Training Log Archive: WyattIn the 31 days ending Aug 31, 2011:
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Wednesday Aug 31, 2011 #
Running 20:26 [2] 3.62 km (5:39 / km) +63m 5:12 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Oh the repeated failure to start training again. 6 of the last 8 days have now been scraping above the bare minimum for my running streak criteria (> 2 miles && > 20 minutes.) None of my standard training runs are that short - that's supposed to be saved for the final taper day-before a major race..
Today was Wed. PM intervals day. Which was attended by Angelica, AJ, Oriana, Oriana's friend, and her friends younger brother, but not me.
Today's cause was a Migraine that started around 9am and slowly went from mild to threatening bad by 6pm.
I decided I'd try a short loop from home anyway to see what happened and keep the streak going, before possibly collapsing for the night, and either the run, or the 4 Excedrin over 4 hours seemed to finally turn the corner, getting me happy enough to eat dinner.
I didn't eat enough breakfast and was hungry most the day. Maybe I should eat more tomorrow. I don't think my stomach has figured out the jet lag yet - it's really hungry now again at 11 PM.
Today was Wed. PM intervals day. Which was attended by Angelica, AJ, Oriana, Oriana's friend, and her friends younger brother, but not me.
Today's cause was a Migraine that started around 9am and slowly went from mild to threatening bad by 6pm.
I decided I'd try a short loop from home anyway to see what happened and keep the streak going, before possibly collapsing for the night, and either the run, or the 4 Excedrin over 4 hours seemed to finally turn the corner, getting me happy enough to eat dinner.
I didn't eat enough breakfast and was hungry most the day. Maybe I should eat more tomorrow. I don't think my stomach has figured out the jet lag yet - it's really hungry now again at 11 PM.
Tuesday Aug 30, 2011 #
Running 21:30 [1] 3.3 km (6:31 / km) +15m 6:22 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
First day back home. Mail, yard work and took AJ on a pre-start tour of his new Middle School (starts tomorrow), then got sucked into work for 11 hours straight, eating at my desk. Lots of catch up on, and others going on Vac. soon to prepare for. Gotta set lower expectations for myself quickly to reset to a sane workload.
When I finally got out of work, and ate dinner, it was already dark, and 2 more hours to digest before a late jog - vs. the 40 minutes I'd had in mind and the 2 hours I now realize I was suposed to do (forgot it was Tuesday.) Normal training starts again tomorrow.
The 'ol' Forerunner 305 battery lasted a whopping 7 minutes today And took almost 10 tries to download, even with SportTracks. Just bought myself a Garmin Forerunner 610 for my birthday. Hopefully it'll last a while, replace my regular watch, and download better (wirelessly I hear.)
When I finally got out of work, and ate dinner, it was already dark, and 2 more hours to digest before a late jog - vs. the 40 minutes I'd had in mind and the 2 hours I now realize I was suposed to do (forgot it was Tuesday.) Normal training starts again tomorrow.
The 'ol' Forerunner 305 battery lasted a whopping 7 minutes today And took almost 10 tries to download, even with SportTracks. Just bought myself a Garmin Forerunner 610 for my birthday. Hopefully it'll last a while, replace my regular watch, and download better (wirelessly I hear.)
Monday Aug 29, 2011 #
Running 20:04 [2] 3.93 km (5:06 / km) +7m 5:04 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Up early after a caffienated (wakeful) night's sleep, to run and stretch a little before a travel day back to the US. Made it home on the 4th itinerary, which included my first A380 flight, and 4 flavors of car (rental, cab, friend, and finally our own car.)
Sunday Aug 28, 2011 #
Running 20:48 4.0 km (5:12 / km) +20m 5:04 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Late PM run after an Irene-provided extra day in Europe, spent in Neuchatel with an old work friend of Angelica, who moved to Switzerland 7 years ago from the US (where he grew up) to make life more of an interesting challenge.
One 1km surge, with intermittent street-lighting causing pace to vary btwn 4 (3:45/km) and 2 (5 min/km...)
One 1km surge, with intermittent street-lighting causing pace to vary btwn 4 (3:45/km) and 2 (5 min/km...)
