Training Log Archive: Ricka

Warm-up along road.

14th in M60, 10th in NA. Toughest sprint map I've run on: woods and buildings - lots of detail. I need more practice! Also, learned I need to put 'dobber' on right hand, not map hand, at least for Sprint. Punching messed up map contact - I don't remember that being such a problem in my past.

Lost 1min on 4-5: Relied on trails too much, missed one, hit 'other' trail junction, confused. 7-8: Read control circle well, saw small shack, but left in wrong direction. Checked tel pole, bounced back to find small clearing. -1 Sure can't afford two 1 min errors!

I depended too much on the trails at first. They weren't apparent and weren't necessary. The woods were open, contours were clear - that worked much better on 6, 7 and later.

C • Missed #5 1

GreenX - Sprint - Splits

Later Start time. Saw lot fewer orienteers out there and saw little speed until F21's started criss-crossing my paths late in course. Woods were much more runnable and higher visibility helped a lot. Climb seemed less than 4%. Maintained stronger pace than I expected. Read a lot more features on each leg today. 11th in M60; 8th among NAOC.

S-1: Across swamp, chose to stay flat til knoll vs. get to trail. Slow, low visibility, got to trail anyway, up sunny knoll. Good for leg 1.
1-2: Chose right over left - better AP off knoll, did not like contour option even if bit faster. Read trail, spur flat top well though cautiously. Bearing from pine tree. Worked well.
2-3-4: short bearing and pace - accurate.
4-5: Chose left (contour steep hillside over right (too much climb) but never saw straight - best option. Usually I do check 'straight' first. Confused by 'medium' reentrant on ground, then much too far left. Saw control and people from 100m+ - looks like mine, yes! (-1)
5-6: LONG! Aimed for swamp, pulled left, hit trail junction exactly - good but bit hesitant. Long trail and stone wall run. Goal: bearing to stony spur then to end of swamp. Veered left 5 times, weird - rough vegetation. Corrected, hit knoll nicely, clean finish. 23:49 on 1.6K leg was quite competitive; maybe -1.
6-7: Right to run trashy spur - clean.
7-8: soupbone and cadet left fast ahead of me. Up steep ridge, check off big rock face, clean.
8-9: Bearing to bridge. End of lake, bearing to subtle ridge. Saw big rocks, saw control ahead (not right) and could not resist. checked, no, corrected quickly. -1 maybe
9-10-11: Contoured to big rocks. Goal was 'side reentrant on large reentrant. Saw control higher - could not resist! Checked, my #11, to #10 and back. -1 first 'dumb' mental error.
11-12:-13: Cautious with cadet.
13-14: Beeline - read ups and downs well. Actually stayed high enough - pleasant surprise. (Nearly equal with Walter til 14)
14-15: Never saw 'north of pond to stream'. Went right and went too far near pond. "Must corss stream" became "let's cross beaver dam". Half-way, "Why the h am I here?" Retraced. last 400m featureless, hit root stock with control, I'd veered left, did not want to believe it, finally found and followed stream. -3 (bad route, execution, and correction)
15-16-F: To GO control, turned off brain. Slow, bearing got me to small knoll, saw long knoll, but wanted to see chute. Ran to chute, left to control back to finish. -2, ugly.
Very solid run except loosing 5 minutes on last 2 controls.

Warm-up along trail and in woods - felt good.

GreenZ Long - Splits

NAOC Middle at Delaware Gap. Overall solid result. Lots of hesitation due to poor visibility and light rain. 2-3 errors. M60 (Green), 7th overall, 4th NAOC. Not as close as it looks: 8 minutes from 3rd.

S-1: Trail run to bend, bearing.
1-2: Short leg - bearing.
2-3: Took cautious, slow route: cross trail, right up reentrant, up rock wall to cliff and boulder, bearing and walk in. Route not well planned. Trail to rock wall faster. -1-2 min.
3-4: Bearing past rock wall; did not see 'yellow' ahead; up to big field on right; bearing to control. -1 on short leg
Walter (-4) and Bubo (-2) caught up to me. Surprised to wee Walter this early. He'd been fast and clean.
4-5: Over know to reentrant, turn left. Much further than expected.
5-6: bearing, past rock faces; 'next' rock face. Again seemed further than expected - darn I'd better start pace counting.
6-7: Lost map contact on bearing. Did not plan route. Push over one more spur, saw rock face.
7-8: Bearing, last rock face - yes.
8-9: Bearing and pace count. Pushed past small reentrant. I'd aimed further left than intended. Went up quite a ways.
9-10: Bearing and read spur on short leg. Control to right.
10-11: Aim slightly right, down reentrant.
11-12: Pace count to knoll. Left of intended. Should have stayed on knoll. Instead dropped and checked (too many) rock faces. I did notice to stay high.
12-13: Bearing to broad reentrant. Read steep spur, handrail on left, rock faces on way well. Last time seeing Walter and Bubo.
13-14: No good route plan. Bearing was too green. right to stone wall and reentrant or left up to hilltop/gravel would have worked well. Saw huge rock face on right, could not find on map, up its spur. I MUST find rock face on map. yes, found it, then bearing. - 3-4 min Glasses got wet and foggy through small white pines. tough to read map and terrain rest of way.
14-15: Up over gravel on good bearing. Followed guy into control. Mine, not his!
15-16: Saw ruin on ground, had not seen on map. Had to notice 'knoll is beyond ruin'. Okay, hesitation.
16-17. Bearing. Checked control on rock face. Good attack to mine.
17-18: Bearing, lots of people. Not in first reentrant. Pushed on. Yes, on left.
18-19-F: Very tired up hill and run in.

Used 'train of runners' very well. Too much reliance on bearing without features or planning. Still a solid result - lots of hesitation for Middle course but kept all errors smallish.

C • 5

down then up trail back to start. Long walks to Arena and Start also helped.

Middle - GreenZ - Splits

Event: 2012 North American Orienteering Championships
 

Did most controls on Model Course. Couple bobbles, good corrections. Over-all good route planning and read features well. Did 2/3 at-pace; 1/3 walking to save energy and to read features.

Lessons:
Map is very accurate, especially on vegetation.
Don't confuse 'veg boundary dots' with 'ruined wall dots'
Yellow and Dark green are nasty - as expected. White woods are really nice use them!
One side of 'veg boundary' is always conifers, clean running - use them!
Worst error was reading control as 'shallow reentrant', not noticing it was in medium green - small white pine trees concealed things nicely. Ran right by - if I'd been looking for 'medium green', it would have been a perfect match.
Stone walls are extremely reliable and useful.
with so many linear-type features, sometimes I was hunting for the north lines to align my compass - weird.
Even medium trials are easily crossed due to leaf cover.
Pace-counted only a few times - it helped.

Friday Middle: Rainy; on average, one control/200m - wow!

Bonus: Young woman dropped cell-phone (she was taking pix for her dad who had to miss the meet); three of us stopped to retrace her steps. We found it!

Langton's arrived. Walked a "Yellow/Orange" course with Laura and Ben to get them used to the map.

Rented bikes in Ohiopyle PA and rode 22 miles of Great Allegheny Passage rail-to-trail (part of 330 mile route from Pittsburgh to DC, roughly). Chilly day, very scenic ride along Younk.... River to Confluence and back.

Then great 1.5 hour tour of Falling Water, Frank Lloyd Wright. WOW!