Training Log Archive: smittyoIn the 1 days ending May 11, 2013:
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Saturday May 11, 2013 #
10 AM
Orienteering race (middle) 51:10 ***** 3.12 km (16:23 / km) +81m 14:30 / km
ahr:155 max:168 spiked:8/12c shoes: Inov8 xtalon 212 B
US Middle Champs at Moreau Lake. Knowing how badly I messed up on this map last time I was here, I vowed to just take it easy. I was also worried about the Trail-O in the afternoon, so on the bus ride to the start, I just told myself not to worry about today's race. Just take it slow, don't get stressed and stay in good mental condition for the Trail-O. Well that worked much better than I could have imagined. It was definitely a "slow and steady wins the race" day. # 7 was my only real blunder, and I relocated pretty quickly and didn't lose too much time. Tried to have nice attackpoints throughout the course and keep in tight touch with the map.
# 1 Aimed off a bit to the right to hit the tip of the line of swamps. Then to the left around the cliffy hill and down to the control.
# 2 I think I went over the hill to get to the skinny spot to cross the swamp, then straight to the control.
# 3 Aimed up the hill to hit the trail, then took the trail to south of the control, then followed west edge of swamp as a handrail into the control.
# 4 straight on a bearing
# 5 followed someone through the big swamp and was a little annoyed because I wasn't as sure as I wanted to be of where I came out. Kept going on a bearing trying to match up the swamps. My route shows a little blip that I don't remember - perhaps I was checking the cliffs east of the control? I do remember that hit the proper swamp I was a little bit north and had to run south to the cliff.
# 6 Just followed the line of swamps
# 7 Aimed off to the left toward the big swamp. Hit it really nicely just where it gets skinny and went around the cliffs and started following north between the cliffs. Somewhere I passed the second set of cliffs and eventually ran into the larger swamp. This confused me. There was a smaller swamp to my right that seemed like it should be the control, but wasn't. I went to the smaller swamp and relocated, realizing I wasn't far enough and then in to the control. Estimated time lost about 1:30.
# 8 Northeast to tip of swamp, then south of the line to the gap between the two swamps, then north along the ridge to the control. I actually didn't go all the way to the top right away and was just below the ridge line. Got pulled off a little when I saw the similar cliffy top in the west part of the circle, but went to the proper place.
# 9 East to the dotted marsh, then over the hill. Made a point of using the hilltop as an attack. The control was visible from the top.
# 10 Went pretty much straight and counted paces from the bottom of the reentrant. I felt pretty lucky on this one. I was hoping to see the small marsh just before I hit the control, but didn't really notice anything marshy as I passed this area. I thought I might be off, but then looked to the left and saw the control. Still didn't believe it was right until I checked the code.
# 11 Around the swamp and over the hill to the small stream connecting the uncrossable to crossable swamp. Then over to the reentrant and up the reentrant. I did see the streamers in the area, but didn't follow them directly since I wasn't sure if they would be the most direct route.
# 12 Up to trail and then to control, then to finish!
# 1 Aimed off a bit to the right to hit the tip of the line of swamps. Then to the left around the cliffy hill and down to the control.
# 2 I think I went over the hill to get to the skinny spot to cross the swamp, then straight to the control.
# 3 Aimed up the hill to hit the trail, then took the trail to south of the control, then followed west edge of swamp as a handrail into the control.
# 4 straight on a bearing
# 5 followed someone through the big swamp and was a little annoyed because I wasn't as sure as I wanted to be of where I came out. Kept going on a bearing trying to match up the swamps. My route shows a little blip that I don't remember - perhaps I was checking the cliffs east of the control? I do remember that hit the proper swamp I was a little bit north and had to run south to the cliff.
# 6 Just followed the line of swamps
# 7 Aimed off to the left toward the big swamp. Hit it really nicely just where it gets skinny and went around the cliffs and started following north between the cliffs. Somewhere I passed the second set of cliffs and eventually ran into the larger swamp. This confused me. There was a smaller swamp to my right that seemed like it should be the control, but wasn't. I went to the smaller swamp and relocated, realizing I wasn't far enough and then in to the control. Estimated time lost about 1:30.
# 8 Northeast to tip of swamp, then south of the line to the gap between the two swamps, then north along the ridge to the control. I actually didn't go all the way to the top right away and was just below the ridge line. Got pulled off a little when I saw the similar cliffy top in the west part of the circle, but went to the proper place.
# 9 East to the dotted marsh, then over the hill. Made a point of using the hilltop as an attack. The control was visible from the top.
