Training Log Archive: Linear Ice

Event: The Black River Navigation Challenge
 

9 hr black river navigation challenge

Team Interloper, with Robin
At the start...looking at the map and the number of contours, and knowing that Andrei wouldn't set a 9 hr rogaine that we could sweep....we planned a fairly conservative route.
But after a few controls, we thought.... hmmm not that bad, so we added a few more controls back in. Got six controls boom boom boom boom boom boom.
And then we were slow to one or two... so we re-routed again. In the end, we might have had one of the least efficient total efforts... but most of our controls we hit fairly well.
A couple of big errors where I decided to go across a long flat area on a bearing, found out it was swampy.
We kept a slow steady pace, not too much running with a heel injury (Robin) and AT (me of course). Robin planned and executed a few of the controls... also fun to see her doing this since a year ago I could barely get her out orienteering.
We ran out of food (left my secondary pouch at camp when I learned there was water on the course), so we swung back to the start (yet another re-route)... and then with a little over an hour left we went out for four more controls. Kind of a little mini race..... very fun since we thought we were REALLY close to missing time and really had to run. But our watch was wrong and we made it back in plenty of time.
LOTS of Pizza and other good stuff after the race.
Karta Racing, LLC really knows how to throw a great event! Thanks Andrei!

But no surprise with all the wishy-washy planning and such that we only got 24 of the 33 controls... more than I thought we could have gotten, but probably less than we could have gotten with a more aggressive plan from the start.

I felt great after the rogaine; my head has been in "cranky mode", easily irritated for the last couple of weeks ... with no good reason.
The Rogaine was a great re-boot.

OTNT (thank you PeteW)
75 minute score-O, finished with 8 minutes to spare but in reviewing, see I missed two controls so got 23.
Fun park, cool weather and feeling great.
Yellow/Orange level control, so good sprint training, kept a good pace.
15 minute control retrieval after.

<70%, which I adjusted to 140 from 145.
High is about 183, low is about 147 for now, so I guess my other <70 runs were on the high side by about 5 counts.
I felt very good today, maybe because i was going so slow! or because the weather cooled down, but who cares why, just felt nice.
Still keeping my plan of rebuilding my slow base before pounding out any attempted faster miles. Should help my AT too, which has been more sore than i want to admit....

Event: MNOC Willow River State Park
 

Ran the orange to get back to basics; the finding of controls was fine, but the mugginess and my general state of exhaustion made me very overheated and tired even at a slow pace. Didn't worry about it, but when I Finished spent about 15 minutes in the lake, cooling off before running Red.
Nice course; I paid attention to the contours, where I was, what to expect coming up, where the control would be exactly, etc.

I wasn't sure it was a good idea to run the Red, since I almost overheated just in Orange (going slow)... so I stuck pretty firm to the plan of not pushing too hard but just trying to get some good Orienteering. Which includes reviewing routes. =)

3 was just a little shaky because of all the dark green, trying to get though it and keep track of my re-entrant. Kept my mind on two places I might be, and didn't lose too much.
4. Stayed high; indicated as open woods but completely buckthorn. Like my route; after hitting the big reentrant it was easy to find the control.
5. Confused a bit when I went through a wet area before the swamp, on the trail. But it was right. Slow does help
6. Bridge across river and another quick dunk for me. Refreshing.
9. Up over the hill, find the big reentrant, and have faith that I'm going the right way even though pfc was going a different way. Quite rare. But correct. What an interesting area with all the big reentrants and ditches!
11 I ended up on the wrong small hilltop. 20 ft contours so easy enough to be on a hill that wasnt on the map. Lost some time, saw pfc jogging past my hill on to 12 so figured out it must be West just a bit Sure enough
13 Ran to the copse but mapped area was bad (pace counted, used compass, but there were multiple copses and only one shown). Was going to run to the next copse up ahead, but pfc had already checked that one out. Map showed reentrant, that's where it was!
Dunked in the lake for a while again when i was done.

Orange - Splits

Red - Splits