Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

Event: Pig War!
 

Pig War @ Sumas Mountain. Not really into orienteering today, physically or mentally - enjoyed the first few controls in the detailed area near the start but once the course went up into the steeper reaches I started losing interest. By 12 or 13 was pretty much over it and wanting to be done, so started losing focus and thinking about random stuff, which never turns out well and caused me to lose a lot of time, particularly on 19. After that I no longer cared at all and was basically just jogging, but tried to make myself at least practice some good mental/map-reading habits on the last few controls.

So yeah, just a major off-day. Also, I seem to have been spoiled by recent East Coast, EWa, and Laramie O-ing and forgotten what a down-home PNW forest is like; I suffered all downed logs and patches of thick green as personal slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

C • Vegetation 3

Saw that they had a 10k at the Lakewood Summerfest where CascadeOC is having an event today, so I signed up on a whim. This is a dubious result, as I don't think I'm physically capable of running a sub-35 10k on a track, much less on trails, with some climbs, turns, etc. It seems likely that something is wonky - simplest explanation being their course was short. Unfortunately I forgot my watch so have no way to cross-check.

I ended up winning the race though, so that's cool. A group of four were in the lead out of the start; one guy tried to go out faster than the other three of us but died 1.5 miles in. Another guy started to drop just before the halfway point, so it was me and a teenage kid starting the second loop together, but then he disappeared heading up the hill just after that, so I was alone for 95% of the second loop. One positive thing - just after passing through I asked the kid what our time was and he said 17:20 - meaning that regardless of distance my second loop was about equal to the first.

Instead of orienteering I elected to roll around the park a bit and heckle people.

Anyone want a ride to Sumas on Sunday? We will be driving as Kavinsky (or Nikolay) drives:

C • Sorry to miss the best part of the Sumas event, but 1

Exploring south along the Green River Trail.

Back north, fighting an annoying headwind.

7:23/km

RMOF, Day 3. This was a weird run in that I felt really good about my nav - good planning, flow, visualization, etc. - and had no trouble finding controls, yet still lost 4-5min due to two unfortunate route choice decisions and one silly mistake.

First (most disastrous) decision - Leg 2-3 here. How would you do that leg? I outsmarted myself and instead of going straight I elected to head to the right around the big hill (notice monster loop in GPS track). Clearly didn't analyze this fully; if I had would have realized that it only saved two contours and added a ton of distance. Executed it terribly to boot and ended up traveling even more distance than was necessary for the route (though I realized none of this at the time - which was lucky for the rest of my race's sake). +2:21 to Eric on the leg, so at least 2min time loss.

Second decision - Leg 15-16 here. They had warned us at the start that the water was very high in the big E/W marsh just south of 15, so I headed back W to find a better crossing point. Came through okay and popped out into the open as planned, but then crossed the smaller N/S thicket/marsh way too early, because I happened to see an easy way through, and found myself having to side-hill across a bunch of rocky, slashy crap to reach the control. Could have saved >1min merely by running 100m farther S in the open along the W side of the marsh, then crossing and shooting directly up the (non-rocky) reentrant for a foolproof AP.

Silly mistake - Leg 16-17 here. Obvious route is the long, gradual reentrant that leads just left of the line almost all the way to 17. Note also the very similar long, gradual reentrant just right of the line - at a quick glance to the map about halfway through the leg I mistook the right for the left and apparated myself over there, which led me to erroneously correct left (again, notice big tumor in GPS track) and since I had always been left (according to plan) I naturally ended up well left of the line on the hilltop with a very picturesque view of the big lake. +1:29 to Eric here, so likely >1min lost.

Nonetheless, felt pretty positive about this race, as I had a lot of really solid legs (1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 15, 18, 19) and did many more good things than bad things. For example, won the splits battle against Bonesaw 11-9, which doesn't happen all that often. At 3, I was 1:40 behind Eric and 2:21 behind Nick, then at 15 was 1:32 behind Eric and 3:05 behind Nick, so was holding my own other than the three miscues, in terrain that was more rugged and technical than yesterday.

Happy America, everyone!

Bonus hike with Alex, Hannah, and Kevin at Lory SP outside Fort Collins. Nice views of the hills and the beginning of the endless plains stretching eastward.

Alex and I then ran down from the top of the hill along a slightly longer trail. Nominally said trail was closed due to dubious claims of fire damage, but we were not deterred.

Blue - Splits