Saturday Aug 27, 2011 #
Running 50:00 [2] 9.26 mi (5:24 / mi) +50m 5:19 / mi
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Downtown Beaune. A pretty old town section surrounded by a wall and moat, much of which was still intact. Only about 600m in diameter, but so many little passageways and courtyards to explore that 50 minutes only got me the perimeter and about 1/3 of the streets and passageways. I doubt my search algorithm was optimal - I was trying to make sure it was complete which was a little redundant in places even with a highly stateful algorithm. A Sprint O' here would be pretty fun.
Friday Aug 26, 2011 #
Running 23:00 [2] 3.4 km (6:46 / km) +20m 6:34 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Quick AM run on last full day in Paris, where we finally hit the Lourve, Mona Lisa etc... It occurs to me that a huge portion of the stuff they've got is naked. The garden nymphs were especially nice. I guess that never gets old...
Thursday Aug 25, 2011 #
Running 37:00 [2] 6.25 km (5:55 / km) +70m 5:36 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
paris, night, 9 rats
Wednesday Aug 24, 2011 #
Running 21:11 3.4 km (6:14 / km) +30m 5:58 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
A sad little post-lunch 'intervals' run squeeze btwn. Paris sightseeing ventures. Key constraint was I was way too full from lunch to run, so my 1 'interval' was L2 pace, instead of the L1 I was doing, and even that was unsettling enough to jog back and call it a day.
Found that the Jardin's do contain a few more runners during the day than the Seine at night.
Found that the Jardin's do contain a few more runners during the day than the Seine at night.
Tuesday Aug 23, 2011 #
Running 1:23:18 14.57 km (5:43 / km) +300m 5:11 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Long run, at night, in Paris. Gobelins - Notre Dame - Mousee Louvre - Tour Eiffel - Montparnasse - Gobelins
It's too bad my Garmin download keeps crashing, or there'd be a nice map to
go with this. And the battery only lasted 49 minutes today.
It's too bad my Garmin download keeps crashing, or there'd be a nice map to
go with this. And the battery only lasted 49 minutes today.
Monday Aug 22, 2011 #
Running 46:37 [2] 7.88 km (5:55 / km) +100m 5:34 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
From the apt. to North Dame and back. Amazed at the number of folks on the banks of the Seine at 11pm. Tourists, rollerbladers, separate groups of apparently homeless and rather fancily dressed folks making picnics on the stones just meters apart.
Sunday Aug 21, 2011 #
Running 26:32 [1] 4.25 km (6:15 / km) +32m 6:01 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Loop around the Northern parts of suburban Dijon, France on a Sunday evening in August. Recently evacuated ghost town feel - e.g. ran through a mall parking lot with spaces for 3000 cars - saw two cars.
Saturday Aug 20, 2011 #
Orienteering race 58:17 6.26 km (9:19 / km) +263m 7:42 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
WOC Spectator Event Day 6
4x4-5 minute errors. Not a good note to end on navigationally, but that's life. Beautiful forest at least for this training run, and some good splits at the end.
And AJ accidentally took an M70 map instead of M10, so got stuck with a Brown course in this ridiculously hard terrain. Splits of course were a list of mispunches. A long list. The codes of which matched the descriptions on his M70 course. OMG. AJ finished an advanced course in WOC terrain - by accident. I don't think we could've convinced him to even try this, yet, by accident, he not only tried it, but finished it. Wow!
4x4-5 minute errors. Not a good note to end on navigationally, but that's life. Beautiful forest at least for this training run, and some good splits at the end.
And AJ accidentally took an M70 map instead of M10, so got stuck with a Brown course in this ridiculously hard terrain. Splits of course were a list of mispunches. A long list. The codes of which matched the descriptions on his M70 course. OMG. AJ finished an advanced course in WOC terrain - by accident. I don't think we could've convinced him to even try this, yet, by accident, he not only tried it, but finished it. Wow!
Running warm up/down 10:00 [2] 1.6 km (6:15 / km) +10m 6:04 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Friday Aug 19, 2011 #
Orienteering race 47:06 5.97 km (7:53 / km) +50m 7:34 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
WOC spectator event, day 5, M35.
Another very challenging day of orienteering. Items on the map are on the ground, but many items on the ground are not on the map, due to terrain detail. The most obvious consequence of this is that relocation is really ambiguous. A perhaps less obvious consequence of this, is that items on the map take up more room on the map, than they do on the ground. E.g. a small clearing and reentrant on the map, that, at scale is ~15m in diameter, may, on the ground, but 3m in diameter. Or a brown pit may be 3x3m - in an area with several other slightly smaller pits, and there's only room on the map to fit one brown V, so they try to drop it on the largest pit, leaving all the other similar pits unmapped.
