Training Log Archive: bishop22

Warm-up with the team, then ran around for some encouragement during their tempo run. My legs were in no shape to attempt tempo pace today.

Warm-up before the COC Long.

COC Long at Mono Cliffs Provincial Park. Well, first let me say that I spiked C10 today!

My legs were a little sore and tired from yesterday's races, so I started rather slowly, which certainly helped my navigation. Going to C4, I learned that the rough open land could be pretty deep - I had to bail to a trail earlier than I wanted, then I got sucked into a tiny patch of white to attack, when I meant to cut in at the big patch of white. I ended up avoiding the rough open most of the rest of the way. Leaving C8, I took off for the road, only to realize when I got there, that there was no good way to cut back in. The cemetery was OB, so I had to cut thru medium green to avoid that. I missed C11 way right, then spent too long deciding where to leave the trail for C12. The route to C14 actually had some fast-ish rough open, but I struggled to cut some distance to C15 by running thru that same color, then I started running towards C16 when I got into the woods (but they were close together and I corrected en route). I was distracted by others and went the wrong side of the hill to C17. I tried the rough open heading towards C18, but it was nasty and I had to bail to the trail, which was probably the better route anyway because of the hills/cliffs. C19 was another running leg, but I was starting to wear down, and I ended up walking several stretches on the way to C21. Leaving C23, I was catching two people quickly, and one pulled over to let me by, and had a front-row spot for my face-plant as I didn't see a narrow stump embedded in the grassy trail. I caught back up to the other guy, but he went diagonal thru some woods, while I had had enough green for the day, and ran around, and couldn't quite catch him on the way in.

So, no serious errors, but the terrain was a little tougher than I expected, and I was dragging a bit after yesterday, hence the 11-ish pace, instead of the sub-10 that I should have been capable of.

Zach picked up the win on the M-12 course, zipping thru in under 7 min/K. Nate also ran pretty well in M-16 (course 3/"Orange") and finished 3rd, only about 2 min. out of first.

C • newsprint 2

After a longer than expected drive up to Orangelville, we arrived at the model event site right at 4, but missed the end of the event. So, Nate, Zach and I just did some wandering to check out the terrain. Very hilly, but with the sorts of vegetation we are used to. I actually did stumble upon 1 control.

I don't have the map with the details, but I turned another very promising race into a disaster. I made no big mistakes thru the first 9 controls. I was reading contours like never before, and that seemed to be a good skill for this map (when the contours were accurate, I guess). C10 was a nightmare: I think I drifted a bit left and got distracted by another control. I knew I had another 60m to go, so I tried to adjust and move on, but the bearing led me into some nasty undergrowth, so I bailed and tried to reassess. I thought I could see the other mapped undergrowth patch, and tried to get the right angle, but the contours didn't line up; then I had most of the contours lining up, but the overgrowth patches didn't make sense, so I bailed to the road (10 minutes later), which was only 100m away (so I should have gone there much sooner), and quickly found the control. I had a couple of small mistakes on the way in, but nothing too bad. I think that without the 13 minute mistake, I may have been respectable - the running was much easier than out west, and perhaps I am not as out of shape as I thought.

The registration was supposed to start at 8, but our breakfast in Brampton didn't open until 7, so we hit the road at about 7:30 and got to the site at 8:30, which turned out to be 75 minutes before the registration materials showed up at the site. So much for the 10am start, which became 10:30, then 11, then 12. I've never seen so many people gathered at the start before.

The start was over 2K away, and there was no shuttle (as advertised), so Zach basically covered his course distance before the race, and again after the race. Luke also got to cover the distance to the start and back with Chris, since the finish was also over there.

Nate and I jogged much of the way to the start, for a warmup that turned out to be way too early.

COC Sprint. Just when I thought the afternoon couldn't go worse than the morning, err, earlier in the afternoon, I was mistaken. Again it was evil C10 that was my downfall. I wasn't running quite as well as this morning thru 9 controls, but fairly solid. C10 and C11 were both long trail legs, so I thought I could do some serious running. But I ran too fast, and blew way past C10, and couldn't relocate (I thought I was only a little past). Fast people (like John F and Hammer came flying by, but I was reluctant to follow because I didn't want to get all the way to C11. As it turned out, backtracking wasn't allowing me to relocate, so I had to go forward anyway, found C11 and returned to C10. Only blew a couple of controls on the way in - ran all the way around the pond to get to C12, after missing a trail junction, then couldn't see the trails on the way to C17 and ended up hitting the fence at the property boundary before recovering. Oh, I also embarassed myself in front of the fans by running by the last control. Nate beat me 14 seconds to 26 on that leg. I did manage to tie him on the finishing leg, a whole second ahead of Zach.

If I blow C10 again tomorrow, I will quit this sport.

Nate and Zach both cruised thru their courses in about 17 minutes. Zach's time included about 2.5 minutes on the last control, so he could have been really quick.

At least the start was delayed only about the announced amount of time. But I guess that turned out to be a problem for 3 or 4 SI units that must have run out of batteries while waiting for people to show up. This made for quite a mess at the download (which started way late to begin with).

All the various problems aside (mine and the organizers'), the sprint course was one of the better ones I have run.

Ran part of the way to the start to get Z a start time, then did some warm-up with Nate. Afterwards, I did a long-ish warm-down while waiting for the download queue to disappear, so that I could walk, let alone run, tomorrow. Then it was a bee-line for the Beer Store, where they sell OV for the low-low price of $20/12-pack.

