They ended up throwing out two controls because of problems with the control descriptions. They didn't really show the proper number of controls, which resulted in some people naming the controls incorrectly. I got everything right. Yay! Sharon and Mika both did pretty well, too, so our team had a fairly good score. The only downside was that we decided I would do the anchor leg to be the one dealing with the final time pressure. Unfortunately, because they were running so far behind, they ended up cancelling the tempO control for the 3rd leg people. I probably would have done well there, so that was disappointing. Overall, our team was 26th out of 47 teams with a score of 24 out of 27 controls.

Day 2 Pre-O of WTOC at Blato - Golf & Country Club Zagreb. I had a great day, missing only one control of the 26. The course was not as difficult as Day 1, so there were quite a few people who got them all right or only missed one. My result for the day was 16th place, but it lifted me 10 spots to 38th overall. Part of the reason I ended up in a lower place was that I took my time on the timed controls. After missing two timed controls on Day 1, I figured that I could not afford any more penalty time, so today I just took whatever time was necessary to be sure I had them correct. This was especially difficult at station 2, where I had trouble figuring out what was up and down relative to the form line. Ultimately, that strategy might have made the difference of one place in the final two day results. If I had missed any timed controls today, I would have dropped a place. Going faster would not have really moved me up.

Deciding on your team for Trail-O is always a risky proposition. This year we made the proper choice. Sharon agreed that Mika should take the team spot since he had a better result from Day 1 and that worked out well. He did better than Sharon today, and combined with my excellent result plus David, it put us in good team position. 13th of 20 teams.

16th of 67 finishers - 24% down the list
25/26 controls and 115.5 seconds vs. 26 controls and 31 seconds for the winner. Ranking pts. would be 95.33

Overall Total for two days:
38th of 67 finishers - 57% down the list
44/52 controls and 319.5 seconds vs. 51 controls and 193 seconds for the winner. 86% of the control score of the winner.

Event: 2015 Gold Rush - USA Ultra-long & Western States Championships
 

Model for Day 2 PreO at Zagreb Golf Course. The last time I did trail orienteering at a golf course it did not go well. But that golf course was also on a hillside which made all the contours feel wrong. Kind of like being in one of those crazy mystery houses where the water seems to run uphill. This golf course is on flat, though, so I'm hoping for a much better result. Today's model went pretty well. The only big issues were with some controls where it was difficult to decide between the flag and zero. Only missed one of them because I didn't want to move all the way to the best sight line. The extent of inbounds territory was not always clear and I wasn't sure I could go there. Mika showed me later how it looked from there and it definitely would have helped.

Sprint race at Karlovac, Croatia. Fairly simple, urban/park-O sprint in conjunction with WTOC. A fun chance to get some running in. I think I placed fourth in F50+ behind Sharon Crawford and two other women from the WTOC.

WTOC TempO qualifications. Eight stations with four tasks each. I thought that the stations were all really fair and a lot of fun. Lots of good terrain and different types of stations and tasks. I had one station (number two) where I really just felt kind of lost and had trouble matching the terrain to the maps. I think that based on the first circle I had just sort of mentally rotated the terrain to a different orientation than it was and had trouble undoing that. The rest of the stations I understood fine. There was one station where I made some mistakes because I wasn't being careful enough at reading the descriptions and one mistake was a mispunch - I pointed to Zero instead of Foxtrot because I just went for the right end of the board. Next year I'll probably say my answers instead of pointing. I think that will be faster and, now that I've been practicing naming more, it will potentially be more accurate as well. Sorry that the eighth station got thrown out because it one of my good ones. But I do understand that it was hard to see and many people had trouble as a result.

68th of 80 finishers - 85% down the list
score of 550 vs. 188 for the winner - 193% behind the winner
raw time of 340 + 7 mistakes

Event: WTOC
 

Day 1 PreO at Sesvete, Croatia. The course was in two parts. There was a winding skinny creek that ran down the middle of the park between two paths. Part one basically went up one path and part two down a trail on the other side of the creek. Some controls were used from both sides. Many of the problems involved identifying which specific bend or part of the creek controls were on. In general, I thought I did well and felt pretty good about it. Not as happy when I saw the answers -- there were a few that I thought I understood and had missed, but most of my misses were things that I was either unsure about or under time pressure. I also didn't do well on the timed controls today. Need to remember that in PreO, accuracy is much more important than time as compared to TempO.

48th of 67 finishers - 72% down the list
19/26 controls and 204 seconds vs. 25 controls and 44 seconds for the winner. Ranking pts. would be 74.49

PreO and TempO model course at Maksimir Park in Zagreb.