When looking for such bag-in-the-woods controls, you need to have confidence you are in the right place, which means never losing contact, or at least regaining in solidly, every 50m to 100m max. I was in fuzzy contact - GPS says correct, but I wasn't sure due to a failure to check compass for ~100+m - for about 250m of an off trail route. As a result, I pulled up just short on my bearing and then started map reading relocation - trying to read a vague hilltop, rather than the more solid large depressions and somehow I let that spiral, just going further and further the wrong way. Similar to my largest blowout 2 days ago, I didn't really stop and search the right area, but rather kept going way, way beyond the control area, via map reading. I think I need to relocate more strongly on a compass bearing too, esp. in this terrain. And, given some pull-up-short's recently on a bearing, holding on the bearing and looking for features around/beyond the control on the same line might be good too.
Largest error was 10.5 minutes. All the rest was ~3 minutes, so I one control from a pretty-good run.
Lacho had a similar course, and was 7.3 min/km. I was only 10-20% back from him on my nice & clean legs, but was 13min/km due to the blowout, and even only 10min/km w/o, apparently due to severe wimpiness/hesitation (see intensity, HR was really lowish a lot of the time.) 2000 controls, and a more consistent prep-to-race might do me good too.
Another very challenging day of orienteering. Items on the map are on the ground, but many items on the ground are not on the map, due to terrain detail. The most obvious consequence of this is that relocation is really ambiguous. A perhaps less obvious consequence of this, is that items on the map take up more room on the map, than they do on the ground. E.g. a small clearing and reentrant on the map, that, at scale is ~15m in diameter, may, on the ground, but 3m in diameter. Or a brown pit may be 3x3m - in an area with several other slightly smaller pits, and there's only room on the map to fit one brown V, so they try to drop it on the largest pit, leaving all the other similar pits unmapped.
When looking for such bag-in-the-woods controls, you need to have confidence you are in the right place, which means never losing contact, or at least regaining in solidly, every 50m to 100m max. I was in fuzzy contact - GPS says correct, but I wasn't sure due to a failure to check compass for ~100+m - for about 250m of an off trail route. As a result, I pulled up just short on my bearing and then started map reading relocation - trying to read a vague hilltop, rather than the more solid large depressions and somehow I let that spiral, just going further and further the wrong way. Similar to my largest blowout 2 days ago, I didn't really stop and search the right area, but rather kept going way, way beyond the control area, via map reading. I think I need to relocate more strongly on a compass bearing too, esp. in this terrain. And, given some pull-up-short's recently on a bearing, holding on the bearing and looking for features around/beyond the control on the same line might be good too.
Largest error was 10.5 minutes. All the rest was ~3 minutes, so I one control from a pretty-good run.
Lacho had a similar course, and was 7.3 min/km. I was only 10-20% back from him on my nice & clean legs, but was 13min/km due to the blowout, and even only 10min/km w/o, apparently due to severe wimpiness/hesitation (see intensity, HR was really lowish a lot of the time.) 2000 controls, and a more consistent prep-to-race might do me good too.
Running warm up/down 15:00 [2] 2.5 km (6:00 / km) +120m 4:50 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Uphill warmup, for a mostly flat/downhill race.
Thursday Aug 18, 2011 #
Note
8/17 was a disaster - 20-25 min. lost. And I considered this the final nail in the coffin of the already remote-seeming possibility that I would be navigating superbly in France, which could've made it sensible for me to run the WOC Relay for the US. While it is individually competitively-disappointing to not be cleaner in this terrain or faster in general, I'm also competitive from a USA-team perspective, and in the vein, I see Jordan & Sergei navigating comparably, and physically able to do much better in the relay-important aspect of sticking to the faster teams when they are around. With Ross, Jordan & Sergei, I think we've got a least a possibility of a fairly competitive finish, perhaps as close as 10-20% overall vs. the winning team - maybe even closer if the navigation knocks the leaders back, as happens often here in France.
8/18's M35 race was good, and 1 control from great. 5+ minutes lost on one bag, then 60s hes. nav., then 20s, then a few 10sec/5sec's led to 5th place finish. Maybe I will figure out this terrain, right before I leave :)
Good internet only when I visit Angelica's hotel is hampering the training log, likely for others on the team as well. At the Team hotel, internet only works a few minutes each hour, apparently even for the hotel manager/owner - one of the few disappointments of an otherwise nice hotel.
