Training Log Archive: Gswede

Event: Harriman Orienteering Festival
 

5k with a few gallons of water

Control pickup.

So there it is, the Harriman O-Fest.

Loads of inefficiencies. Things to learn from. Been noting them down all day. It feels frustrating when you tried to prepare for everything. I suppose you don't know what to prepare for until you go through it once or twice. I'll take those lessons forward and organize better next year.

Lots of good stuff too though. The controls were in the right spot and still there. Everyone seemed to be happy with the courses. Everyone who signed up got to orienteer in a beautiful area. So at a basic level, it was a success.

Thanks to all my juniors and junior parents for helping me out. Thanks to Geof and Craig for guiding me through a lot of unknowns. Thanks to several very helpful HVO members who know how to make sportident programs work better than I do.

Thanks to Kseniya for signing up last minute to pick up controls and help out in general. You saved me an extra hour out picking up controls.

And thanks to Jeff for bringing his crew from Ottawa and then helping me out with all the little things.

And thanks to everyone who came out. Your combined support raised more than $3,000 for our juniors who must travel across the country and world for this sport.

I also hope with this I can again start paying back into the community for all the races I've gone to. I think I can only do one race like this per year though, at least for now.

One thing I noticed is a similar feeling to when I would go to track or cross country meets in college while injured: I wanted to be out there. I wanted to be in the mix fighting for the top spot. It was a bit surprising because I haven't felt that competitive fire for a little while now. But with this event behind me and my future home being in the Poconos with dozens of maps nearby, I am ready to really go after this. My eyes are on Norway, but I've got a few other goals to check off along the way.

Hiking at the start with more running as I got lighter.

So many maps

The wheels haven't fallen off so far. Sleep is getting a little scarce. Just gotta take the next step and make it to Monday.

Feeling tired and unmotivated.

I don't have much of a fire right now. Perhaps that's not important right now. I don't need to start seriously training quite yet. I think that also between coaching and competing, I've just had too much orienteering without a true break for too long. It'll be good to go see my Spanish friend who has never orienteered.

But at the same time, I am excited at the prospect of having my friend Richi make training courses for me. He's recently gone into private orienteering coaching with our mutual friend Borja. Their company is called Wolf-O (https://wolfotraining.wixsite.com/wolfo) and it's an interesting concept.

Borja designs physical training plans and Richi designs training sessions on maps in your area and then also helps with error analysis. Richi is a bit stronger technically than I am. But even if he wasn't better, just getting feedback from another source is powerful.

Taking a two day break since there are no big competitions coming up for a while and I've got loads of event organizing and translating to do.