Training Log Archive: PG

In case anyone is interested, it seems that there will be some O' training at Mt Norwottuck (just across the river from Mt. Tom). Yes, it's the day before the Billygoat and you may not want to train. But if you do, contact either me (pg@crocker.com) or Ross for details.

C • Thanks 1

My usual walk. The legs were unpleasantly tired. That's to be expected, I guess, given my new Weekend Warrior status. But at least the thumb lacerations were on the side and not the bottom, so I can still hold the D1.

A depressing though probably realistic thought -- if I hit my D1 the way I orienteer, the upside is that I would almost never miss the fairway. On the other hand, I would occasionally head to the wrong green, or skip a hole, or play the holes out of order. Oh, and the ball wouldn't go more than about 120 yards....

C • how you orienteer 1

Women's long course at the Team Trials. 8.1 km, 340m.

Course.

I think the executive summary of the day would be that things improved noticeably after about 10:15 am. Which just happens to coincide with the time I finished the course.

I am no longer able to do any sort of justice to a course like this. That's just the simple truth. Can't deal with the rocks, or the laurel, or the blueberry-filled "white" forest, or the hills. Fell down a lot of times. Walked a whole lot. Got very tired. And I suppose it could have been a lot worse, since I did spike most of the controls. But it was still pretty feeble.

On the plus side, it should move me closer to being able to take part in the new OUSA program -- which hopefully will be up and running by then -- to offer to ancient and decrepit male orienteers the shadowing services of cute young female orienteers, just to make sure the organizers don't have to launch search operations when we don't come back. Such a service could even be a team fundraiser....

Injury report:
-- weirdly sprained left ankle, rolled it during the middle on Saturday morning, some sharp pains but zero swelling or discoloration, ran a little gingerly on Sunday.
-- lost a lot of skin and a little flesh off my right thumb (kept having to wipe the blood off the map case so I could see the map). This will heal, but may be a bit unpleasant during possible biking or rogaine practice the next few days.
-- the heels are still sore, but not significantly worse.
-- mentally appalled.

My navigating was mostly adequate but no more. Got helped into #1 by Kris. My route to 5 is absurd, mostly because it was only at the last moment that I realized I was heading to 7. And the last part of 15, on which leg I was trying to see how accurate I could be on the first part just going due north, at the end my map reading was terrible, didn't place myself correctly crossing the stream and trail. No big deal, corrected OK, but I thought I was better than that.

My routes.

So, as I said, things got better after I finished.

From a purely competitive point of view, and no matter and old and slow and mellow I get, a bit of competitiveness still lingers, I couldn't help but smile a little when I looked at results later and saw that, compared to my 92:14, Carl had done 92:16, Jeff 92:39, and Glen 93:29. We'll just ignore the fact that Pavlina womped me by 15 minutes.

And then I hung out by the finish to watch the Trials folks. And then we did our Review Panel stuff and announced the WOC Team. And then talked to Ross about possible CSU training on Saturday out here. And had a very pleasant time hanging out. And a relaxed drive home late in the day, even stopped on the way to post the team selection if it hadn't already been done, but Boris had taken care of that. I suppose I could get one of those fancy phones, but I'm not quite there yet....

C • fancy phones 3

Red Long - Splits

Event: 2010 US Team Trials for WOC
 

At the Team Trials, running the Red (women's course) middle distance. Better than the 40-45 minutes I expected. Nominal distance was 3.5k, 140m climb.

Today's middle course.

And my route.

Women's sprint course. Decent effort physically, a little feeble mentally. Such is. Still, considering I haven't run for a month.... And is that why my heart rate is high?

Nominal distance was 2.1k, 45m climb.

Today's sprint course.

And my my route.

Red Middle - Splits

Red Sprint - Splits

I wrote something a few days back about O' fundamentals, and I suppose one fundamental ought to be that you have your shit together at the start.

I had plenty of time last weekend to observe folks. And one thing was quite amazing -- how they dealt with getting their clues two minutes before their start.

A few didn't take them at all (the clues were also on the map), but these were generally less competitive folks.

Of those that took them, maybe 1/4 applied tape to them, either to protect the clues or to fasten them onto their body somehow, or both. I didn't see a single version of this process that I liked. Yes, I know some folks are probably quite attached to what they do, but the tape operation looked stressed, rushed, and if you do it a few times, liable to be screwed up. None of which is what you want as the clock is ticking down.

The rest had some sort of carrier -- slip the clues in it, attach it to your forearm (usually), and you're good to go. Seems fine.

Except here the variety of carrying devices was also amazing, and certainly seemed to me in a lot of cases to be proof of the well-known frugality among orienteers. I'd guess half of the carriers ought to be trashed -- things are frayed, things are torn, the plastic is shot. The struggles I saw as people tried to insert the clues and then fasten the devices to their arms, well, here too it look stressed, rushed, and liable to be screwed up.

You ought to be able to do the whole thing in 20 seconds, absolute max 30. Under any conditions. Cold, or rain, or wind, or hot and sweaty, or any combination thereof. With a thumb compass on one hand and a dibbler on the other.

You do practice this, right?

Yes, it's simple and it's trivial, but if you can't get this right....

C • 20 seconds? 36

Feet still hurting. Not particularly motivated, I've sort of given up on this season and this summer. But getting lots of rogaine practice, 7 hours on my feet today.