8/18's M35 race was good, and 1 control from great. 5+ minutes lost on one bag, then 60s hes. nav., then 20s, then a few 10sec/5sec's led to 5th place finish. Maybe I will figure out this terrain, right before I leave :)
Good internet only when I visit Angelica's hotel is hampering the training log, likely for others on the team as well. At the Team hotel, internet only works a few minutes each hour, apparently even for the hotel manager/owner - one of the few disappointments of an otherwise nice hotel.
Orienteering race 1:18:25 10.0 km (7:51 / km) +390m 6:34 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
O-Fest Day 4 M35 race was good, and 1 control from great. 5+ minutes lost on one bag, then 60s hes. nav., then 20s, then a few 10sec/5sec's led to 5th place finish. Maybe I will figure out this terrain, right before I leave :)
Paused 10 sec's to look at the beautiful view of Chamberry from the cross on the cliff - allowing Magnus to beat me - my only chance. Ah, tradeoffs...
Paused 10 sec's to look at the beautiful view of Chamberry from the cross on the cliff - allowing Magnus to beat me - my only chance. Ah, tradeoffs...
Running warm up/down 15:00 [2] 2.5 km (6:00 / km) +30m 5:40 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Jog down to the start.
Wednesday Aug 17, 2011 #
Orienteering race 59:33 6.0 km (9:56 / km) +150m 8:49 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Spectator Event # 3 was a disaster - 20-25 min. lost. I considered this the final nail in the coffin of the already remote-seeming possibility that I would be navigating superbly in France, which could've made it sensible for me to run the WOC Relay for the US. While it is individually competitively-disappointing to not be cleaner in this terrain or faster in general, I'm also competitive from a USA-team perspective, and in that vein, I see Jordan & Sergei navigating comparably, and physically able to do much better in the relay-important aspect of sticking to the faster teams when they are around. With Ross, Jordan & Sergei, I think we've got a least a possibility of a fairly competitive finish, perhaps as close as 10-20% overall vs. the winning team - maybe even closer if the navigation knocks the leaders back, as happens often here in France.
Looks like I won a split, perhaps my only one all week. Perhaps I should dig up the map. [added later] Dug up the map and found the key to winning this split was that I'd done 2/3 of 9-10 in reverse, trying to find 9, and I had just seen Clem coming out of 9, and had a vague hope (not realized) of catching back up to him. The quick rough compass angle to the yellow line, then realizing the bright-yellow-line led right into the control (with shape of line in mind) is the repeatable portion of this good habit.
On the bad things (adds to 21:15, removal of which would've been good enough for a win of M35 - I was running well today physically, after the WOC Sprint = Wyatt rest day.)
1) :15 - too vague attack across hilltop, surpised to see control behind me to my left, but reasonably close
2) 4:00 - went right through saddle, but apparently got off bearing, found wrong clearings, and bounced around in several of them before popping back out from way too far east in obviously the right clearing, with a bag on a knoll. Not sure how I didn't see it before.
3) OMG 8:30 - bailed poorly to the trail, should've gone more SE to the small trail maybe? Attacked from wrong bend in trail, following wrong line of weaker depression-clearings. Ended up in medium green crisscrossing deadfall over stony ground (= 1-2m+ deep 0.1-1m wide cracks in moss covered limestone) before bailing out to surprisinginly find 4...
8) 5:00 - Rough compass to try to pick up clearings, eventually bailing to clearing at west, back to trail at south and reattack. Still not sure if I missed it north or south of the bad. Maybe north, but surprised I didn't see it as it was a reasonably large depression, with heavy traffic...
9) 3:30 - bail was awfully slow (stuck, go back), and then initial attack was okay, but lack of compass discipline let me drift right, and pick up a different set of depressions. Relocated on a control in a depression near 10.
Official distance 3.5k - my distance guessed - left GPS at home (it's too bad - would've been nice to figure out what happened in places.)
Looks like I won a split, perhaps my only one all week. Perhaps I should dig up the map. [added later] Dug up the map and found the key to winning this split was that I'd done 2/3 of 9-10 in reverse, trying to find 9, and I had just seen Clem coming out of 9, and had a vague hope (not realized) of catching back up to him. The quick rough compass angle to the yellow line, then realizing the bright-yellow-line led right into the control (with shape of line in mind) is the repeatable portion of this good habit.
