Training Log Archive: PG

Just a short note about the corn maze O' --

It succeeded as much, and maybe even more than I had hoped. The orienteering was both challenging and enjoyable, the participants were great, the post-race party was excellent, including cash awards for all and lots of beer. And the pre-race foolishness, including the founding of CMOUSA, the awarding of not one but two national championships, the logo competition -- well, I've laughed a whole lot in the last few days. And in the process actually pulled off an event that hardly existed a week ago.

Both owners were on site, one just briefly, the other for quite a long time, including out in the maze taking pictures. And they seemed to enjoy it a lot. I know we will be welcome back next year.

Thanks to Gail for all the work getting ready for the party, to Cristina for the CMOUSA web site and general tech help, to JJ and Kissy for the logos, and to George for setting up and dealing with the e-punch operation.

It was all quite wonderful.

C • Thanks! 8

Event: U.S. Corn Maze Championships
 

In what seems like an eternity ago, went for a short run with Boris. I was working hard, he wasn't.

Just to show the girls (Cristina, her sister Caroline, and Ali) were really doing their core work last night -- well, except for Alex, she was in too much pain, though not enough pain to keep her from laughing.



And Ali's new map filing system. Somehow I think she's going to need more than three binders before long.

Another night ride in Montague. Seem to have survived -- only went over the handlebars once, plus fell off a few other times (there are a lot of logs and branches on the trails). But no blood lost nor bones broken.

And so much to do (logo judging, etc.), but first things first, Cristina has fixed a fine-looking dinner....

Vetting points for the championships on Wednesday late afternoon. Looking good. Now doing the final work on the map, it will be set to go to the printer tomorrow.

Note -- I am also in negotiations with CMOUSA about the possibility of holding a Sprint Championships in addition to the Classic Championships already scheduled. A decision is expected by this evening. If we get approval, the Classic Champs will be run first, first start at 5:00 pm, followed by the Sprint Champs, first start at 5:45 pm.

For those new to Corn Maze Orienteering, the Classic Champs are meant to be a test of navigation skills and endurance over a variety of terrain, whereas Sprint Champs are short and as devious as possible, a test of speed and cunning.

As I said, I'll know more this evening.

At Ali's, after the girls had done all sort of core stuff, which there was no way I could have done. Classic plank (straight arms, not on elbows). Shooting for 5 minutes, just made it.

Really just one run, but lost the satellites in the middle.

Lovely late afternoon. With Cristina and Caroline, a short tour of the neighborhood before heading to Ali's for a core workout (for them, not me) and dinner. Never would have gotten out the door without company.

So a look at my mistakes today, and why they happened --



To the 3rd control -- the plan was to cross the trail, go along the first line of marshes, angle down to the second line, go to the end of that, and the control would be looking right at you. What happened:

1. Mistake -- Thought I was turning down at the start of the third marsh, but it was actually only the second. So the cliffs I was expecting to see weren't there.
2. Recovery -- In the expectation of seeing cliffs to my right, and not seeing them, I almost kept descending down towards the big marsh. Realized that was wrong. Stopped long enough to figure out I was just left of the elongated knoll.
3. Mistake -- Should have gotten back to the second line of marshes because it was such an easy way to take the control. And easy usually also means fast. But the running looked nice straight ahead.
4. Recovery (sort of) -- Mostly in control, though having to pay attention to keep track of the little knolls.
5. Mistake -- I think I misidentified a pice of rock as the last cliff on the route, when the last cliff was still a little farther. So I went a little more and expected the reentrant and the control to appear, but no sign of them. Looked a little right and left.
6. Recovery -- Went far enough right to see the end of the marsh, and as expected, the control was simple from there.

Doesn't look like much, but I'd guess I blew off at least a minute -- stopping to make sure I didn't go down the bigger slope, then much more intensive map reading (so slower running), then searching early, then a detour to the marsh end. Maybe more than a minute? Things add up.

