Training Log Archive: pi

Warm-up.

COC Long. Extreme route choice terrain, created by many large impassable marshes and lakes. Forest was a mix of many open small hills with light green forest between. With the 2.5 meter contours it was definitely a Swedish feel to the terrain, apart from the uncrossable marshes and the thickness of the forest between the hills. Started without map contact towards the first control, but once I hit the open ridge leading into the control I was fine. Controls 2 to 5 were fairly easy without much route choice, but then it started. Long leg to 6 where I went right along the edge of the lake, but it was a pretty easy decision, since left looked much worse. Caught up 3 minutes to Robbie at 7 and decided to go right to 8, which turned out to be the fastest way and I got everyone by 1 minute here. Coming into 11, I saw Nick and Igor leaving the control, but I was not able to get their back to 12 and this is where I made my only significant mistake, losing close to 3 minutes on a bad route, followed by a parallel mistake. Caught up to Martin Ward at 14 and he was behind me all the way to 16 where we joined up with Patrick Saile and Nevin French. This group was wobbling its way towards 17, but after a while I recognized where I was from the approach to the first control and I pulled away from the pack. Got the 2 last controls in the tricky terrain and then ran the road into the final stage of the course in a different terrain type. Very tired now and just tried to be very careful not to blow it. Got all of them fairly clean, but felt slow. Passed Jon Torrance on the way to 23, but don't think he ever saw me. Took the trail around to the last control, since I had no more energy to think. Finished in the lead with only Wil Smith still out to challenge. He started 3 minutes behind me and he came about 3:20 after me... phew. Margins on my side again. Gold!

The straight line course distance was 11.1 km...

C • Gold! 7

Long Course 10 - Splits

Warm-up.

COC Sprint. Had a top 5 race going until 13, then relaxed too much and blew over 40 seconds at 14. Amazing to see all the fast times for the juniors, and Robbie's crushing win in the Elite. Too easy navigation for my taste, just left or right around a building for every control, but of course the only time I lost focus for a moment it killed my race. No matter how easy you can never let your mind drift away on other things!

Sprint Course 5. - Splits

Warm-up.

COC Middle distance. Bronze medal! Started carefully and ran all the way around to the first. Had a sense right away that the navigation would be critical today, with a labyrinth of trails and low visibility in the woods. Got the first 4 controls slowly, but without problem. On the long trail run around to 5 I read ahead a few controls. Coming into 5 I was expecting the little cliff to face me, but in fact I had misread the map and it was facing away from me. I literally stood one meter from the control, but never looked down. Ran around for 1 minute until I came back and spotted the flag. Tried to forget about this and settled back into the routine, got 6 to 8 fairly clean and ran trail around to 9 and again to 10. Took the straight route to 11. Nailed 13, think this was my only winning split! Was too far right to 15, in fact I saw control 20 just to my right and I think I lost 20 seconds here. First two controls after the spectator control in the arena went ok, but then I got confused by a lot of ribbons in the forest on the way to 19, which made me hesitate and slow down. Think I lost 20 seconds here to. To control 20, the last control, I tried to push a little bit extra and since I had seen it earlier on the course I was aggressive on the approach.

Running into the finish chute, I felt I had a decent race, but not enough for a medal. It turned out I had the margins on my side today, narrowly edging out Nick for the bronze! My goal before the weekend was to come home with one medal, either in the Middle or the Long, so that felt really good!

Great terrain today for a Middle and a good course! I think the 1:10000 map had the wrong symbols sizes, probably shrunk from the 1:7500 which seemed to have the correct sizes.

Middle distance, M21E - Splits

COC Relay with Graeme and Andrea. Graeme had a stellar run on the first leg and came in 2 minutes in the lead. Andrea lost some time on the second leg and I went out in 3rd place overall. Robbie A was right behind me out the start gate and passed me to 7 when he had a shorter fork to 6. I saw his tail until 9, but then he ran away to 10. When I came out of 13, Robbie suddenly came in the wrong direction, so I had a feeling he had made a mistake, which was indeed the case. So I held my place and finished 3rd.

Various warm-ups and cool-downs.

Setup sprint at Carlton University Campus. Felt pretty excited about this one and tried to push hard. Started in a corner of the map with some fields and bushes and I think I ran a bit too much around to 2, but no other issues out on the course. Fairly straight forward navigation. Finished in 2nd place. I was very surprised, given that there were many runners faster than me and the nav was easy. About 10 guys finished within a minute.

Chase start at Carlton. Tons of runners starting within seconds behind me and it all turned into a big pack within a few controls. The first part of the course was brilliant sprint orienteering with difficult route choices in multi-level terrain with many stairs and walls. Second half was easier, but a critical long route choice leg at the end decided the race. The uncrossable fences were mapped with the wrong symbol and this caused some confusion out on the course. It would have been interesting to run this course as a staggered start to get to do some individual navigation. I really didn't stand a chance to keep up to the pace of the furious pack, so dropped many places.

Thanks to Jeff and Robbie for putting on this fantastic little event, complete with spectator controls, radio controls and race announcing!

C • Can we see the map? 2

Sass Peepre junior camp in Ottawa. Ran around shadowing the older juniors on a contours only course and a corridor.

Ran the sprint course for the junior training camp. Forest orienteering with some nice woods from control 3 to 12.

Pretty exhausted from the long travel from Trondheim and some serious jetlag.