Training Log Archive: ndobbs

Well, let's just say that normally I'd be happy beating Marcus by 15 minutes.

Umm. Marcus and I provided some entertainment. I presume others will soon enough. http://www.orienteering.ie/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.c...

IOC Middle.

Nerves affected me a bit from the start, not very smooth or good to 1/2/3, though no disasters. 4 was easy, along the edge of the steep then drop in. Short leg down to 5, go slightly left, hitting the big rock cluster, foot in hole, fall forwards, arms in holes too, oops. Take a moment to get up, doesn't feel very racy.
Go to where I think 5 might be, no control, no real understanding of where I should go. Look below and all around, trying to place big isolated rocks I can see far off, but they don't make too much sense, and the local stuff doesn't make much sense either. Do a little spin around a bit more of the rocky stuff, no control. Hmm. Better do a firm relocate. Run to stream, except I'm at the point where there's no stream, pass it and come back, sure where I am. Run towards control, don't really understand anything much, pass where I previously pondered, try a bit further on, nope, go up the hill a bit, not much makes sense there either, look down, see someone and Catherine pop in under a rock and out again, maybe they are punching something? Drop down, control.
Strange, I was sure there should have been more rock to the right, but grass... maybe it's not in the right place. Stop and try to make sense of it for a few seconds, nope. Back to, umm, racing, 8 minutes lost. EIGHT MINUTES.

6 easy enough, boulders on the stream and across the stream were huge and clear, and then could see the cliff above the control. 7, went up to about the right level, then contoured across, not exactly sure where I was, and not making much sense of the re-entrants --- difficult to interpret, difficult to map --- but the control appeared not unexpectedly.
8 was poor, ran across to the rock, but went to the big cliff below the control because I couldn't see it on the map. Another 40s lost.
9, ran to above the stream, pretty obvious where the slope was curving, then to the boulder beyond, having decided where on the map it was not. Met Hugh coming down ("don't mind me, I'm heading in"). Up to past 9, thought I was at the 'stream' bend, but apparently not. Back to control, yay.
Since I came in to 9 at not the angle I thought, I went out at a funny angle too, or maybe I just didn't pay enough attention to compass. Hit a bunch of big peat hags, thought I might be near 10, but doesn't make sense, hmm. Worked out where I was eventually, a long way down from 10, oops. And were they unmapped, the hags? Even in the circle at 10 I messed up, didn't really understand that stuff. 4 minutes.

Better from here on, not sure if I just worked out better what I could use or what...
11, went right of line, past cut-out with marsh and peat hag, passed Ger(!), hit linear bank, then down to control, no prob. 12, aimed between boulder and control, watched out for boulder, saw boulder to my left, nice. Easy in. 13... one boulder, two boulders. 14, ran to re-entrant, saw knoll lower in re-entrant, guessed where it might be, ran to where 14 might be relative, stopped to read map, saw control 3 metres away, ha. 15 I didn't quite understand what was going on, so went slightly above and past. 16. finish.

Printing on grainy waterproof paper is unacceptable (in detailed terrain at IOC). And while waterproof, it is not bloodproof, skinned a fingertip today.

Annoyed with #5. Annoyed with printing. Happy the end of the course went well, feeling good about Classic.

Results were not at all what I expected. At all.

C • Done 3

Middle 1 - Splits

IOC Sprint, NUI Maynooth.

Solid run, lost a few seconds a couple of times, just nowhere near the speed of Darren.

Course and map were good, hats off to Mr Quinn.

I could see where I was going.
https://www.facebook.com/Irish.Orienteering/photos...

Sprint 1 - Splits

Stretching the legs before lunch.

Another reasonably solid month of training, 24h, of which 15h orienteering, and that with a bit of rest thrown in this week and last.

Only skipped two days of oranssivalkoinen huhtikuu, so reasonably good there too.

Yay.

C • of which 15h orienteering 1

WotD is hitting the bigtime (1h19 or so into Tuesday's episode).

Ovh: a tiomila course plus http://www.yokuppi.net/tracker/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?...

So I think I got bitten on Sunday by something that was neither mosquito nor deerfly, nor horsefly, nor midge, nor hornet, nor moosefly. But I don't know what it was. I didn't see it bite, just saw blood (thus not mosquito...) and it didn't hurt. There's a swelling still. Any ideas what it could have been?

C • Bite 7

Oops, flying to Ireland without a raincoat. That's asking for trouble.

On the Jokeri (550 bus) this morning, an old, old man got on, flashed something to the driver and said words including ilman and sotaveteraani, or some such. Impressive.

Päivänsana: raskaasti ... I don't know what it means, but apparently I should.

To the library to print something, then valintatalo, then home. Included 4 minutes fast. Haven't done that for a while.

RG from Saturday - http://www.resultfellows.com/reittiharveli/gadget/...

Ovh: this, and Pasi's routes on the elite course.

C • Pasi or Fail? 3

Is NUIM embargoed for the sprint? http://www.nuim.ie/node/322650

I won't ask how the start list in the sprint was seeded.

C • NUIM 1

One wouldn't want to run off the map at the Finnish Champs in a month's time... https://goo.gl/maps/Ip0Vr

FinnSpring viesti

HS IV.3 with Anto, Lauri R and Pekka.

40th, averaging 1/3 slower than the fastest of around 45 mins/leg.

I still felt a bit tired, but better than yesterday, perhaps new shoes and a little flatter (?) terrain helped.

Reasonably good navigation, but not happy yet. Actually, looking back, I was pretty tired today too :) It only turned into mistakes on 7 (50s?) and in-the-circle losses of 10-20s on 6, 9. 14, 17, but there was a bunch of struggling to read the map and route hesitations and whatnot on 5, 7, 8, 9, 10...

And en route to 15, near the top of the green, I whipped a sapling into my eye, ow. Couldn't do much with that eye for the next half-minute, but it seems like it's just bruised.


Overnighting in the arena worked wonderfully. It was a little chilly outside my sleeping-bag, but by 8am the place was already warming up nicely. And I ddin't have to get up at 6 to catch a bus. Hurrah.

This felt like a breakthrough weekend wrt Finnish. I had at least three 'proper' conversations essentially in Finnish. Weird.