Training Log Archive: ndobbs

Event: 33rd West Point A Meet
 

Jag har sprungit snuskigt fort, but not fast enough.

Blue Sprint - Splits

Blue Middle - Splits

23 running Blue at WP Sunday, 9 running IOC 21E.

And Kenneth Kaisajuntti is running 55L in Ireland, I wonder what he'll make of the maps. I presume K is L's dad, Andrew?

C • Oh Jaysus! 3

My sis may *still* not have a phd, but she's just got herself a permanent Lectureship at Queen's!

Big smile on my face.

C • OOOOOH! 1

It was dark in the woods. It's pretty wet underfoot too. Collected a few streamers that Marek put out for training once upon a time and I was supposed to take in...

I still have some raw speed, but little strength, stamina, stability or aerobic capacity. Should be good for Saturday :)

life path is entering one of those unstable bifurcating phases... what to do, what to do...

Stopped to stretch some after 10 minutes.

Eloquence

Billygoat QR.

Something funny happens at 16. I checked out the cliff to the west, not having climbed down the cliff at 16, plus from 16 I took the trail to 17 from the closer bend. Some distortion?

Also, I'd forgotten the mistake en route to 12, went a bit too far east.

Phallic seafood - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoduck

I didn't order that. Frogs, on the other hand...

I spent a month every summer throughout my childhood on Achill Island and have been back many times since. The flight from Dubai to New York passed right over it.

Also today, Westmoreland Sanctuary co-hosted an event on their property with HVO.

I planned the courses, Geof and Craig vetted, Geof set controls and managed SI (with help from Lez Chiera) and Westmoreland provided lots of volunteers for registration, explaining orienteering etc., provided snacks, and most importantly advertised lots. I don't know yet what the breakdown was newbies vs returns.

This is part of a mail they sent afterwards:
"Greetings All,

Thank you for your support. The Orienteering event was a great success. Meets official numbers cracked over a 100 people! Great job! Even with the "Billy Goat" in upstate NY - One of the biggest event in the Orienteering sport. We received several requests to hold additionally meets from attendees. Neil and Jeff - we should at some point sit down and discuss the future events. I would like to discuss some future events.

In The News:
The record review came to take pictures and maybe interested in a larger story about community education for wildlife navigation that Westmoreland is trying to offer in different venues to the school (middle school course set up), scouts, police and fire departments. These programs would then be tied to one or two annual orienteering meets held at the sanctuary. The Paper has asked that the web sites information stay up for a few days so that they can use the information and reference for the story. I will let you all know if anything happens with any of this.
Steve, please outline have a very basic outline of programs so that you are ready in case the paper gives you a call. I will get in touch with them and may refer them to you.
Neil and Geof, I would like to know how you would like me promote your club as well if I can. I will offer you as an avenue for ongoing education, and refinement of skills learned in our programs in a friendly competitive environment or "sport form". Does that work for you? I cannot control what they put in the paper but I can try to get you some extra PR."

This is the set of courses.

What I was aiming for is to have a set of courses that would be useful training for elite orienteers, yet suitable to introduce orienteering to beginners. The first course is perhaps a bit harder than British/Irish white, but the distances between the controls are short, almost within sight range, for the "harder" controls.

Then hopefully most of the people will have pleasant experiences on course 1 and learnt what the terrain is like and some basic skills and be prepared to give course 2 a shot. Course 2 is Yellow heading towards Orange level. It looks harder on paper than it is as visibility is great around where the controls are (e.g. number 6 was originally the cliff to west, but that one was half-hidden by fallen trees - the actual 6 is visible for miles). 7 is perhaps the hardest control, but learning to jump across the unknown is important. Participants should make a link between contours and terrain on this course (e.g. on legs 4,5,6,10).

Then for the very quick learners, or people who have been to a couple of these before, they can try the third course. It's longer, tougher, still hopefully doable (if difficult). It should satisfy the experienced ones who want longer courses (there was also a 6km on offer today), but be some sort of achievable goal for the future for newbies. Having "raced" courses 1 and 2, failing the third is not the end of the world.

After succeeding on the first course, finding courses two (or three if they get that far) challenging is a good thing. They can see that there is a lot to learn, that it is doable, and that with training they can get better.

Whether or not that is how it works in reality is another matter.

C • hooray! 2

BILLYGOAT, 34th Annual

The reason I am not floozing around SE Asia after the conference. The one race worth flying 17,000 km and not sleeping enough and then driving three hours upstate for. The most mythic race in orienteering.

Sadly, after a year and a half of not training, and a month or two of extreme not-training, I wasn't exactly competitive. From the start, I was one of few to take the left route choice. In other terrain with the same map, it might have been reasonable. Here it lost two minutes, plus two-three on fitness. Eighteen minutes after the start I hit the circle perfectly, stopped 15m before the control, didn't see it (in a big broad reentrant, supposedly) wasted 30s, then came back and saw it. A 15yo Breton girl beat me there.

Two was in the train, to three things split up a bit, I passed Alex, which I didn't understand, and was fairly clean until 13 (left fork at 5), at which point having overtaken Jon Torrance and possibly dropping Andis V, I ran towards where 15 would be if I were leaving 14. Oops. Realised this when the channel didn't appear at all as it should, then went to 14, having considered skipping. Maybe 5 minutes lost. From there on I was essentially on my own.

Small mistake at 16 (40s?), skipped 18, possibly not the best, but certainly not terrible. 19-finish were fairly trivial. My left hip stabiliser muscle things had started complaining, and running was getting tough, but I plodded on and just broke 2 hours.

Every descent of more than a few contours I had to pop my ears. The cold of the past week hadn't entirely cleared up.

Congrats to feet (1h29?) for another victory in the Goat.

Major congrats to Anna and Elina B for their stunning performances, under 2h10 aged 15, 3rd and 4th girls (women).

And big thanks to the organisers!

C • Breton girls 3

Billygoat - Splits