Training Log Archive: Sandy

So wanted to stay in bed this morning but got out the door. Took a new route since I wanted something a little shorter since it did take me about 20 minutes to decide to get out of bed.

C • morning exercise 2

Core DVD with my own yoga stretches at the end.

TNT - Indian loop with Sandy. Walked the big hills but jogged the rest. Lots of folks out in the Wissahickon tonight. Nice dinner with Alison, John, Jim, Karl and Sandy.

Trail is pretty muddy but only a couple new trees down. The section by the stable is fenced off - not sure if it's temporary or permanent.

Good news, bad news morning. I went to do all the layout work for printing maps for the Sept. 18 event at the Water Gap for the maps that we are printing at 1:10,000 only to discover I'd already done it. Good news - it's done. Bad news - my memory is definitely going.

Stroll down to Forbidden Drive to see the creek. A few trees down on the drive, lots of downed trees along and in the creek and evidence that the creek was several feet higher at some poin. It was still impressively high and churning.

Short hill loop. Two sections of walking of about 3 minutes each plus about half the road hill home.

I'm not sure which would be a better goal: be able to run the whole thing or get the time down to something specific. One rewards plodding and the other bursts of speed.

And just - by about a minute - beat the rain.

Rescued the last of the gladiolus (gladioli?) from my yard before the hurricane demolishes everything.

Wow. Monday was supposed to be the first day of classes but I just got a notice saying all classes for Monday are cancelled.

C • No surprise 16

With Sandy. Nice to catch up.

Yoga DVD. My arms are jelly. Probably should get back to pushups but I can't seem to stay with it.

TNT Media - usual loop with Eric. I jogged in a couple of places but not for very long. Chatted about the WOC maps pretty much the whole time.

Normal hike in the Wiss. Guess I wasn't really pushing the pace..

Core DVD.

Despite eating rather well I managed to keep the weight under control while in France. I especially miss our morning stops at the Patisserie, the apricot and apple croissants and warm bread just out of the oven were soooo good. And I had some excellent dinners which were always relaxing and with very generous helpings.

I don't want to work....

Slightly different loop in the Wissahickon this morning as I wanted to see the creek - it was running high but not as high as I thought it might be. Jogged a bit on Forbidden Drive and in the final meadow.

Home from France. :(

C • Welcome back 1

Oh so close to a fabulous race. This was absolutely awesome terrain and other than one really, really stupid error I was finally reading the terrain well and knowing what I was doing. We had another very early start and I had nowhere near enough sleep and I made a 6 minute error on a trivial control - you could see it from the trail. I had gone up the spur next to the reentrant the trail was in for some reason instead of just taking the trail - but I could see the trail so was thinking this was fine. But when I get to the knoll where I think the control should be, either I was one knoll over or just didn't see it from where I was standing, and when I bailed to the trail I decided I needed to be further along the trail (the wrong way). It was so silly since all I needed to do was go to the top of the reentrant that the trail was in and where the trail bent and the control was right there. Anyway, 6 minutes later I finally woke up and did just that. After that I nailed everything, reading the terrain well, taking good routes and moving reasonably well. The leg 2-3 was straight up the hillside - I think maybe 80 meters worth - and I had to scramble a couple of times to make it up but the control was right where I wanted it to be. Used the magnifier continuously for just about the whole course as there was a ton of detail and a lot of it was critical to read. The terrain and mapping was such that you could go from the map to the terrain but it was really hard to go from the terrain to the map. So checking off things as you moved along your route wasn't bad, but it was almost impossible to stop somewhere and look around and find the spot on the map based on what you were seeing.

My time put me in 12th for the day - without the stupid error I would have been 4th. Like I said - oh, so close!

Ended up 9th overall out of about 80 which is a lot higher than I expected, so generally pleased. But the winning times each day were significantly faster than anything I could have done even with completely clean runs; there was a big drop off between the top 2-3 women and the rest of the field.

All in all though, it was great to go orienteer in new and different terrain. The last day and the first half of the 4th day had fabulous woods. The other days had some pretty junky stuff but it forced you to really navigate carefully and I generally liked that. I wasn't real thrilled with the amount of deadfall that we had to go over, under or around - and it wasn't mapped particularly accurately so you couldn't avoid it - but there weren't prickers or thorny stuff so I didn't mind the green too much.