# 10 Went pretty much straight and counted paces from the bottom of the reentrant. I felt pretty lucky on this one. I was hoping to see the small marsh just before I hit the control, but didn't really notice anything marshy as I passed this area. I thought I might be off, but then looked to the left and saw the control. Still didn't believe it was right until I checked the code.
# 11 Around the swamp and over the hill to the small stream connecting the uncrossable to crossable swamp. Then over to the reentrant and up the reentrant. I did see the streamers in the area, but didn't follow them directly since I wasn't sure if they would be the most direct route.
# 12 Up to trail and then to control, then to finish!
WU/CD warm up/down 45:00 3.0 km (15:00 / km)
ahr:111 max:133 shoes: Inov8 xtalon 212 B
Walk to and from the start/finish area.
3 PM
Trail-O race 1:35:00 [0] ***
spiked:3/15c shoes: Asics Gel Foundation 9
Yikes! I got 7 out of 15 correct. This is one of my worst trail-O results, although I do think much is to blame on the map and/or course not really being Championship standard. Especially the map and terrain. It forced the course setter to set many less than optimal controls based on little concrete information.
# 1 - Saddle - problem because the saddle in terrain was much closer to the trail than mapped, leaving one trying to decide between the control on the feature or the control in the circle (relative to the trail). I chose wrong.
# 2 - Reentrant - I just clearly made this too complicated. It looked like B was the obvious choice, being in the main reentrant. But I overthought the fact that the formline was not in line with the main reentrant and started lining things up. Didn't take the same bearing off a small trail bend that the course setter intended for this purpose. Instead used the side of the lake and ended up convincing myself that C was correct.
# 3 - Beaver Lodge - This one got thrown out by the organizer. Lots of problems with the fact that it was mapped as a point feature, but was of such an interesting shape that determining the center was tricky. This meant people had varying decisions on what was East from the center of the feature. I picked Z because I thought East landed between two controls. Even if I had picked a control (I was debating if the gap was large enough to really call a Z), I think I would have picked the wrong one, but it was a close call.
# 4 - Foot of Knoll. Nice control. No one seemed to complain. Just had to identify the foot and determine that the control was on the correct side and there was no other knoll around.
# 5 - Between the knolls - Organizer accepted two answers. The knolls were mapped as point features. One knoll was somewhat elongated. One control was between the centers of the knolls, another between the foots. Hmmm. Lots of debate on what was actually the rule here. Something I will need to study up on and clarify prior to Finland. At any rate, my choice was one of those accepted (I picked between the centers). I think this control would have been less controversial and just as interesting if the controls had been scattered between all the different knolls in the area.
# 6 - Reentrant - got it right. nicely set with some knolls that helped with determining how high up the reentrant each control was.
# 7 - Reentrant - classic Z control, made a little difficult by the waviness of the formline and the subtlety of some of the reentrants. You really had to be paying attention. Well set and I spiked it.
# 8 - Spur - missed it. Lots of debate on this one. Seemed to be a place where varying methods led to varying answers. Distance from trail seemed to be the main criteria cited by course planner. I thought this seemed to point more to the closest, but it's clearly my weakest skill. Marsh seemed too far away in reality and the contour seemed to point to a different answer.
# 9 - Reentrant - missed it. difficult to assess from below exactly where the form line went. Sharon thought it was obvious that the higher control was above and the lower was below, but I didn't. I took a bearing from the same spot course planner did and still got it wrong. Wonder if the degree distance between controls was within tolerance from there.
# 10 - Spur - missed it. Lots of debate on this one too. I didn't have the trouble some did with identifying that a form line was there, but I did try to use the contour below that which was total garbage. Also pace counted MANY times between the trail junction and trail bend. Still came up wrong.
# 11 - Side of depression. This was tricky. Some didn't like it. The contour was difficult to define in the terrain. I eventually solved it by discovering that the controls all lined up in a NW direction, so there was nothing in the North part. If this hadn't been visible from somewhere on a trail, I probably would have missed it.
# 12 - hilltop - missed it. At this point, I think I had settled into the pace count and bearing mode that was the course setter's primary toolkit. Unfortunately, I probably should have spent more time really trying to identify the extent of the hill in the terrain. People who did thought this was a good control and got it right. My pace count (not as good a method) came up incorrect.)
# 13 - Spur - correct, but not a great control. It seemed to me to be about the right distance in from the trail, but not correct relative to the contours and bend in the reentrant to the north. Also, again my bearing from the trail junction didn't really match up with course setter's expectations. It was other things that led to my final correct decision.
