Training Log Archive: Anvil

Event: West Point A-meet
 

West Point Middle.
Very physically tough middle course. A very rusty, mediocre run - only spiked 8 of 16 controls. Also forgot control description holder, so quite a few small errors in the circle. Map. Map/Video Combo.

S-1: Didn't realise the start punch was the start, so ran 15 secs along the trail before I realise something was up. Then in a rush, don't orient the map properly and head up towards the much smaller hill to the SE of the hill I'm meant to head up. It didn't help there was an unmapped rockface on the smaller hill right where there was meant to be on the larger one - but I do remember thinking, 'wow, this hill is really easy to climb for so many contours....' roughly 45 secs wasted, straight off the bat.
2: Straightforward. Contour up to the broad gully and over the plateau. Was tempted to drift west on the plateau, but the detail kept me on track. Flag was higher in the gully than expected. Spike.
3: Got a lucky glimpse of the flag as I crested the hill. It disappeared from sight, but stayed confident and spiked it.
4: Planned to go south around the marsh. Bad exit direction meant I should have changed my tune and gone north, but was pigheaded about sticking to my plan. Never saw the north road option which was clearly the fastest. ~45 secs lost on both sub-optimal route and poor execution.
5: Contour to the road, then rough compass due north. Spike.
6: Starting to feel very tired already, maybe started too hard after initial mistake. Lost contact rounding the hill and nothing seemed to make sense, just kind of bumbled along each knoll till the flag appeared.
7: Hesitant again. Knew I had to drop a contour but really had to force myself to do so.
8: Physically tough leg. Diagonal uphill through waist high scrub. Obvious attackpoint meant it was just a long slog. If you'd told me I was at Honeysuckle Creek at this point I would have believed you. Spike.
9: Plan was to go below the rockline in the gully and climb up at the last minute. Not the best plan, but still a plan. The gully was filled with new deadfall and other crap, so climbed up early to find more crap. I get to the knolls in the northwest of the circle. There's a guy standing on the feature I think is the right one, but he's not moving and looking around, so I figure it can't be there. After 15 secs of looking at the map trying to work out where I am, he leisurely walks off the rock and punches the control next to it.
As I run in and punch he offers a slightly obnoxious, 'you're welcome'.
10: OK. Used the green to guide me in. Wasn't totally sure that the boulder was right till I saw the flag - it seemed a bit small and the shape of the land didn't really fit the contour to me. Spike.
11: Contour to the saddle then down the gully. Cautious since I didn't want to make a parallel error. Screwed up in the circle, misread the feature.
12: Down the gully then a slog up the hill. Picked up the big double boulder attackpoint but misread the clearing to the south. Was standing 20m away from the flag mildly panicing before I noticed I was at a second small gully to the north.
13: Round the hill and straight in. Was a little high to begin with but the pond pulled me in. Again screwed the circle as I was looking for a boulder.
14: Biggest error of the race. Like many others, stopped short on #81. Just could not locate that feature on the map (was looking for a cliff with tick lines, not a rockface), took a very long time to relocate and make my way into the circle. ~3:00.
15: Easy, dropped a little too much and had to climb. Lost motivation. Spike.
16: Straight forward, but liked I still had to read the map going to the final control. Spike.

C • O at home 2

Sprint Race at West Point. Map

Warmed up better for this race and felt much better for the whole thing.
Race went as planned, strong and smooth race except for the spectator control.

S-6: No problems. A little trouble getting into the new scale at #1 and a bit hesitant on the steep slopes at #3 and #6.
#7: Got a little confused when I never picked up the trail out of #6. Decided just to ignore it and use the contours..
#8-11: No real mistakes, but generally sloppy on the micro routes on these legs - on each of these I climbed one or two contours more that was necessary. Looking at the results, this is the only section of the course where my splits are consistently slower than Ross and Robbies.
#12-13: Fine, tried to stay strong on the climb.
#14: The big one. Lost contact and stopped way too early - lost 35secs. Amateur hour.
A couple people mentioned that being an early starter, I didn't have the benefit of seeing the 'flow' of the spectator control so the mistake is more acceptable - but I figure I still had a map in my hand telling me where to go, so I can't really use that to justify that mistake. Also had the fastest split on the following leg out of the spectator control and I never saw anyone doing that one as well.
#15-17: Good. Flowed well and spiked all 3. Probably too well, since my SI never registered #16.
#18: Weak Aussie route. Dropped to the road to avoid the light green. Lost 5 secs to the leaders on this misdemeanor.

