Training Log Archive: vmeyer

Event: QOC Clopper Lake
 

EX2 - Spring Backyard Burn Trail Running Series (R3) Lake Fairfax

Event: West Point National Meet
 

Event: World Masters Orienteering Championships 2017
 

Event: World masters games 2017
 

Volcano

Updated April 13 - travel day
Added Aprili 16 - Oceania Relay
Updated April 18 - rest day
Added April 19 - Middle Earth Long
Added April 20 - Middle Earth Sprint

Left to do
April 14 - Oceania Sprint
April 15 - Oceania Long
April 16 - Relay arena pics
April 17 - Oceania Middle

A little homesick, so I texted the neighbor and asked her to take a picture of Roger and Pepper the next time she saw them out. This was the best she could come up with. ;-)



P.S. I now see why new railings have been ordered...

FR distance = 2.06 miles.
Place W55 = 48/65, and 114/155 on Course 9 (includes M65)

Can't get the roto-rooter jingle out my head yet.

Nothing left in the tank today. Two small errors. Kept chugging along the best I could and frolicking through the high water whenever I could. Just little bits of error here and there.



The lake is very high after the recent typhoons, so we were advised that a route choice or two would take you through the water at the edge of the lake. Between 2-3, I backtracked to the path but then missed and ended up going back through 4 to get to 3.

A portion of the route along the lake from 5-6 was underwater, as was the area out of 7. All good fun to splash around, with not a care to whether my shoes would get wet or not. Maybe the lake smell will dampen down the muddy swamp smell gained earlier in the week. Had to back out of the OOB area when I saw I was nearing the golf course after drifting around the clump of trees. The grass north of the golf course was totally saturated, so I had more splashy fan gaoing through there. Who needs a Waterpark?! :)

PrueD and I have been close for all of the races, though she would have gotten me by a lot yesterday, if it wasn't for that unfortunate MP. She bested me in the first sprint event, and I bettered her by just a place or two in the middle and long. A fun little rivalry of sorts, though I wish we hadn't also been seeing who would have the highest error rate while we were out there. Today, we were both fairly clean, and I ended up 1:01 down. Good times.

Winsplits - Sprint by Classes

Some notable USA results today, especially in M55 - Sergey V 1st and Joe B (below, while he was at the top) 3rd.



Natalia D 2nd in W60 and Pavlina 4th in W55 with some really tight times at the top.



Ran into Jon and Anna C. Actually, I saw Jon lots of days because we both had late starts. Have also seen Tori and Peter, of course, as well as Linda K and Rick W, and Jeffrey S and Judy K. Sergey V has also stopped by the results display area and said hi as well. Good to see friendly faces each day.

Facilities were quite posh today in the Rotorua Energy Events Centre - power, bathroom, plenty of space.



ISOTD...part of one of my newly acquired keens.



After leaving the event around 1:30, we stopped at Lady Jane's ice cream shoppe, and I had a delicious cone with a scoop of honey and figs, and a scoop of a lemon cheesecake. The honey and fig was the best.

Oh, and when I finished my race, there was a still warm steak and onion pie waiting for me. Yup, it was a good day.

C • Rotorua 13

C • One place 1

C • I have the same Keens... 1

Sprint - Course 9 - Splits

Event: Middle Earth Championships
 

FR distance = 5.62 miles with 166.4 m climb
Place W55 = 42/52, and 63/79 on Course 14 (includes W16 and W35AS)

Winsplits - Long by Classes



The spaghetti tracks say it all...but, at least I didn't mispunch or quit.

Carefully made my way around 1-4, enjoying navigating by myself, having started at the end of the day.

Then, I just wasn't careful enough into 5, plunging into jungle of ferns and such. Attacked again and again, but I wasn't making sure I knew where I was. Lots of standing water didn't help, but at least the mud was finally off of my shoes, though today was the shoes' pre-planned last hurrah.

Anyway, I walked over to the highway, like another woman was doing, and I sorted out where I was and gave it another go. Finally!

Around the simple to find 6-7-8, and then messed up 9 just at the end. Eventually, I was able to sort out where I was on the trail based on the pits. Happy with 10-11-12-13, gaining confidence. Lost that quickly as I was tiring and leaked a bit on 14-15-and the cherry on the cake, 16. Convinced myself I was on the wrong track, since the control hadn't come up as soon as I thought it should, so I ducked into the woods. Knew this wasn't right, so I got back on the original track but had now passed the last control. Was in sight of the Finish when I turned back and trudged up the trail and then back.

Two hard falls to add insult to injury, or is it injury to insult, while searching for #5. Regardless, I had fun on my self-made adventure.

From the event bulletin...The Middle/Long Distance event will take place in the Whakarewarewa Forest one of our city’s greatest treasures and internationally known for its superb mountain biking and walking tracks and for the magnificent stand of Californian Coast Redwoods.

It was a spectacular event center!







Though a little chilly under the canopy/sail.



Every so often we ventured out into the light to warm up, feeling like a mole surfacing after a long winter's nap. OK, maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but I wish I had brought my gloves and hat, that's for sure.

A picture of fern, because, it is required to have at least one fern picture to post.



Permanent control




And, a nod to Middle Earth...



And, me included, for scale.

C • Redwoods 2

Middle/Long - Course 14 - Splits

Rest day in Rotorua.

Updated
April 7-9 - added travel part of things
April 10 - added rest day
April 9 - fleshed out the race report
April 11 - added horse ride report
April 11 - added afternoon note
April 12 - finished Te Mata "race" report and trip to the Peak

Lazy morning
Pie shop - yum!
Some minimal sightseeing
Grocery store - trip 1
Log updating
Grocery store - trip 2
Tea
Redwood tree night walk

First stop of the day was to a pie shop. I love homemade hot pockets!!

Then, it was off to see the event center for tomorrow. Redwood trees galore.



The Finish, Download, and Results area will be here. Plenty of room for everyone and power...





and Artistic bathrooms close by, in addition to the portables brought in for the day. Even with 1200+, there never seemed to be a line.





Control stands for tomorrow.

Then Tim, Jane, Phillip and I went to check out Lake Rotorua. There was a fence around the touristy area preventing people from walking on the sidewalk there because of the high water levels.

Spent a few minutes watching the helicopter take off, and just enjoying the beautiful day.

The last stop of the day was to visit a Maori settlement.


There we saw some hot springs, some likely presently used for cooking.







Saint Faith's Anglican Church - hard to tell from the picture, but the cross hatched roof was very pretty.







Not to scale...this was on the fence posts and was only about 18" tall.

Miscellaneous...





ISOTD

While we were at the event site earlier today, we decided to go on the Redwoods Treewalk, but during the night time. Tim stayed back sick, so it was Jane, Phillip, and me...

The tracks are a hoot - all wiggly and squiggly, when we were walking in straight lines, maybe bouncing a bit on the bridges.





Tried to get the lights and the changing colors on the ferns, but these pics don't really do them justice. Fun to try through.

C • tree walk 3