Training Log Archive: BorisGr

Ran the WOC Tour after spectating the middle final. The course was the same as the men's final course for the last 5km or so. After chaos at the start (they didn't assign start times, so it was a free for all. I used my knowledge of Russian to convince the organizers to make people line up to get start times, and then graciously volunteered to form the line of people behind me, thus getting a coveted early start), I ran off, trying not to repeat my mistakes from the middle quali. Ran quite well this time, though still made two 1-minute mistakes, one in a very vague green area, and another towards the end, when I was tired and dehydrated. Still, quite happy with my time, and with getting back a bit of self-confidence before the relay.

M21E Middle - Splits

Morning jog with Sam, Hillary, Viktoria, and Pavlina over to Hydropark, then to the beach, a quick dip in the radioactive Dniepr, and then back.

WOC Middle Distance Qualifier.

I've already written enough about this race and have analyzed what went wrong over and over in my head, so I don't have much more to say. Just that I felt great and totally prepared at the start line. No excuses.

Warm-up. Not surprisingly, there was no cool-down, just sitting in a field a while.

Middle distance model event. Ran a few controls easy, a few others hard. Felt pretty good and orienteered fine. A piece of the model map had a big blob of green that was circled and labeled "example of vegetation for the middle quali." We all thought that was just going to be a bit of the map. Boy, were we wrong!

Event: WOC 2007
 

Morning jog in Kiev with Sam, Hillary, and Sandra. Very warm and humid already at 8:30am.

Warm-up for the WOC sprint qualifier.

WOC Sprint Qualifier, Heat A.
Not even close. On one hand, it looks bad. A year of hard training later, and I am further from qualifying (1:05 away versus 0:37) and further down in my heat (23rd versus 20th) than in Denmark. So I am disappointed with the result.
On the other hand, I didn't make more than maybe 15 seconds of mistakes, so there is not much more I could have expected from myself. This was also my best-ever world ranking score (1025 - first over a thousand!) and the best of all the North Americans yesterday. So there is some consolation in that.
The course was very fast, not particularly technical, and without much route choice. You just had to go hard from the start, which I am not sure I did well enough. Due to the heat, I felt pretty lethargic and felt like I had to fight myself every step of the race, Hearing the cheering from the crowd and the many familiar voices as I was passing through the spectacor control was really inspirational and motivating, that was probably one of the high points of the day.
But the real highlight was watching the countdown to make it official that Sandra made her first-ever WOC final, and shoving people out of the way to be the first one to hug and congratulate her, Seeing Marc cry as he came over to kiss her was almost way too disgustingly romantic for me, but really wonderful at the same time. It's so amazing seeing someone who you have known for years and whom you have seen work so hard and come so close finally reach the goal she so completely deserved!! I think that seeing moments like this is a lot of what doing orienteering is about for many of us who are in this sport.

My heat results: http://www.6prog.org/iof/wre_res$.asp?ID=1183&how=...

C • Sandra's A-Final! 1

C • Nice 1

C • 1

WOC Sprint model event at Feofaniya. Not the most exciting of places - forested, with good visibility but pretty tall undergrowth and a good bit of nettles. Some steep, soft slopes too. Definitely different from the sprint in Denmark. If anything, reminds me of what the sprint in Japan was like. Also, much warmer here than even the warmest summer days in Uppsala have been. It might be quite tough to race at 3pm tomorrow. Otherwise, its nice being with the US team and just seeing orienteers throughoutour massive hotel. Everyone is here now. Time to race.

C • it's yours 1

C • race well ! and a little ... 3

One last run around the neighborhood with Rob before lift-off.
The goals are clear: run races I am happy with; beat the Canucks in the relay. :) The hopes/dreams are clear too: make at least one final. Let's see what happens.

C • Good luck dude! 3