Training Log Archive: W

'twas the day before the World Cup Pursuit. There was a model to do, but there was also an Oceania festival race to do, and I wanted to do both. So we did. First was the Oceania race, which was all sorts of variable stuff, some basic forest, some open, and some weird and surprisingly green riverbed that was oddly tricky. Those creeks that zig and zag in every direction are really tough to figure out sometimes.

Although I ran more at tempo pace, I was still frustrated with my performance around the circle. I'm getting better with my magnifier, but on one control it didn't even help me flow into the control at all, I still made a mistake. I was very, very pleased with my route choice decision on the long leg from 10-11 though. That was a sweet catch, and I won the leg by a minute or so, I think!

Pipped over to the WC model to just confirm what we all knew. This was going to be effing painful, and pretty easy. Wide open terrain with big hills. You should be able to identify exactly where you're going from way off. Just have to man up and get there, post-haste.

Event 2 1 - Splits

'twas a travel day of Hastings to Hawke's Bay, and we stopped by a training-ish workout at some terrain that is anticipated to be very similar to the World Cup. Carol set me a course and Helen gave me some technical advice to work on, which I really tried to execute. Make a plan, take a bearing, head up. Yes, I know Magnus has been preaching 2/3 of those things for many many many years, but I think I really lacked ever have a coherent part 1. I can think of many times where all the bearings in the world wouldn't help me because I didn't have an idea of what I was going to do with that bearing. Seems obvious, I know, but probably a pertinent thought I need to really, really drill into my head.

Overall, these races are going to be technically quite easy, but physically effing hard.

Oceania Long Distance Championships. And boy howdy would this have been long. Had I done it all. I started intending on doing it all. The first 5 controls were in the nice open forest that I enjoyed. And then it got thicker, and I started making mistakes. I think I was trying to go faster than I should have, once again. I suppose I see Norwegians flow by so smoothly and that's what I try to achieve, to not break stride and slow down and focus on what I'm doing, but I don't. This race also really had a pinnacle of lack of attention and focus, which really came to light at number 6. After doing the long long leg and crashing around in the green at number 7 for what seemed like an eternity, I packed it in.

In retrospect that was definitely for the best, since Tom did it in just under 2 hours, and we did technically have a race the next day. Probably would have been bad for WC performance to do this.

Long Champs - 1 - Splits

Despite not making the final, we still got to run the same course as a WRE after the world cup, which partly meant that we knew where a bunch of the controls were.

I realize that this was a WRE and a real race, but it was really hard to want to work very hard when you know this was the extremely unimportant sidenote to the real race. I think I made some strong route choices (though not int the important long leg), but also made a mistake at number 13 where I got confused with the shapes of the roads and overshot where I was trying to go.

Oddly enough, given my lack of effort and mistakes, I'm mildly surprised I got as many WRE points as a did.

Sprint Champs - C1 - Splits

World Cup sprint qualification time. These darn World Cups are arguably harder than WOC given now I have to content with 8 damn swiss instead of just three. On the other hand, there were far fewer Euros to deal with. No Spaniards, for instance.

Generally was pretty smooth for the first 8 or so controls, which was actually the only time when I was cruising in a place that would've gotten me in the final. After that I slowly plummeted into the non qualifying zone. Partly I think due to lack of speed, and partly due to sub-optimal route choices and the occasional hesitations. My winsplits suggests I made 20 seconds of mistakes, and lo and behold, I was almost 20 seconds out of qualifying, but also about 2 minutes behind, and that's not even remotely close to be good enough over a 15 minute race.

I can think of occasions where I could done a better job in planning my route during dead running times. Instead I left my concentration drift, and I think that was costly. I certainly think there's still some potential for a ton of improvement in my sprint technique.

Still, though, very disappointed.

World Cup Sprint Qualification - Men - Splits

Hoo boy, World Cup Middle in dune terrain. I really did not have any solutions for what was about to come.

The first 6 controls weren't much problem, they were all in white forest and fairly straightfoward, though it was rather difficult to know what white was going to be more passable than others, it kinda varied.

After that, we headed into the dunes. 7 was the really, really tough control, and I really didn't know what to plan. I was making a point of leaving the control with a plan, but I couldn't see any viable plan at all. I thought that maybe if I left the control and got out into the dunes I'd have a better understanding of what they looked like and that would help. It didn't. Instead, eventually Simon Upill caught me and he assisted me into that control, the next, then we sort of traded back and forth for a while until around 16. At that point I followed him into a dumb mistake, even though I personally didn't think it was a good idea. That mean that he ran away from me and I was back to being on my own.

Hot, quite tired, and really not certain with my navigation, I fully overshot 17 and totally over shot 18. 18 was the crossroads because it was the control I allegedly mis-punched. I've gone over it countless times in my head, and although that section is a tad blurry, I'm quite confident I was there. How am I sure, because I remember the mistake i made on the way to 18, and the direction I came into 19, and there's no way I could have gone from where I made the mistake to the way I can into 19 without visiting 18. Maybe the SI didn't work? Maybe I got there and just didn't punch? I'm really not certain. But I'm fairly confident I went there, and something happened. I've read about people punching and it not working properly, so maybe it finally happened to me once.

Nevertheless, my performance was on a steady decline from there. My initial race strategy of having a plan really really went out the window, as I'd leave controls way too out of control to have an semblance of knowing what I was doing. I think I would have been most effective to just slow to a complete walk and get it together. Regardless of the MP, it would have been an absolutely terrible result.

All in all, epic disappointment for my first World Cup.

That afternoon, we headed down to the park in Palmerston North that was the "model" for the sprint. I jogged down from the university and met the ladyfolk. We just did a quick jaunt around part of the map to think about moving fast and smooth.

World Cup 1 - Middle Men - Splits