On the bad things (adds to 21:15, removal of which would've been good enough for a win of M35 - I was running well today physically, after the WOC Sprint = Wyatt rest day.)
1) :15 - too vague attack across hilltop, surpised to see control behind me to my left, but reasonably close
2) 4:00 - went right through saddle, but apparently got off bearing, found wrong clearings, and bounced around in several of them before popping back out from way too far east in obviously the right clearing, with a bag on a knoll. Not sure how I didn't see it before.
3) OMG 8:30 - bailed poorly to the trail, should've gone more SE to the small trail maybe? Attacked from wrong bend in trail, following wrong line of weaker depression-clearings. Ended up in medium green crisscrossing deadfall over stony ground (= 1-2m+ deep 0.1-1m wide cracks in moss covered limestone) before bailing out to surprisinginly find 4...
8) 5:00 - Rough compass to try to pick up clearings, eventually bailing to clearing at west, back to trail at south and reattack. Still not sure if I missed it north or south of the bad. Maybe north, but surprised I didn't see it as it was a reasonably large depression, with heavy traffic...
9) 3:30 - bail was awfully slow (stuck, go back), and then initial attack was okay, but lack of compass discipline let me drift right, and pick up a different set of depressions. Relocated on a control in a depression near 10.
Official distance 3.5k - my distance guessed - left GPS at home (it's too bad - would've been nice to figure out what happened in places.)
Running warm up/down 15:00 [2] 2.2 km (6:49 / km) +20m 6:31 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
To start and some running from car to finish area
Tuesday Aug 16, 2011 #
Running 25:00 3.5 km (7:09 / km) +20m 6:57 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
WOC Sprint and a relative-rest day for me. Cheering while walking around town in the Quali was pretty cool. Sad that none of the guys got into the final, but good to see Ali & Sam in! And both, esp. Ali, had good speed in the final, just with unfortunate errors. Ali 1 control away from a ~top 10 finish was pretty amazing. Very strong physically, and very hard-working in her technical orienteering.
Time logged is jogging around spectating mostly in the Quali & some in the Final.
Time logged is jogging around spectating mostly in the Quali & some in the Final.
Monday Aug 15, 2011 #
Orienteering race 1:22:33 9.0 km (9:10 / km) +400m 7:30 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Spectator Event 2 - some easier legs, some major hills. 11th in M35. Haven't done splits analysis yet, but estimate (which matched yesterday) was 5 minutes - though estimate was very quick, and is correspondingly coarse. Course was shorter, and somewhat fewer controls, but this stills seems comparable to yesterday's accuracy, perhaps a bit better?
Physically still not pushing super hard due to unclear place on/off the WOC Relay team coming up on the 20th, and perhaps residual tiredness due to WOC Quali effort level.
Just checked and was 15 minutes behind Magnus, and 18 behind course leader, so maybe underestimated by slopiness? Or my sloth in climbing some of the hills, or dealing with the mud?
Got much better parking by waving my WOC badge today, something it wasn't clear on the allowance of yesterday.
Physically still not pushing super hard due to unclear place on/off the WOC Relay team coming up on the 20th, and perhaps residual tiredness due to WOC Quali effort level.
Just checked and was 15 minutes behind Magnus, and 18 behind course leader, so maybe underestimated by slopiness? Or my sloth in climbing some of the hills, or dealing with the mud?
Got much better parking by waving my WOC badge today, something it wasn't clear on the allowance of yesterday.
Running warm up/down 7:00 [2] 1.2 km (5:50 / km) +30m 5:11 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Warmup only. I've been skipping cooldowns all week. Bad?
Sunday Aug 14, 2011 #
Orienteering 1:02:49 **** 7.42 km (8:28 / km) +300m 7:03 / km
spiked:8/18c shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Spectator Event 1 - physically aiming for 3 pace, not 4 pace max. Cleaner than many perhaps, due to terrain practice (models & WOC Quali) so managed 9th, down to 8-minutes = 25 sec/control, using 20% behind superman in M35 (much easier than WOC Quali's 40% behind :) ). It's going to be hard to get to ~1 minute clean in this terrain. Maybe, but not sure when.
GPS died after 33 minutes. Battery life is going to crap. Wonder if something happened on the plane or other travel, as the reduction in life seems rather abrupt.
