Training Log Archive: levitin

Event: Canal Cities Challenge
 

After a week of crappy sleep, I managed 12 hours of sleep at the Sprague Brook Campground. Unfortunately, when I awoke, I had slept through my start time. Groggily, I dressed, threw some stuff together, and made my way to the starting area. By the time I had all the right pieces together, the last start had been given out and they had closed the starts.

Nevertheless, I did start under the proviso that they would be removing the controls starting at 1:15 (last start + 2 hours). So I got a few legs in, but deliberately skipped the middle of the course. The first water stop was control 9, which would have killed me had I actually started at the right time.

I will have to rescue the HR data for this race. The intensity was at 5K level or higher. I made a couple of bobbles, but generally I was running at about the fastest level I could safely run. (I have as an ideal case the image of a piece of continuous surveyor's tape or string along the fastest possible route (for my strength/speed), and I don't think I deviated too far.)

I was still in the bottom 1/5th or so of the M45+'s on Course 3. Clint won the Class with 14:xx, and one of the Lyons kids won the course with 12:xx.

Lazily noodling around Sprague Brook Park on the MTB.

Sprint - Course 3 - Splits

Part of the Canoe-O at Genesee.

The land portion of the Canoe-O. Unfortunately, the setting was such that most of the controls if not all could be got from land. They weren't noted dry or wet as we do in New England. Possible putins/takeouts weren't marked either, so that part was a bit dicey, too.

One control was missing, but replaced during the race. Not sure how they'll score that.

National Trail-O Championships. After a session w/ Frank Kuhn, but not watching the video, a run-through of studying the IOF documentation on trail-O, and 2 practice controls, I get thrown head-first into 2 timed controls (got both of them wrong), followed by 15 untimed controls. It was hot out, and a lot of the paths were exposed to the sun. I had a water bottle with me, but had my hands full with a compass, control card, and water bottle.

In the end, I got 11 of 17 correct, just out of the top 3 by some amount. The 3rd place in the open competition had 12 controls correct.

2 of 4 (?) Mass start sprint events. Lots of people running many different ways. Each race was ~ 1.2km, times were 9:xx and 8:0x

Sprint B (shorter of the 2). Don't know the time. Guessed.

First control exercise. 5 instances of a start triangle, 1 leg into a control, then a short walk to the "finish" double circle, which coincided with the start of the next exercise. Each instance of the exercise was printed on a separate area of a single sheet of paper, at a random orientation wirh respect to the prior instance. Each had a north line so we could orient the map.

The exercise was to practice quickly orienting the map to north, analyzing the leg, and beginning to move toward the control.

Mixed success.

Webster TDS #4 Sprint B - Splits

MTB-O at Dryer Road Park, advanced course. Quite steep in parts, with drizzle/rain throughout. Using a jerry-rigged map holder that worked so-so, I was able to make good route choices, at the expense of stopping occasionally to plan the next stage and confirm that the trail topology matched the map.

Biking on paved trails (mostly) along the seaway trail next to Lake Ontario.

Memory-O training at Durand. Done solo, so I paused the timer at each control, then memorized (or tried to) the next leg, then restarted the timer. I was not very good at remembering the order of the features, or perceiving and remembering whether the contours were a depression or a hill.

Many thoughtful exercises had been prepared by the ROC folks, but I was just too tired to try them. Also, too late in the day; they were starting to collect some of the flags from the woods.

Dusk-to-dark score-O, mass start. The orienteering was not as horrid as I had feared. I made a couple of route choice errors b/c I couldn't read the map properly. Exiting the control field and heading for the finish house, I chose a poor route, b/c I didn't have a clear sense of how tight I was for time.

Interesting note: while running trails and in the woods, I picked up my feet and didn't trip. As I was running hard for the finish house, going across an open field with well-mown grass, I stumbled on a gentle knollside because the ground rose to meet my feet higher than I expected.

Sprint at Mendon Park. My legs were just too trashed to run very hard, and it was still hot and muggy. I don't think I was as soaked as I was on Sat and Sunday, but I also wasn't working as hard either.

Made a couple of errors even on the large-scale map. From 4 to 5, I must have misread the depressions' contours b/c I ended up at 6 (a few contours lower, and perhaps 20 degrees off the line from 4 to 5). Later, running along the trail from 9 to 10, I jumped off at a bend (possibly not mapped?) ended up at the road, and then relocated maybe 20m further down the road, where I attacked again and hit the flag straight on. I guess I was not estimating distance accurately.

Mendon TDS #1 Sprint A - Splits

Event: 2011 OUSA Convention
 

Happy Valley WMA Red, Day 2. I was achey upon waking up, somewhat late to the start after a harried morning. Unbeknownst to me, (probably even before I started around 11:00 race time) 2 controls had been picked up Saturday, and replaced in a rush Sunday, but after competitors had been affected. I drained 30-40 oz of fluid from my Camelbak in addition to drinking at the water stop. When I ran dry between control 5 and 6, I decided to tough it out until control 7, a water stop. Upon reaching 7, following sloppy orienteering and clueless, incompetent relocation, I found no water, and no evidence that there had been water. I decided to throw in the towel. Unfortunately, #7 was at the far west of the map, with the start/finish in the northeast. There was no easy way to bail out of the course. Walking (mostly) in, I went by and punched #8. Aborting from #8 required orienteering across a rocky, marshy stream network. I was in a sad situation as I reencountered the start triangle with the volunteers collecting the early controls, who happily for me, had cold gatorade. Thanks to them, I had no lasting ill effects of the hot day.

Imagine my surprise when I checked in at the finish to discover the course had been voided.

Hurried warmup run from assembly area to the start triangle, where I was late for my (almost last, if not the very last) start. I forgot to clear and check, and so I had to run *back* from the start device to the clear and check stands. I'm glad I didn't inconvenience anyone too much.

The walk-in from control 8 to the start after giving up. Included some side-hilling near the rocky streamside, picking my way carefully across the orienteer-eating marsh, and through the waist-high grass.

To top it off, somewhere along here, my forerunner said "Battery Low" so I turned it off.