Training Log Archive: Traut

Busy day with PSSA testing, but wanted to get something in despite how tired I am from lack of sleep over the weekend. Did 40 minutes on the Nordic Track. My body seemed to be following the pattern of feeling better as the weekend went on, because I found a good stride and felt strong on the glide for the first time in a while. I raised demand and sweat the way I should. I didn't push to hard and kept it to 40 minutes so I had time to get some PT in.

Cut the flexibility work a little bit short due to time and needing to do a lot of grading tonight. Made sure to hit calves, hamstrings, and quads in stretch and heel walks, toe raises and ankle circles.

Don't have time to give details yet. Hopefully I will get to a PC soon. This one I would like a quickroute- I don't know what I did with my mistake and I was feeling much better and faster- even had the fastest time on one control! My mistake took me out of it (as usual), but I was competitive again.

After dragging through Yellowwood, today was much better. HAd gotten together with Andy Fritz, Steve Samuel, Garn, Drew etc last night and still had to drag out of bed early and had the drive back etc, I actually felt good out there. Part of it might be that I expected the middle to be really technical, and it was actually really fast. That was frustrating because I should have done well, but for my huge mistake on #5.

Camp Ransburg is a place I have actually orienteered before. I brought my Dad down here for a neet while I was living in Muncie. It is the only time we orienteered at the same meet since I was a kid. I finally lived somewhere that had a club. The map is the same. I pulled it out afterword to compare. Almost no changes...

Like I said, the course was fast, so I could have been competitive. My first mistake though was number 1. For some reason I just couldn't get oriented with the map. Not sure why. I stumbled around for a bit until just using road to get to my attackpoint. Even that was difficult because all the little tent skeletons weren't mapped and I hadn't read that in the course notes. I was hesitant, but then got rolling after number 1 and clipped off 2-3-4 fine, although I could have been much faster on number 4 if I had made a better bearing.

I have no idea what happened on number 5. No idea. I thought I was on track and ended up so far north I have no idea why. I was up near the parking lot before heading back down 2 roads east of the control. I don't eben know how I crossed the road that #16 was on-never noticed it.

That was the 'big mistake' that took me to the bottom again. Was fairly clean after that. Exceptions: Was hesitant on #7 out of fear of a parallel error with the reentrant to the west after yesterday. I was right on track this time though. Took an awful bearing on #10 and ended up in the muck southeast of the control. Recovered well though. Ran right past #11- should have caught this one and didn't. Was distracted by a runner on the blue course chasing a different control- need to be better about that. Need more confidence in myself. #12 I was just dumb. Ran right past the control thinking mine was further down the hill. How many other clearings are there?! at least check the number! that was distance yet again.

I felt much faster today and raced people. I actually had the fastest split for control #9. So progress made.

I need to get much better at looking at the map and picking out features to look for. I am just not gleaning enough detail before I go. I need to do more just map reading and planning. I can do that any time, I don't need to be out. Andy and I are going to start doing some track running while reading maps as an exercise. I need to practice much more.


results: http://www.ocin.org/flying_pig/pigXVII/results.htm...

Ransburg_Middle_2013_Red - Splits

Don't have time to give details yet. HR obviously screwed up. Didn't start watch until about halfway to first control.

Long. Yellowwood. I used to go for runs here all the time. I ran up in the ridges around the west side of the lake. This map was east of Yellowwood road, so not an area I hit much. In fact, looking at the map I couldn't see where I had made any loops, but I know I had down a few here and there.

I wore my inov-8s for the first time. They worked well and felt good, so that was good. I wasn't fast today though, either way. I took it very easy on my body and I wasn't firing real well. In the beginning I was cautious and at the end I was exhausted and even when I knew where I was going I still oost ground on fast people due to the terrain.

Not a great day due to mistakes either. 2 biggies... #5 and number 13. We'll see when I may ever get to a PC to do a quickroute, but today's stuff I can figure out.

#1 and #2 were fine. bearing weren't perfect, but I could adapt. #3 I ran past the correct reentrant but the rootstocks caught me... thing was, I had misjudged distance again as I was surprised to be that far. I need to get better at that. #3 and #4 were fine- slow, but fine. The hills weren't helping me today as my legs were just no good for rough terrain. I was slow.

#5 was bad mistake. Somehow I was further on the main wood-road (about half way to control) then I thought I was and wasn't using my compass to check (until after the fact). I started heading south (after the trail I wanted to take was blocked by downed trees, but I still should have picked up the change in direction). When I decided to cut over to it I was heading west instead of south. Nothing made sense and I backtracked until figuring it out. Again, distance and getting lazy with the compass. After that I shot down down the trail and reentrant and around to the control fine. No major issues with 6-7-8-9-10 except for being slow in the stream and everywhere else. Slow people just seem to keep beating me to controls...the usual, just like my result today was.. the usual...

My route to number 11 was not good. I stayed low and contoured instead of going over the top. Had to negotiate very step reentrants and go longer. You could tell my body was no good by the fact that I avoided a hill...

#12 was fine, but #13 was the one that took me out completely. I used the creek, picking up features until I hit the oxbow. After when I looked down at the map again, somehow I placed myself at the oxbow much further south and ran into a parallel reentrant and spent more time that I can describe trying to figure out what was wrong. As nobody was coming through this area after a while, I knew something was wrong. Eventually I decided to head up the high ground to the south. If I found the trail I was correct, if not I was in the parallel ridge to the north... I was north of course. I went around on the high ground, so upset I still made mistakes on the trails. Things from here on out fell apart even worse.

This wasn't the first time I have looked up form the map and when I looked down placed myself a a similar feature in a different place on the map... frustrating.