Distance note - official course length was 4.5km and my route isn't polluted by 3km of errors - running around on navigable trails (incl. indistinct) or via the more recognizable contour or clearing-features is a key part of the game here.
GPS died after 33 minutes. Battery life is going to crap. Wonder if something happened on the plane or other travel, as the reduction in life seems rather abrupt.
Distance note - official course length was 4.5km and my route isn't polluted by 3km of errors - running around on navigable trails (incl. indistinct) or via the more recognizable contour or clearing-features is a key part of the game here.
Running warm up/down 10:00 [2] 1.5 km (6:40 / km) +40m 5:53 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Run to start. Late, due to parking 4km away, and 200m below, the finish area. Even hitched a ride halfway, but getting the kids up there, and settled into French childcare (Oriana) and onto White, just on time (AJ) was higher prioirty than my start. Fortunately, the organizers adjusted my start time due to the bad parking planning, and no-notification of how far it might be...
Saturday Aug 13, 2011 #
Orienteering warm up/down 20:00 [2] 2.83 km (7:04 / km) +15m 6:53 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Jogging around on rocky trails warmup - a few short segments then about 7-8 minutes in a row, then active stretches (4 types), then jogging about 5 minutes on the way to the start. Well hydrated (lots of stops by the boys' room), with water, ~0.3L each of Coke & Gatorade, plus 1 pre-start Excedrin pre-emptively for the head. Well focused with plenty of time to quadruple check various things like shoe tying, etc...
Orienteering race 1:46:30 [4] 12.0 km (8:53 / km) +500m 7:21 / km
spiked:7/21c shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
(8/18 update, at Angelica's hotel, which has functional Internet...)
WOC Long qualifier, Men's A. 29th place of ~40, only 15 qualify for finals, so, missed final. Missing the Final was expected.
Navigationally, given my level of understanding of the terrain (well-scattered 15-20 hours of pre-study, plus 2 model days and post-analysis of that), I think I had a moderate run. No major blowouts, but not really clean, with several moderate errors up to 3.5 minutes, slowly stacking up. Felt like I was just leaking time left and right. Only spiked about half the controls. If I chose to spend the time attending the various training camps offered in this terrain over the past year or two, with flights to Europe and weeks away from family & work, I likely could've cut the navigational errors significantly, but that's a very heavy investment to make in one race that I didn't even expect to run until late this year.
Physically I felt like I could run okay, when the terrain allowed. The L-achilles wasn't a noticable problem (moreso the next day on some bad steps in the forest). But when the world elite went by me, it didn't matter if it was uphill, downhill, or flat, most of the men were going faster than me. In particular, a Swede on a downhill, a Finn on a sidehill, and a Norwegian on a King-of-the-mountain leg (one of two on the course) just ran away from me at 20-30% faster.. In some ways I felt like a spectator running along. There were a few other men out there at my pace, and a few others with camelback's I could pass, but I'm clearly a level or two behind the elite tier.
Overall, the terrain was hard enough that with a super-clean run, I could've been surprisingly close to qualifying - on my 'good' splits (7-8 of them), I was 36-42% behind the split-winner. Cutoff was close to 30%+ behind superman (sum-of-splits-winners). But that still means I'm too slow, in this terrain, to qualify.
In a parallel universe, it would interesting for me to try the Euro-orienteering-circuit life. I'm glad Sam, Ross, Cristina, and Sandra are doing this. That may help. And I'm quite happy to see Ali reaching world class even without a full-time Euro-circuit training plan (at least not yet :). Apparently 2000+ controls in 8 months, including a moderate amount of travel-to-train, is working for her.
WOC Long qualifier, Men's A. 29th place of ~40, only 15 qualify for finals, so, missed final. Missing the Final was expected.
Navigationally, given my level of understanding of the terrain (well-scattered 15-20 hours of pre-study, plus 2 model days and post-analysis of that), I think I had a moderate run. No major blowouts, but not really clean, with several moderate errors up to 3.5 minutes, slowly stacking up. Felt like I was just leaking time left and right. Only spiked about half the controls. If I chose to spend the time attending the various training camps offered in this terrain over the past year or two, with flights to Europe and weeks away from family & work, I likely could've cut the navigational errors significantly, but that's a very heavy investment to make in one race that I didn't even expect to run until late this year.