C • Congratulations 4

Relay spectating in the afternoon - another beautiful day on a sunny hillside in France! Eddie built a lean-to with some branches and a tarp which was a huge help by providing some shade - thanks, Eddie! But still managed to get a little sunburn on my legs.

Definitely my worst day. We had very early starts and I was really, really tired and it showed - a 20 minute mistake to a control maybe 50 meters off a trail. I just did not cope well when I missed the control which was tucked down in a depression in some green. Found several other controls in the vicinity and wandered around for a while instead of doing something remotely intelligent like go back to the trail and try again. Eventually, correctly determined where another two controls were and that mine was between them and finally found it on the second try bouncing between the controls. Not sure what was going on in my head but I didn't seem to really care - could not get myself to focus. Had no more trouble finding controls after that - maybe I finally woke up? - but then got stung five times by bees when I must have disturbed a ground nest or something. So not a very good day.

Ended up 37th for the day, a good ways back.

Had a nice brunch afterwards with Peter and Gail (and Eddie and Clem) before spectating the middle final. With such and early start it was a very long day and being out in the sun for most of the afternoon wore me out. Really tired when we finally got back to the hotel after another long, but delicious, French dinner.

A pretty disappointing race today. The first 8 controls were in beautiful woods - so much nicer than anything we've seen all week. The last 7 controls were in a ski resort village and then the fields where the arena is - bottom of ski slopes and the run-in chute, maybe 1.5 km of the 4.1 km course. I could have lived with the fact that I'm just ridiculously slow on straight running legs but I also had lots of errors in the woods. :(

Good to #1 - just went straight since the woods looked nice, enough of this running way around on trails. Pulled up short on #2, but then kept going and it was right on my line (maybe 30 seconds). Same thing with #3 - got a little low and pulled up one reentrant too soon but figured it out, saw a bit of yellow and then in to the control (maybe a minute here since I looked around a bit in the first reentrant before continuing and then had to climb to my control). To #4 I don't really know what happened but I was not reading the map correctly and started wandering around a bit. I lost my pace count by someone who tried to ask me where we were and then I misread features, was a little high, pulled up short but luckily was able to relocate without going too far but it was about a 5 minute error total. And the woods in here were gorgeous - just beautiful. But the map was very simplified and cliffs you might think would be on the map weren't so relocating was tough. Made another 30 second error to #5, drifting a little low but reading the terrain. A minute error to #6 when I got pulled right and I'm not sure why. Got really lucky to #7 - was trying to get to a trail but wasn't doing a good job following my compass. Kept pushing though but was starting to think I had gone far enough and where could I possibly be, but there's a control that looks like it's on a pit so maybe it's mine and it was. I don't think I lost time but could have easily lost a bunch. At this point I had no confidence left and so lost another 30 seconds to #8 when I checked out a control that I knew wasn't mine. So a total of 8 and a half minutes of errors in terrain that I could have really rocked if I had done a better job of concentrating and being careful. And then I'm sure I lost time to my competition in the last legs where I walked a good bit of the time.

I have no idea how I placed today though since we left before I had a chance to check and nothing has been posted yet this evening.

I was 9th again for the day but much further percentage wise behind the winning time; guess everyone else had more trouble in the beginning section than I did!

A pretty decent run today with no navigational mistakes - always knew where I was and was actually reading features. There was a lot of deadfall between controls 1-2-3 and I might have been able to take several minutes off my time by finding better routes around the junk. Unfortunately, I don't think it was mapped particularly accurately, so there was no way to know what route was going to work best. I have decided that the green chunky rocky stuff is actually not so bad because at least I can keep moving through it while the deadfall is really hard to get through.

I'm not sure if today's course was easier or not - it definitely had very little climb so not as physically demanding as the previous two days - but it sure felt easier and I actually managed to run a bit (although always on trails).

Was 9th for the day and am now in 8th overall for the first three stages. Only your best five days count though so there's probably a few people who will jump ahead of me on the final day when they drop one.

Spent the afternoon spectating the long final - those were two tough long courses!

