Training Log Archive: Liam Dufty

Oceania Sprint - M18A (same course as M20/M21E). 1st in the 18s, although there were 4 people eligible for 18s that entered 20s that beat my time. Not a super clean run but no disasters. A lot of the controls were really tucked away in spots that were hard to see, and I think I was relatively good about being confident enough of where I was in the control circle to find them pretty efficiently. Had mistakes as I overshot the path for the route I was going to take as I was coming out of the control circle at #6 and #13. I still had equal fastest split to #6 but I lost 20s on #13. Worst mistake was probably #8, my initial route choice went over an uncrossable wall so I had to adjust but I lost my place and ran straight past my #8 to my #10. #10 was only 20-30m past though so I probably only lost 15-20s. I had been caught by Toby Cazzolato (1 min) at #6 and he got well ahead after that mistake at #8. I had been seeing Hugh Giblin and Isaac ahead at various crossover points in the course for a while, finally caught Hugh (3 min) at around #15 but at that point Isaac had pulled away from him. I started to pull away from Hugh a bit, but he caught back up on #19 since I tried to take a shortcut to run diagonally across the hill to the bottom of the stairs only to find that the bottom of the stairs was a meter above the ground. It still can't tell whether the fence was supposed to be crossable or not but I ended up running back to the top of the hill and then down the stairs again. Pulled away from Hugh, then got caught by Torren Arthur (2 min) at #21. I got ahead of him again on the next one since he tried to cut into the green earlier and got stuck fighting the bush. Didn't have enough left in me for a good finish sprint after a 21 minute sprint course, I did 7s fastest was 6s.

Sprint Course 1 - Splits

Event: Oceania Championships
 

Camp Champs at Trevallyn. Mass start with everyone leaving at the same time. First few people to each control had to grab a peg from the control and get an extra control before the next one while everyone else continued on the normal course. Was not trying to run too hard or keep up with the top group so I didn't tire myself out before Oceania.

First four controls there was a train of people in front of me leading me into the control so I didn't have to do much navigating on my own. #5 I took a different route going along a track in order to avoid the green on the straight line, but when I got to that section the part mapped as white was as thick as the green, maybe thicker. Lost some time there and got caught by Rachel, Aldo, and a few others.

#6 was on a brown cross which on this map was always the roots of a fallen log. It was surrounded by bracken and loads of other logs on the ground that made it hard to see and impossible to pick which was which. I wasn't confident of exactly where I was because I was relying on the group in front of me to lead me into it, but they were all also a bit unsure. We must have run right past it but just couldn't see the control. Ended up finding the extra control for in-between #6 and #7 that was just past #6 and found the control from there.

#7 and #8 were good, I pulled ahead of Rachel and Aldo a little bit and was just behind Owen R (he did a 90 degree turn to mess up #6 but ended up finding it at the same time as we did). Followed the track most of the way to #9, which must have been a bit faster (or at least safer) than the straight line since I ended up pulling ahead of Owen. #10 I took the track and clearing option instead of cutting across since the bush looked shit on the straight line. #11 and #12 were pretty simple legs through the open area at the top of the hill.

Caught Riley while going to #13, he had been with the lead group early on but had been dropped and must have screwed up on #13. When I got there he was standing 5m away from the control but facing the wrong way. There were supposed to be a bunch of pits and fallen logs leading into the control but the pits were non-existent and the logs were not visible in amongst all the bracken. Was just ahead of Riley into #14 and then towards #15 but I didn't drop far enough early enough and ended up just missing the control. Couldn't pick anything in all the bracken so I went a bit further on to a clearing on the spur just north of the control to relocate. Found the control pretty quickly after that and called out to Riley to show him where the control was, he had been searching higher than I had and had just started heading across the spur away from the control. #16 was on another fallen tree in thick green, I actually spiked this one perfectly which I was very happy with especially having been out there for almost an hour and almost at the finish.

Felt like I was getting a bit more into the groove of orienteering. Still very average but that's a lot better than yesterday.

Corridor O. Normal course with a couple of seconds without controls where we had to follow through a corridor with only features along the line mapped for about 2km each time. I went with Eckart. We drifted off course a couple of times in the first corridor but stayed close enough to stay in touch with the features in the corridor. We were good through the normal controls on between and then better through the second corridor than we were on the first. We went slightly off course just at the end but that meant we got to take the track across the erosion gully which was a much nicer path through. We walked through both corridor sections and ran the normal course.

Mass start course with everyone starting at the same time. I thought that we were breaking up into smaller groups so I was a bit surprised when everyone started running off at the same time and I messed up the first control, pushing me to the very back of the pack.

The rest of the first loop was ok, a little problem at #5 where there were 3 non-existent boulders next to the knoll the control was on, including one that was mapped as a very large distinct boulder.

Started the second loop in a group with a few girls and Eckart (who also screwed up the first control). Made one mistake at #10 when I got ahead but stopped a bit early and screwed around in the wrong spot for longer than I should have because everyone except Eckart came in and started looking in the same spot. Ended up getting ahead of that group again when the rest of them went too high to #11.

The girls cut it short after the second loop but Eckart and I kept going with just the two of us. I went too high to #15 but then overtook Eckart and pulled away on the way to #16. From there Eckart cut straight across to #19 while I got #17 and #18. Hit the wrong shallow gully going to #19 so I hit the group of rocks near #20 just past. Saw Eckart there heading from #19 to #20. Tried to go back to #19 a couple of times but stopped just short.

I decided to skip the next loop and just head into the finish through the last few controls, but I hit an unmapped track and came out onto the main road with no idea where I was. I couldn't pick the first two tracks that connected, which were supposed to be distinct, and when I found the third I was a lot closer to the assembly area than the finish so I just headed back in.

Event: National Junior Development Camp
 

Puzzle-O. The map was split up into small sections with individual legs, each alternating leg on the opposite side of the map. The idea was that we'd flip the map at the control and have to make a route choice quickly. Not super clean but nothing horrible, no issues with the making route choices just a couple of little navigational errors at the controls and some difficulty remembering which number I was looking for when I flipped the map. I did find I was having to stop myself from starting to exit the controls without having looked at the map a couple of times.

After that I did another mass start race on the normal course with Aldo and Eckart. I missed the gate on a crossable fence early on so had to climb over, which set me back a bit. Caught up by the start of the extra loop. Eckart took a different route to Aldo and I on a 50/50 left/right route choice, Aldo dropped off on that leg and stayed well behind for the rest of the course. Eckart and I were pretty close together until the last couple of legs where I pulled ahead.

Map flip exercises where the leg we were currently running was always blocked out, so we had to plan the next leg while running on map memory for the current leg. No major issues on the first loop although I started to fall behind a bit in reading ahead over the shorter legs towards the end. Second loop I had one big mistake, swapped between navigating to #6 instead of #5 and back so completely lost my place for a second. Need to think a little bit more about how I'm simplifying the legs I think, sometimes I simplify it a bit too much and don't actually end up getting anything from the map.

Did the normal 'warm-up' course after the exercise as a mass start race with Aldo and Eckart. I was ahead the whole way to #3 then got passed on the way to #4 but took a better route leaving the control and I ended up just in front at #5 then stayed just ahead for the rest of the course.