Physically I felt like I could run okay, when the terrain allowed. The L-achilles wasn't a noticable problem (moreso the next day on some bad steps in the forest). But when the world elite went by me, it didn't matter if it was uphill, downhill, or flat, most of the men were going faster than me. In particular, a Swede on a downhill, a Finn on a sidehill, and a Norwegian on a King-of-the-mountain leg (one of two on the course) just ran away from me at 20-30% faster.. In some ways I felt like a spectator running along. There were a few other men out there at my pace, and a few others with camelback's I could pass, but I'm clearly a level or two behind the elite tier.
Overall, the terrain was hard enough that with a super-clean run, I could've been surprisingly close to qualifying - on my 'good' splits (7-8 of them), I was 36-42% behind the split-winner. Cutoff was close to 30%+ behind superman (sum-of-splits-winners). But that still means I'm too slow, in this terrain, to qualify.
In a parallel universe, it would interesting for me to try the Euro-orienteering-circuit life. I'm glad Sam, Ross, Cristina, and Sandra are doing this. That may help. And I'm quite happy to see Ali reaching world class even without a full-time Euro-circuit training plan (at least not yet :). Apparently 2000+ controls in 8 months, including a moderate amount of travel-to-train, is working for her.
Friday Aug 12, 2011 #
Orienteering 30:00 5.0 km (6:00 / km) +150m 5:13 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
2nd model event/training day, on the 1:15000 print of a portion of tough woods about 2km south of tomorrow's finish. Navigated pretty well to the controls. Had a really hard time finding one of the black (dangerous) pits. Time/dist includes the run to/from the map or it would be much slower per/km (10-15 in the woods, typ.)
Thursday Aug 11, 2011 #
Orienteering 42:00 3.3 km (12:44 / km) +100m 11:03 / km
shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Long distance model event controls on Thu. PM after arriving in Geneva at 11am, and bags arriving a bit later. Managed to learn a bit about the mapping style and terrain. Terrain was physically bad, but no worse than expected based on others' posts. Mapping was running-speed simplified - looking for the big stuff seemed to match up ok. Relocating off little stuff was near impossible, as I'd interpret it all differently than the mapper would, IMO.
Wednesday Aug 10, 2011 #
Running 21:07 3.3 km (6:24 / km) +44m 6:00 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Little neighborhood loop, in the AM, before traveling Newark, Amsterdam, Geneva
Tuesday Aug 9, 2011 #
Running 58:26 9.5 km (6:09 / km) +120m 5:47 / km
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Loop around the neighborhood with Angelica & Tom.
Monday Aug 8, 2011 #
Running 21:37 [2] 2.32 mi (9:19 / mi) +40m 8:51 / mi
slept:8.0 shoes: R-NB 461 Black
611 days in a row, keeping it counting at 11pm... (>2miles & >20 minutes...)
Legs a bit sore after pushing well this past weekend. Unusual. I think that in general, I've forgotten how to push myself to the point of sore legs the next 2-days.
1st of 3 easy days here, then a short-fast training day in France on Thu. PM, a short-easy training day + lots of map walking in France on Fri. PM, and then a WOC Quali on Sat. PM.
Forgot the GPS http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4704614
Legs a bit sore after pushing well this past weekend. Unusual. I think that in general, I've forgotten how to push myself to the point of sore legs the next 2-days.
1st of 3 easy days here, then a short-fast training day in France on Thu. PM, a short-easy training day + lots of map walking in France on Fri. PM, and then a WOC Quali on Sat. PM.
Forgot the GPS http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4704614
Sunday Aug 7, 2011 #
6 AM
Orienteering race 1:30:35 13.99 km (6:28 / km) +292m 5:52 / km
ahr:161 max:169 shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Very nice way to cap the week. A fairly clean run @ Buffalo. The one control where I'd made a 30 second mistake vs. my intended route actually took me on a loop around some green, and I ended up winning the split by accident...
And to top it off, it was enough to combine with their 3-events scoring to put me ahead of Jon T. for the weekend, making it my first whole-weekend M21 A-event win ever.
Now to carry that momentum to France!
And to top it off, it was enough to combine with their 3-events scoring to put me ahead of Jon T. for the weekend, making it my first whole-weekend M21 A-event win ever.
Now to carry that momentum to France!