Morale -- when you have to plan to nicely simplify a control, stick to it.



To the 8th control, the plan was to climb past the green marsh, go east and drop into the reentrant, and follow it down to the first knoll and then the second knoll NE of it. What happened --

Good as far as getting into the correct reentrant and heading down it. But then:

1. Mistake -- My mental image was that I would drop down the reentrant about 100 meters or a little more and there would be a big cliff on my left and a single knoll ahead of me. Down I went. Saw the cliff, saw a knoll, went out on the knoll. And couldn't make sense of things.
2. No recovery.
3. Mistake -- Thinking I was on the first knoll, even though it didn't feel right, I dropped off the NE side to see if my second knoll was there, just not obvious from above.
4. Nope
5. Recovery (pure luck) -- Saw a control between two knolls, didn't think it was mine because....
6. Mistake -- I still hadn't looked at the clue, and I was assuming that the feature was the cliff on the right side of the NE cliff.
7. Recovery -- Went to check the one between the knolls. Hmm, it's mine. :-) And off to #9. Really quite sad.

And how did the problem get started? Simple -- not a discriminating enough mental image of how the terrain lay, meaning, not realizing that the first knoll I was looking for was on a line straight down the line of the reentrant. So when I saw a little bump or two on the right shoulder of the reentrant, I assumed that was the knoll I was looking for, even though they didn't look right at all.

Morale -- when things don't look right they probably aren't. Stop and figure it out. This one cost me a couple of minutes.

Day 2 at the US Champs. A little less skilled than yesterday, lost about a minute on #3 (couldn't get myself to go the last 40 meters) and a couple minutes on #8 (did see something on the map that would have helped, but mainly just didn't think clearly). Just squeaked in under an hour, 5th on the GreenX course, first again in M60.

A very pleasant surprise for the weekend. After getting totally dusted by all sorts of people at the Highlander, my expectations for this weekend were low. I figured making the top 3 in M60 would be possible, but I expected to get trounced by Bob and Jeff and who knows who else. But you never know how things will work out, you still have to find the controls, and I think I found the controls as well (or better) than anyone else on the course.

So that was a lot of fun and a big improvement from the Highlander. But I still have to do something to see if I can get a little running ability back, just on the odd chance that it hasn't permanently disappeared. Because it is so much fun to be finding the controls and also have a little bit of energy.

Way off in the future -- picked up a flier for the JK and the Irish Champs. last 10 days of April next spring. Very appealing, after tax season is over. Never been to either. So perhaps that is something to shoot for.

My course (GreenX, M60).

And my route.

Also scanned yesterday's map, so there's a much better image (see yesterday's entry).

C • JK 3

Day 2 Green X - Splits

Event: US Two-day Classic O Championships
 

Day 1 of the 2-day Classic Champs (the real national championships in my opinion, hope it still exists as long as I'm orienteering, certainly for financial reasons the federation would be foolish to dispense with it).

Fabulous terrain. Real nice course, good orienteering right to the very end. So glad I ran M60 instead of M65, but I wasn't going to be Swiss'ed again.

Good run/walk (a lot of work, but even the slightest uphills required walking). Clean almost all the way, just lost maybe a minute total on the last couple controls.

The map.

And here's my route.

Not the best route to #1, should just have gone straight but wanted to get into the map a bit. Then pretty good all except a little shaky to the last two. Surprised that times weren't a lot faster given how slowly I was moving.

Day 1 Green X - Splits

I note in a few places around AP that there is a lot of chatter about burrito consumption. Which all strikes me as a bit useless, since I'm not a big fan of burritos. I'd guess it's been a decade since I've had one, and I haven't felt deprived.

So imagine my surprise when I happened to see something similar to this a few days ago --



And the question is, how much better off would those folks be if funds spent on burritos had been put in CMG? Ian would certainly be a millionaire (and a lot healthier too?). And what other investment gems might be picked up by a careful monitoring of AP logs?

C • healthy 3