Training Log Archive: TomNIn the 7 days ending Oct 11, 2014:
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Saturday Oct 11, 2014 #
Orienteering race 1:06:22 [3] ***** 3.7 km (17:56 / km) +65m 16:29 / km
shoes: Icebug olx 2nd
NAOC Middle, Course 7b (M55). I kind of figured this wasn't going to go very well. I have trouble with maps in which heavy thresholding was necessary. Not that this was a bad map -- to the contrary, it was clean and sensible, and clearly the right way to map this terrain. My problem is that I can't do the thresholding in the field. I see knolls and rocks that appear visually large, but they're unmapped because they're on elevated bases. And, like #8 on the long course, I fail to see a boulder that appears insignificant among much taller features.
So, lots of trouble finding controls, like #2, #5, #7, #10-11-12. Also problems with cross-country routes when I couldn't properly recognize intermediate features. From 6 to 7, I tried to attack from the rocky spur, but I mistakenly chose the spur just before it, which also had rocks (smaller, and unmapped).
Then the killer, skipping #13 altogether. This is a perceptual issue, just like last week's middle. When I learned that I had mispunched, I looked again at the map and saw #13 for the first time, as though it had been printed in invisible ink that had just materialized on the paper. I had been seeing the line as if it ran directly from 12 to 14.
So, lots of trouble finding controls, like #2, #5, #7, #10-11-12. Also problems with cross-country routes when I couldn't properly recognize intermediate features. From 6 to 7, I tried to attack from the rocky spur, but I mistakenly chose the spur just before it, which also had rocks (smaller, and unmapped).
Then the killer, skipping #13 altogether. This is a perceptual issue, just like last week's middle. When I learned that I had mispunched, I looked again at the map and saw #13 for the first time, as though it had been printed in invisible ink that had just materialized on the paper. I had been seeing the line as if it ran directly from 12 to 14.
Sunday Oct 5, 2014 #
Orienteering race 35:34 [5] 3.5 km (10:10 / km)
shoes: Icebug olx 2nd
U.S. Nationals Middle Green. I had a fine run with only one problem (but it was a big one): I skipped #12. I never even saw it on the map, and went straight from 11 to 13. I was pushing pretty hard at that point, but it turned out I wasn't in medal contention anyway.
I took a conservative route down the road to #1 (no repeat of yesterday's disaster), and had an easy time with 2, along the narrow ridge to the spur ( and further down than I thought it was going to be). Then 3 and 4 were in complex contour areas, but they were close enough together that a bearing and a control description were good enough. But on 5 I lost a couple of minutes. I went around the lake to the left, and even though the big reentrant was going to be obvious I kept on reading carefully through the terrain and checking off everything I saw, finally going up too high into the big reentrant before coming down to the control.
I took a conservative route down the road to #1 (no repeat of yesterday's disaster), and had an easy time with 2, along the narrow ridge to the spur ( and further down than I thought it was going to be). Then 3 and 4 were in complex contour areas, but they were close enough together that a bearing and a control description were good enough. But on 5 I lost a couple of minutes. I went around the lake to the left, and even though the big reentrant was going to be obvious I kept on reading carefully through the terrain and checking off everything I saw, finally going up too high into the big reentrant before coming down to the control.