Looking at the results now, there's a lot of opportunities to gain more time out there that aren't connected to running speed. I don't have a lot of experience in forest sprints, so it's good to have things to work on.

Regarding #16 - I know I went to it, GPS confirms it, so the unit just must have been sleepy.
Missing out on 3rd place to a SI fail does sting a little, but I figure in over 10 years of use this is the first time it has failed me. I'll just have to make sure I listen for the beep in the future.

C • video 2

Middle Blue - Splits

With hammer - sneaking one last go off-trail in the Deeve before we're kicked out for a couple of months.
General wandering and commenting on terrain quality. Nice.

TNT, now with added ARK Attack.
First run of the new Partial Summer Rally. The SumRall. 18:01 - new Australian record.
Didn't want to go all out given the races this weekend, but was still redlining on Lowry. Felt really good on the gnarly trail and terrain, less so on the hills.
Got to play with the new drill toys. turbo will be jealous he missed out - they're all muddy and used now.

Inadvertent. Had hoped to get out during the 2nd hour of ARK, but the thought of getting sucked up by a tornado doesn't appeal. Also super tired after an early start this morning (by my standards).
Schools race went well today - after all the complaining I found OE super easy to use. Don't know what all the fuss is about.

C • Hard Core FAB girls went out in it! 8

TNT. First real 'trail' session of the season.
3,2,1,1,2,3 up the Bruce and the same back down again. Very small turnout tonight, but luckily our flanks were boosted by a few pieces of the HPP - in the form of Eric and Will. Sudden & Trav was there too, along with Trix doing her best Hound of the Baskerville impression in the real fog.
Took a long time to get going tonight, a long, long time. Even Trav was going faster than me on the early reps. On the way back up of the first set the legs finally decided what they wanted to do.
Felt OK considering the weekend, but not awesome.
Usual bannistairs after.

C • US Team Trials 9

C • huh? wuh? 3

Learning the ins and outs of OE and then managing a 550 race entries left little time for much else.

But, cause of all the compliments about TDM, I'll give all you Canucks a laugh - Australia's answer to Flipper... and Lassie

C • Ripper! 1

TDM Stage 8
Middle Distance Race at Rocky Ridge.
I thought this would be a gimme giving I put the controls out on Thursday, but since I was entering the circle in other directions, it was a totally new experience.
Good:
Was able to keep a straight line in the direction I wanted to go on only a very rough compass, which is tough in rough terrain like that.
Looking up, left and right for big features constantly.
Bad: Wasn't keeping track of the fine details enough during those legs to be sure exactly where I was when entering the circle. Was often 30-50m off and was only due to the excellent visibility at the moment that I would spot the flag.
Never felt strong, nor flowing in the forest.

Lots of close times on this one, I look forward to compiling the splits. Though I'm worried some old guy with crap knees may have beaten me on some of them.

TDM Stage 8 (personal version)
Back out to move a few stands for the pursuit race. Didn't have a whole lot of time so luckily the features I had to move them to were strong and obvious.

TDM Stage 9
Pursuit race in the same area.
Hadn't eaten or drank anything since brekkie, so decided to run the start the pursuit instead of taking part. I think this was the right choice as I imagine Eric and Robbie would have caught me, then I would have felt the need to run at that speed.
Not as good as the morning, 2 biggish mistakes.
One on #2 for the earlier race, so the 3rd time I visited it and I just assumed I would recognise the area and just ran in the general direction. The other on #20, the typical almost finished the race so loose concentration and contact. Up to 4 mins lost I think. Haven't done any analysis so could be more, could be less.
Fun format - though there weren't many of us left by this point, it still felt like a race in the butterflies with people going in and out and trying to assess how far in front/behind they were!

Whew.. and TDM is done.
Tired, but looking forward to West Point - time for someone else to do the work ;)

C • Thanks! 9

Course 1 - Splits