#15 I blew because I just.. well I don't know what I did. just sloppy. When I hot the trail above #15, I was surprised because I thought that was where I had started dropping.

From here to the finish it wasn't large mistakes, but I was exhausted and slow. Some kid on red just flat out ran away from me and I knew where I was going at this point. Ugly.

results: http://www.ocin.org/flying_pig/pigXVII/results.htm...

Yellowwood_Long_2013_Red - Splits

Event: Flying Pig XVII and Eastern Interscholastic Champs
 

Didn't start watch until 6th control...so GPS isn't worth it.

So, I knew it would be an exhausting weekend. We left at about 4:30am so Claire could sleep in the car for most of the trip without being awake to much in the car-seat. We would be staying with Drew and Lindsay up in Indy so we could get together with the Ball State guys and Gail could meet up with Jess. this meant I would be getting up early to drive down to Bloomington each day. It was worth it to see everyone and do an event in soem special places for me.

With feedings etc... it took about 7 hours to get to B-town and I had a bit of time to relax before my start, but a sprint is never the easiest thing to do right out of the car after such a long trip.

First cool thing. The start triangle for the sprint was literally on the corner of the HPER building and the waiting area was outside the loading dock where I used to eat lunch. First problem... it appeared my dibler wasn't working at the start and I had to rush around to figure out why. In the end, I just wasn't holding it in the clear box long enough... I got a late start, but the clock doesn't start till you e-pinch the start box so no loss. It did help me forget to start the GPS watch though.

It is amazing how much I didn't remember about campus and the student union (that I wandered before my start for old-times sake). This type of sprint was a lot of fun. Not technical, so no large mistakes- but lots of small things to learn about the sprint maps. We'll get to that.

Controls 1-4 were fine, I was hesitant in the beginning, but started to feel more confident as I went. #5 was a little issue because I broke the rules (first learning point). I had no idea olive green was forbidden. Green is just a color of vegetation to me. Red lines mean forbidden. I had studied a black and white print out of sprint map rules focusing on black lines and such and how to know if a wall or such was crossable or not. Obviously the olive green completely evaded me. This is my first 'urban' sprint. I did my first sprint at NAOC, but that was a park map. As I took a direct approach to 5 I crossed through a planting I figured was not good to cross- I was already through it though. No DQ or anything, but a lesson learned and some time lost pondering what to do in the middle of it.

Controls 6-7-8-9 were also fine. I was really getting a bit more of a groove. I was not attacking it due to my knees and tightness, but I was feeling much more confident as I went. #10 messed with me a little bit. I was always getting myself to the right spot on the map but not really reading the exact location and I don't have a clue what the clues mean. #10 was behind the stairs and I ran past it a few times trying to find it. This lack of fine detail in my mind effected me throughout the course.

#11 was fine, then #12 really messed me up. It was a in a recessed court yard and I ran right to where I needed to be and just couldn't see it. Instead of being confident of where I was, I assumed I had made a mistake and actually ended up backtracking and then on the return noticed the sunken courtyard. Loads of time lost there.

Even though number 12 hit my confidence, I did keep rolling hard, making several small errors like #10. #15 I headed off in the wrong direction for a little bit and had to stop and actually take a bearing to get myself righted, all it takes is little woods to mes me up. I had been checking myself with the compas, as a background 'sense' but had gotten lazy just at the wrong time.

#19 I just ran right past like #10.

Had a blast. I really like these type of sprints I think. With the technical aspect down, 'the big mistake' I am always making, that takes me out of it completely, is not as likely. It is about route choice and aggressiveness. For those reasons, this is my highest A-meet score by far- even with my mistakes. Todd Pownell of NEOOC is also new to orienteering and a real nice guy so we compare a lot. I am able to run faster then him, but he doesn't make the big mistakes. SO I got him here. Because of my mistakes, he got me in both the long and the middle over the next two days, despite on controls without mistakes I was much faster.

All in all awesome to be back on campus for an orienteering meet. Had a dinner out in town and then headed up to Indy.



results: http://www.ocin.org/flying_pig/pigXVII/results.htm...

IU_Campus_Sprint_2013_6 7 ISV Red - Splits

My right calf and T.A felt much the same as yesterday all day. It feels like the same area the blew up a few weeks ago on the spin bike.

If my body is on the comeback... it has an awful funny way of showing it. I will have to wait and see where it goes.

I had planned to get quite a bit of orienteering navigation work over the last few weeks as the weather brokebut due to my physical breakdown I have had to avoid the uneven footing and have none except for Racoongaine.

I planned to go over to Heartwood and do some work, but I bagged the idea of doing any running. My body was definitely sending a signal. Some walking work would be better then nothing. When I arrived I realized I had forgotten my compass... I walked 45minutes playing with some feature work but nothing too great.

I suppose the fact that I am physically down will keep me slow at Flying Pig and allow me to be more accurate in navigation. That will be a good thing for me.

Just stretching

Thought it would be nice to shift from the road to see if my legs could use there new action on uneven footing (would bode much better for the weekend). My right calf and TA felt tight all day at work. As I hit the trail both calves were extremely tight and it worked its way down to my plantar fascia. I made it running for about 1.5 miles and walked it in after that. My plant/ drive action was there- that was a good thing, but my calf tightness was causing me very quick and extreme fatigue. I was able to use them to plant and drive, which I couldn't before. In fact I was able to activate my tight calves and push them beyond what they were capable of handeling.

Apparently my body re-finding itself needs another day of rest. I will listen to it.

even though calves/TA were troubled, I did heal and toe raises (walks) ankle rotations and full stretching

Full stretching and raised single leg 1/4 squats