Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

US Nationals Sprint. Ran a good race, just made one ~15s mistake on 5 when I didn't notice that there was a way through the building canopy and went around to the right instead. Tried to push when I could and just sneaked in for silver ahead of Jordan, some 25s behind Greg. Another unexpectedly good result and another medal!

Quite a claustrophobic little venue with the course bouncing around a very small area and not many open spaces with opportunities to push hard physically, which probably suited me. My strategy was to generally avoid the complicated stuff and not waste time worrying about levels, and default to taking simple, if longer, routes on the fast paths around/between the buildings (i.e. 6-7). Fortuitously for me, the course wasn't overly technical and didn't feature traps or tricky control locations; it turned out that if you spent time trying to be wary and read the weird level stuff, that time was mostly wasted, whereas if you just went to the center of the circle you'd see the flag.

C • Just go to the center of the circle 3

Forgot to start watch at beginning so full distance/time close-ish

Sprint relay, anchor for one of Cascade's 4pt teams along with Siri and Peteris. They both did an awesome job and put me out in the lead, with Sergei Ryzhkov not far behind, no other teams close enough to factor. Navigated okay but had some troubles fumbling with flipping back and forth between the on-map-only control descriptions - in particular after 4 (the one on the bridge) for some reason it took me FOREVER to get my map situated and reoriented properly; this was where Sergei caught me. We were together, then he had a shorter forking at 6 and got ahead going into the butterflies. Figured I wouldn't see him again, but to my pleasant surprise he appeared right *behind* me at 17 after the long leg across the parking lots.

He had a better route to 18 (or maybe just ran faster) and punched first...then headed straight for the unmapped gap in the fence near 19. I was presented with an ethical dilemma - do the "right" thing by spending the time to legally go around, and lose the race because of it, do the "wrong" thing and follow him through the gap, but stay in the race, or do the even more wrong thing by doing the right thing and then protesting/being a jerk after the race. Clearly the third option is not an option; the first option also was unappetizing, so I took the second option with the justification that even if we both cheated, no other teams were negatively impacted and at least the race would be decided on even terms.

Anyway, so we were together again heading toward 20 and I was steeling myself for a h2h finish, but then we diverged, as it turned out there was one final forking before crossing the bridge, and he again had the shorter one, so got ahead for good. Let the team down by getting passed :(

Really fun event, thanks to Erin for putting it on, it seemed like pretty much singlehandedly.

Also of note: SIAC makes a big difference in a sprint all the time; Ryzhkov was getting time on me at every punch with his air vs. my non-air. Acquiring one of those asap.

C • SIAC 13

Sprint 1 - Splits

QuickRoute

US Nationals Long. Had a solid start, but began to lose momentum with a questionable route choice on the long 4-5 leg. Caught Joe but also got caught by AJ at 8, and we were mostly in a group till 13 (with a nice mistake at 11). In retrospect I think I was still somewhere in the hunt for bronze at that point, but completely bungled the first part of my route on the long 13-14 leg, which knocked me out of any possible contention. Also blew 15 and lost a bit of time on the last loop to finish a somewhat disappointing 7th American. However, the potential for a better race was there, which is encouraging.

M21E Long - Splits

Event: KOC Kootenay Orienteering Festival 2019
 

Event: BAOC: U.S. Nationals
 

Big Basin model

winsplits
quickroute

sup fam ya boy US middle champion!

This was a weird situation in that I was the very last starter at 4:15, some three hours after most others had started, so I knew going in what everyone else had run - which is of course a double-edged sword. It seemed that a lot of people hadn't had great runs, so I had hopes of a good result if I was able to execute well enough. I definitely didn't have a clean race; I lost time on 1, 3, 10, 15, and 17 - sometimes for dumb reasons like "nothing made sense because I had my map flipped 180 degrees" - but generally only ~30s on each mistake, other than ~45s on 10. I also turned out good general speed; on clean legs, my splits among Americans ranked 11111112222235. Couldn't help keeping a distracted eye on my watch over the second half of the race as things began looking better and better, but in the end competitive speed + minimal lost time relative to the field = unexpected victory by a 3min margin!

C • Middle 9

Blue Middle - Splits

Shevlin Park Sprint - Splits