# 14 - Edge of green. I thought this was fairly set and got it correct. Some people less happy with the lack of definition of the edge of the green symbol. I can see their point, but still thought it was pretty obvious that the further control was inside the green and not on the edge.
# 15 - Rootstock - missed it. Apparently totally brain dead when I did this one. I took an appropriate bearing, but somehow decided that what I was lining up on was NOT the answer, when it was, so picked the north control instead of northwest. When I went back to check this one out, couldn't figure out why I made such a dumb error.
Once again - not the national champ, but still practicing for Finland. A little worried about the effect on my ranking. Sharon is talking about setting next year. That will be interesting.
# 1 - Saddle - problem because the saddle in terrain was much closer to the trail than mapped, leaving one trying to decide between the control on the feature or the control in the circle (relative to the trail). I chose wrong.
# 2 - Reentrant - I just clearly made this too complicated. It looked like B was the obvious choice, being in the main reentrant. But I overthought the fact that the formline was not in line with the main reentrant and started lining things up. Didn't take the same bearing off a small trail bend that the course setter intended for this purpose. Instead used the side of the lake and ended up convincing myself that C was correct.
# 3 - Beaver Lodge - This one got thrown out by the organizer. Lots of problems with the fact that it was mapped as a point feature, but was of such an interesting shape that determining the center was tricky. This meant people had varying decisions on what was East from the center of the feature. I picked Z because I thought East landed between two controls. Even if I had picked a control (I was debating if the gap was large enough to really call a Z), I think I would have picked the wrong one, but it was a close call.
# 4 - Foot of Knoll. Nice control. No one seemed to complain. Just had to identify the foot and determine that the control was on the correct side and there was no other knoll around.
# 5 - Between the knolls - Organizer accepted two answers. The knolls were mapped as point features. One knoll was somewhat elongated. One control was between the centers of the knolls, another between the foots. Hmmm. Lots of debate on what was actually the rule here. Something I will need to study up on and clarify prior to Finland. At any rate, my choice was one of those accepted (I picked between the centers). I think this control would have been less controversial and just as interesting if the controls had been scattered between all the different knolls in the area.
# 6 - Reentrant - got it right. nicely set with some knolls that helped with determining how high up the reentrant each control was.
# 7 - Reentrant - classic Z control, made a little difficult by the waviness of the formline and the subtlety of some of the reentrants. You really had to be paying attention. Well set and I spiked it.
# 8 - Spur - missed it. Lots of debate on this one. Seemed to be a place where varying methods led to varying answers. Distance from trail seemed to be the main criteria cited by course planner. I thought this seemed to point more to the closest, but it's clearly my weakest skill. Marsh seemed too far away in reality and the contour seemed to point to a different answer.
# 9 - Reentrant - missed it. difficult to assess from below exactly where the form line went. Sharon thought it was obvious that the higher control was above and the lower was below, but I didn't. I took a bearing from the same spot course planner did and still got it wrong. Wonder if the degree distance between controls was within tolerance from there.
# 10 - Spur - missed it. Lots of debate on this one too. I didn't have the trouble some did with identifying that a form line was there, but I did try to use the contour below that which was total garbage. Also pace counted MANY times between the trail junction and trail bend. Still came up wrong.
# 11 - Side of depression. This was tricky. Some didn't like it. The contour was difficult to define in the terrain. I eventually solved it by discovering that the controls all lined up in a NW direction, so there was nothing in the North part. If this hadn't been visible from somewhere on a trail, I probably would have missed it.
# 12 - hilltop - missed it. At this point, I think I had settled into the pace count and bearing mode that was the course setter's primary toolkit. Unfortunately, I probably should have spent more time really trying to identify the extent of the hill in the terrain. People who did thought this was a good control and got it right. My pace count (not as good a method) came up incorrect.)
# 13 - Spur - correct, but not a great control. It seemed to me to be about the right distance in from the trail, but not correct relative to the contours and bend in the reentrant to the north. Also, again my bearing from the trail junction didn't really match up with course setter's expectations. It was other things that led to my final correct decision.
# 14 - Edge of green. I thought this was fairly set and got it correct. Some people less happy with the lack of definition of the edge of the green symbol. I can see their point, but still thought it was pretty obvious that the further control was inside the green and not on the edge.
# 15 - Rootstock - missed it. Apparently totally brain dead when I did this one. I took an appropriate bearing, but somehow decided that what I was lining up on was NOT the answer, when it was, so picked the north control instead of northwest. When I went back to check this one out, couldn't figure out why I made such a dumb error.
Once again - not the national champ, but still practicing for Finland. A little worried about the effect on my ranking. Sharon is talking about setting next year. That will be interesting.