Saturday Aug 6, 2011 #
Event: Canal Cities Challenge
7 AM
Running warm up/down 5:39 0.74 km (7:41 / km) +23m 6:39 / km
ahr:126 max:138 shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Orienteering race 42:42 6.14 km (6:57 / km) +117m 6:21 / km
ahr:164 max:175 shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Felt quite sloppy with lots of 30-90 second leaks, but running well enough vs. the competition currently that it wasn't too bad.
11 AM
Orienteering race 13:13 2.88 km (4:36 / km) +30m 4:22 / km
ahr:169 max:176 shoes: O-Icebug Sisu 10.5
Friday Aug 5, 2011 #
4 AM
Running 30:00 [2] 2.8 mi (10:43 / mi) +20m 10:29 / mi
shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Loop around the Laundromat in the early AM before a day at Niagara Falls, ON. Came across a trail, I'd guess by these folks?, in a Williamsville neighborhood that had a ton of runners on the sidewalks - at 10pm and 7am....
Thursday Aug 4, 2011 #
2 PM
Running 31:30 4.92 km (6:24 / km) +24m 6:15 / km
ahr:110 max:140 shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Wednesday Aug 3, 2011 #
1 PM
Orienteering 39:20 3.84 km (10:14 / km) +111m 8:57 / km
ahr:102 max:137 shoes: R-NB 461 Black
Tuesday Aug 2, 2011 #
Orienteering race 16:22 3.2 km (5:07 / km) +100m 4:25 / km
shoes: O-Inov8 Mudclaw 330
The daily Sprint. Choice A. Not quite full race pace, but not jogging either. L-achilles still annoying, but as it's not worsening, I imagine it'll get better at some point here.
Apparently got beat by the Child's - easy to know that thanks to fast Splits posting (thanks ROC!). Even digging to find 40 seconds of possibly avoidable technical mistakes still puts me slower than Ethan ran & navigated.
I wonder - where were the Child's at the US Team Trials? And could one of them be an early beneficiary of the slightly easier "specialist" exception, now becoming part of the rules tor Team Trials 2012. (Slightly = slightly: must win one of the SML Champs or Trials Event days, to be considered for a possible Exception to the normal scoring list. But conceivably useful for someone who's fastest in the US at Sprint's, even if they aren't in top 4-5 on typical Middle/Long Champs yet...)
Apparently got beat by the Child's - easy to know that thanks to fast Splits posting (thanks ROC!). Even digging to find 40 seconds of possibly avoidable technical mistakes still puts me slower than Ethan ran & navigated.
I wonder - where were the Child's at the US Team Trials? And could one of them be an early beneficiary of the slightly easier "specialist" exception, now becoming part of the rules tor Team Trials 2012. (Slightly = slightly: must win one of the SML Champs or Trials Event days, to be considered for a possible Exception to the normal scoring list. But conceivably useful for someone who's fastest in the US at Sprint's, even if they aren't in top 4-5 on typical Middle/Long Champs yet...)
Orienteering intervals 3:04 [4] 0.5 km (6:08 / km) +4m 5:54 / km
shoes: O-Inov8 Mudclaw 330
2x the super string-O' sprint. almost 30 controls, effectively epunch skills testing. Run before my normal Sprint was faster - surprisingly, as I thought I'd be warmed up better after. Though b4 I was smoother at epunching which was a huge portion of the time on this course.
Orienteering 16:00 2.5 km (6:24 / km) +80m 5:31 / km
shoes: O-Inov8 Mudclaw 330
Memory O' - was supposed to be w/partner every other leg, but late arrival coordination turned it into a single person affair. Aimed to memorize 7 controls. Carried map w/me and had to look at it once, when my simplified memory of one control didn't include a steep enough climb up a side hill and I ended up 1 spur off.
Continuation of an excellent set of 'training camp' afternoons by ROC after AM convention stuff.
Continuation of an excellent set of 'training camp' afternoons by ROC after AM convention stuff.
Monday Aug 1, 2011 #
Orienteering 38:13 4.44 km (8:36 / km) +130m 7:30 / km
shoes: O-Inov8 Mudclaw 330
1st day of a well put together training week by ROC. Oh, and there's a convention too in the AM (Youth Camp of which is why I'm even here...)
Orienteering 45:00 6.5 km (6:55 / km) +120m 6:20 / km
shoes: O-Inov8 Mudclaw 330
Dusk to Dark Night Score O, Shadowing AJ & Thomas Laria, with a little advice, especially as we neared the end, and arriving late became a serious risk.