C • Way to go! 1

A long but very fun day spectating the sprints. Wandered around and found a control in a church courtyard to sit by for the men's sprint and saw everyone come in and punch. Pretty neat to be sitting just a few feet from where they were running.

Day 2 of the spectator races. Another decent race with no major errors just a lot of slogging through physically tough terrain. Ended up in 11th place for the day about 20 minutes back of the winner. I think there are about 70 or 75 in D55, with lots of people not finishing. I'm in 14th overall now for the two days.

Took a very safe round about route to #1 basically staying on trails the whole time. Got off my line to #2 but after fighting through some slash and steep stuff got on the trail I wanted and found the control. Pushed my way out to a big trail then off the trail at a corner, then worked my way across a nasty hill full of moss covered square chunky rocks (limestone/karst stuff) with huge holes everywhere - maybe not the best route but definitely knew where I was - then down a reentrant that had a huge elephant track then over to my control through more rocks and downed trees. Felt pretty good about this leg although it was probably pretty slow. The rest of the course was similar - find my way to various small or large trails, find my attack point and then somehow fight my way through slash and rocks and steep slopes. I wouldn't do much different except perhaps one leg where I decided not to go around but to go up and over to a trail junction. The up and over part was fine - not super fast but not too bad - but the back down part was scary. I sat down for most of it and lowered myself with my arms and by holding on to the small trees and dropping a foot or two at a time.

On one long leg near the end I started to go around but then remembered team members talking about taking a trail to a control in the same area so I looked a little harder and saw a small trail with some indistinct bits that went pretty much to the control. I figured the elites had turned it into an elephant track and it would be easy to follow. And it was. It also didn't hurt that it was on one of the beginner courses so it was streamered!

One funny bit today was at the end of that trail where it hit a line of cliffs. My control was just down the ridge in a reentrant. As I started to wonder about how I would be able to get down this ridge, I realized the trail went down so, duh, I could take the trail and then cut over. Down near the bottom there was a control on this trail and it was clear it was on a bit of yellow where the trail bent. But there was a group of older folks standing there very confused and not sure where they were. I headed off into the woods knowing exactly where I was and hoping no one would follow me. Unfortunately, a kid came into the control and punched just then and they all looked at her map and then they knew where they were and came bashing through the woods past me and into the control. Ah well.

The penultimate control was also a bit funny. I took a somewhat around route - I was starting to fade and it looked easier even though it involved a good bit of climb. As I was going and wondering whether to go higher or what, I noticed a cable on the ground. I looked at if for a few seconds and then I remembered the announcer from yesterday talking about competitors punching at the "pre-warning" control and suddenly I realized it was the cable for the computer to tell them who was punching. So I just followed the cable right into the control. That was fun.

It's hard to describe this terrain well. Yes, there are a lot of little trails everywhere but that doesn't make it easy. But one, they're tough to spot on the map, and two they're tough to get to in the woods soemtimes. Also, there are enough elephant tracks everywhere that it's easy to not be on the trail you think you are so you have to pay close attention to other things. But the woods are just really, really difficult to move through - very steep and very uneven ground. And today had lots of slash. So while it's not what I would normally think of as fun terrain - it's challenging in a different way and so fun for that reason. It's definitely not easy that's for sure!

Got lucky with the weather - it was pouring when we arrived at the arena but it stopped before I started and didn't start again until after I finished.

Went to the WOC opening ceremonies this evening. Boy were they lame. Had a very nice dinner afterwards - especially because I ended up with Clem's dish instead of mine. We both ordered mussels but with different seasonings. I commented how delicious mine was several times and I guess Clem didn't have the heart to tell me I was eating his. Thanks, Clem!

If you want to see what today's terrain was like check out this video:

http://3drerun.worldofo.com/?saved=1&id=-28744;0&v...

Other maps and video linked from the Team USA blog:
http://usa-orienteering.blogspot.com/

Yep, that's right. Over an hour for a two and a half k course! And I didn't have any big errors!! Just incredibly slow going and I decided to just walk most of the course anyway not putting any pressure on myself. I had a few errors but nothing too dramatic - always knew about where I was - but could have been a lot cleaner on several controls. But the worst was that I didn't notice that from #7 to #8 there was a marked route for the first half of the leg and I didn't follow it. It got almost all the way to 8 and when I checked my control description to see what I was actually looking for, I realized there was a marked route in the control descriptions. I had seen it at the start but it didn't register then that it was something to pay attention to since I've never had one in the middle of a course. Anyway, I decided to go back to 7 and do the leg right - about a 5 minute time loss.

