Training Log Archive: GlenT

Long course at "The Barrens", 1:10000, 2.5m contours. Complex water feature and contour detail in the eastern part of the map (where most of the course was). Three long route choice legs in the range of 700 - 900 meters each.

A humbling experience. Executed the first long leg well but probably not the optimum route choice (Edit - after looking at the GPS trace, this leg was a fail, too. Apparently I wasn't bothering to check my compass and got way off to the east. Recovery was by luck.). Total fail on execution of the second long leg (somehow did a 180 partway through). Did the third long leg well until the very end where I missed from my attackpoint. Went a bit brain dead for the next few controls and bungled around actually finding the bags at the end of the legs (not helped by the hidden bag at #9). Managed to refocus for the last part of the course and spiked the last four controls, although I would've taken the road route choice to 13 if I was fresher. Temperature about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday and not raining (sunny to start but then clouded up). Straightline distance 7.1k.

A long time out in the woods, but all good training. Thanks to the Ottawa club for putting this event on. Orienteering at the NAOCs should be awsome.

Jog/walk to start (mostly along road).

Sunday Long Advance - Splits

Day 2 of NAOC Training weekend. Middle distance course on March Highlands map (actually the course was designed with a 35 min winning time for elites and at 6.0 km may have been a bit long for that). Map is 1:10000 with 2.5 m contours, technical terrain with many small hills, marshes and small rock features. A great training opportunity on a really good map and terrain. Good visibility, quite wet underfoot with all the water features bigger than mapped. Had rained overnight and sprinkled a bit while I was out. HTFU weather since it was in the low 40's.

I had a pretty good run with only one big miss (a parallel error where I expected to find a beaver dam but ended up looking at about 40m of uncrossable pond). Probably lost 3-4 minutes. The other two misses were being off line and I recovered quickly from both. Sloppy execution on 3 or 4 other legs. Pam James caught up to me when I made the big mistake (on control 10). I got ahead of her again going to 11 and then pushed to stay ahead - good practice navigating under pressure.

Afterwards visited the Diefenbunker, the Cold War era bunker designed to house 535 of Canada's most important government officials to keep the country running in the event of nuclear war (for thirty days). Were we that naive about the meaning of "mutually assured destruction"?

Saturday Long Advanced - Splits

Event: NAOC2014 SML training weekend
 

Run around before sprinting (over to the WalMart to use the washroom).

Sprint on Kanata Centrum map near Ottowa, ON, the first part of the NAOC Training weekend. Did the short sprint (1.5 km straight line). The long sprint was ~3.5 km but had two rather straightforward long legs to get across a major highway and back, which didn't interest me. The mapped area is an outdoor shopping center consisting of several irregularly shaped buildings. Most of the route choices were "left or right" but there are some nooks and crannies to put controls in.

Had an OK run except for one major error where I added about 250 m to the 6-7 leg by taking the wrong between-the-buildings path. Doh! Cost me at least 60 or 70 seconds. Maybe another 20 seconds in hesitations on a couple of the earlier controls.

Re-ran the short sprint course at a more moderate pace and just touching the controls rather than punching. Time was faster than when I raced it and only about 30-40 seconds slower than what an error free run would've been. Knowing where all the controls are and how to get there, not looking at the map as much, not punching and not checking codes makes quite a difference. Was 1:05 faster on the 6-7 leg I botched on the first run. Overall distance was 280 m less using pretty much the same route choices except to 7.

Friday Sprint Short - Splits

Missed the start of Pilates class by about 20 min so just rowed instead. Considered doing 5k but felt some tighness in my back so stopped at 4k.

Too nice not to run around a bit. Upper 50's but a pretty stiff breeze out of the NW.

Had planned to run today but instead spent the afternoon buying a new car (alternative was to spend ~$3k to completely redo the brake system on my 10 year old car). Got a blue one.

C • That's what ...... 1

Legs tired from wandering around in the woods for 5+ hours yesterday.

Streamering points at Grafton Lakes SP for May 24 meet. Found three trails that need to be added. Otherwise not bad for a map that's 20+ years old. A splendid day in the woods - partly sunny, in the 60s, no bugs, no leaves and reasonably dry underfoot.

C • Grafton Lakes 2