Training Log Archive: David_Waller

Event: MVOC Germantown "Pumpkin Hunt"
 

A very physical red course at Germantown Metropark. I hit the first 3 controls pretty solidly and was determined to avoid dark green as much as possible on leg 3/4. My plan was to run south through white to the trail, then toward 4 through the open/scattered tree area just East of 4. No such luck. A small veer to the right made me miss the trail, and I ended up fighting through very dense vegetation south of the control. I ended up wasting about 15 minutes and was completely exhausted when I finally punched #4. If I had paid better attention to the contours, this would not have happened. The mistake really killed the rest of my race, both physically and mentally.

The only other real navigation mistake came from 11 to 12, where again I drifted right and went stupidly far up the east-to-west reentrant north of the control. I was happy with my route choice from 12 to 13, although I'll wager that my split looks horrible. I was completely exhausted by this time, and seemed barely ambulatory. I was also dissapointed to see the "rough open land" north of #13 so impassable. I got badly gashed by thorns on the way to 14 and finished very slowly, but with no navigation mistakes.

I probably made 5 or 6 small directional errors, veering off my intended line slightly. When I look at each of these errors, every single one involved veering to the right -- never to the left.

C • All you had to do... 5

Red - Splits

Event: ICO Halloween-O
 

ICO Night-O. A very fun meet and a nice Score-O setup from ICO. My calf slowed me down a bit, the map was not perfect, and the controls were not reflective; however, I navigated pretty well, and hit most of the controls pretty well. I punched 18 out of 21 controls and came back in something like 1:50 -- pretty safely within the two-hour limit. If I hadn't crossed over the indistinct trail in the South without seeing it on the way to #20, I probably could have cleared the course (although I'm not sure I _would_ have). The mistake cost me at least 8 minutes and took me away from several of my to-be-punched controls. Even if I had cleared it, though, there is no question that Mike would have still won the event.

Score-O's seem like especially good opportunities to think about what might have been.

My route: 7, 9, 8, 14, 12, 13, 11, 10, 15, 16, 21, 17, 19 [long mistake and recovery], 1, 6, 2, 4, 5. I would have done 20 after 19 and 3 and 18 after 2.

O-practice with my rogaine parner, Jacob. I printed a couple maps of the 2005 BillyPig at the Mounds, and we hit the course in the cold morning air. It was a fantastic day to be out, but the white areas were much thornier than anticipated, and my knees got cut up pretty badly. We were slow, and only made it through 14 of the 20 controls, but had quite a bit of fun.

We put streamers at control locations 1 - 14 (but not #2) in case anyone wants to get out and run (or re-run) that old course. I expect to get streamers out for #15-20 in the next couple of weeks. A couple of our streamers' locations are questionable -- I'm pretty sure we marked #11 on a parallel spur. Oops.

Very slow; calf still sore