I ended up 21 out of 68. A 1:04:18 time would have put me in 15th. So pretty happy with the result. Since I walked all but the run in I know there were a lot of folks out there having a lot more trouble than I did.

Using all the little trails was the key to success so very glad to have gotten out on the model yesterday. Will be in very similar terrain tomorrow so hoping to do a bit better.

C • Great job! 3

Event: WOC 2011 + O'Festival Savoie Grand Revard
 

Yay! Made it to France - barely. Got a little late start, then got stuck in a major traffic jam on the NJ Tpke, then got lost trying to find the Park2Go. Got to the airport at 4:52 for a 5:55 flight. They let us cut to the front of the line and Clem and I got our boarding passes before the 4:55 cut-off but they had to override the system for Eddie. I was convinced our luggage wouldn't make it, but it did. Flight was fine and, in fact, we landed a little early. Got through customs and got the car.

We weren't sure whether the gas gauge was reading empty or full so tried to find a gas station and drove around some of the back roads around Geneva. Spectacular scenery. Eventually found a gas station that would take our non-chip credit cards and it turns out the tank was full. Got on a highway before finding an ATM in France and when we got on a toll road were a little concerned about how we would pay. But they take credit cards for tolls!

Made it to the race site and decided to check out the model area. It was kind of a last minute decision so I didn't change out of my shorts and shirt though and just wore my trail shoes not my o-shoes. And the woods are really, really tough. They aren't "thick" in the sense of PA thick woods with prickers and briars and so on - just lots of dense trees that you can easily push through but not see through. And the ground is very chunky - lots of large squarish rocks and some downed trees and very steep so virtually impossible to run through for all but the top elites. But, lots of mapped little trails - some mapped as indistinct but easy to see on the ground and lots of little open areas. I went to 4 controls in about half an hour all in about 500 meters. Clem helped me find the first 2 then I kept going and learned how to use the trails to full advantage.

After that watched the long qualification races and cheered on the Americans and Canadians, the main reason I came. And it was a lot of fun. But I also started to fade as I hadn't slept since Thursday night. It was great to see Ali have such a good race but very sad that both Alex and Sam had trouble out there.

Drove into Chambery to pick up our race packets after that, then to Aix-les-Bains so Clem could get his media packet, then had dinner at a nice outdoor restaurant and finally made it to the hotel and crashed.

Off to France this afternoon.

Loop in the Wissahickon before breakfast.

Yoga. Planned to do more, but couldn't focus.

A bunch of yard work; didn't feel like much else.

Early morning yoga at the beach. Back home today.

The storms passed much more quickly than predicted so went out around 4pm for a jog on the beach. Jogged 10 minutes with the wind, walked 2 min into the wind, jogged 5 into, walked 2 into, jogged 5 into and then walked 3 with the wind back to the house.

The storm deposited chunks of jellyfish - I'm not sure how else to describe them since they aren't full jellyfish with stingers and everything. They're just blobs of clear, fairly rigid globs of protoplasm I guess anywhere from half an inch to a couple inches. I talked to the lifeguard and he said as long as they're clear, they're not dangerous and that's almost always what washes up on the beach.

http://www.longbeachislandjournal.com/animals/moon...

C • Jellyfish 7

An out and back on the beach in the early evening - half in the deep dry sand and half in the more packed wet sand.

C • Happy Birthday! 9

Yoga. Not sure if it was because of doing it right after walking on the beach or because it was hard work (it was), but I sure was sweating up a storm.

core dvd

Evening beach run. It rained in the late afternoon but then cleared up. The sand was a little harder than usual and easier to run on because of the rain. 10 minutes out and then back.

Early morning walk on the beach followed by a much needed day of not doing much of anything other than reading and enjoying good company.

TNT - hike with Eric, the 2011 Silva Award winner! Celebration at Clem's with Hugh and Dasha afterwards. Woohoo!

Absolutely zero motivation. Not at all sure why.

C • same here! 2

TNT - just me and Bob this evening. I hiked.