The whole awful day was completed by hearing the end of the Bills game on the way back to the hotel (I didn't know it was a 6pm kickoff), when the Browns overcame a 3-and-15 and kept a field goal drive alive that broke the tie. I thought I'd see some OT at the hotel.

Did some warm-up with the team before our Blue & Gold intrasquad meet. Then running around during the race. My Gold team defeated the Blue team 27-28 in both boys and girls. For the boys it came down to a 1-second gap between the 4th runners. The girls weren't quite that close. Chelsea outkicked a Gold girl in a photo finish for 6th.

Arrived at the COC Model event at 4pm, but no sign of any organizers. Nate, Zach and I wandered in the terrain a bit (I actually stumbled on a control), before heading out of there.

First swim in almost a month, and it felt like it was longer.
4:02/8:21
1:33,6,6,6,5 (on 2)
3:28,26

Took Wilbur out, since he was in town from Phoenix. Record bag line (almost an hour), so we only had time for 9. I shot 41, despite 2 doubles (pulled second shot into the water on 3 and hit a tree on 9). Did pick up a bird on 5.

10 min w/up
13 min run before stregth work
12 min w/dn

C • Part of XC coaching? 3

Speed/Strength work at Ellison Park. The 400m loop was thru grass that hasn't been mowed in awhile, was wet with dew and was not flat: added 3-4 seconds to each interval.
3x400 before the hill work
89,89,88
2x400 after the hill work
90,94

6 x "45 sec" hills at Ellison Park. I could have picked a better spot - the place we were was almost parabolic shaped, so most of the kids had to walk near the top.

Other jogging after repetions and down the hills.

First run with the XC team. We had them scheduled for an easy day, so I followed behind the top group. We ran from North Ponds out the Hojack trail past Vosburg and back.

C • Coaching XC team? 3

We stayed in Salida one more night, so we had to leave at 7am to catch our 12:45 flight, which didn't arrive in Rochester until almost 9pm.

Started off OK - chose to run around on the road to C2. Missed C3 to the right and as I was searching Anders caught me (from 4 minutes down). I punched just before or after him at C4 thru C7, but didn't see him all that much in between. I did notice that he walks uphills with his hands behind his back (speedskater form). I came down the hilltop just before C8 and missed the control. I thought I may have been on the hilltop to the left, so I went way right before coming back, probably a minute behind Anders. PG caught me on the next leg, so I picked up the pace. His line seemed right of mine (he was aiming for the trail junction, I was conservatively aiming just left of that), so I lost contact. I had a costly problem at C10, not recognizing the shape of the clearing, so I spent some time looking high (I originally thought I had spiked this leg, because there was a control just about where I was aiming, but it must have been Green). I missed C12 right, and just could not read what kind of yellow or yellow/white combinations were on the map, so I just headed for what looked like the center of the local boulders (I could see I was on the edge of the serious boulders). I then missed C13 left, but it was probably the highest control of the whole week, so I saw it from a distance. Getting to C14 was tricky, but I knew right where it would be when I got there. I punched just behind someone who was pretty quick - thought I had a better line to the GO control, but he edged me out, and outkicked me by a couple of seconds.

Nate and Zach both made some errors today, but they were small enough that they each hung on to win their age groups!

Just a short warm-up. No real warm-down, just plenty of walking around and a little football tossing with the boys.

Red Day 2 - Splits

Event: US Classic Champs
 

Event: Canadian Orienteering Championships Festival
 

Don't have the map handy, so I can't recall all of the details, but I ran great thru 5 controls. I caught someone going into C5, and had already picked out my line for C6, which was a long leg. But it was easy to simplify (started out just right of the line thru a long field), and I got a jump on the other guy. I heard his footsteps behind me, so I was really hustling. The middle section of the leg had some undulations, leading into the final section that had some rock detail, but there was a dry stream that I could catch to make the attack easy. Well, as it turned out, I stayed too far right, and missed the dry stream, and because of the high speed, my pace counting was off, and I came to another dry stream, with the other guy not too far behind me. I found a boulder all alone on the side of the hill (which was what we were looking for), but no flag. I checked around as a 3rd guy joined us, then attacked from some other prominent features, and came to the same boulder. We eventually gave up, thinking the flag must be in the wrong place. I followed the dry stream/reentrant for awhile, just in case, then came out to a clearing that was near the model event. I realized I was not where I should be, and went back (about 6 minutes worth) in the direction of the real boulder and found it (just after one of the other guys had found it). A 20-25 minute mistake (I’ll have to check others’ splits) - very depressing! I did too much walking on the next couple of legs, before I rallied and put forth a good effort again (with only 1 small miss and 1 60-90 second miss) the rest of the way.

All I can do is try to turn in a respectable performance tomorrow.

Nate ran quite well and leads Yellow by about 4 minutes. Z was in the lead on M-10 (only 2.5 minutes behind Ethan Childs), but the youngster who beat him in the Night-O did not yet have a time posted, well after the last start (which is what happened at the Night-O). The White course was more of a Cross Country race than an Orienteering race: all of the legs were streamered, except one, which was all on the main dirt road.

Warm-up was a little hectic because Zach's compass wasn't in the car when I went to get it after Nate's start - I did bring the backup for him.

Longer warm-down than usual (but the amount I should do).

Red - Splits

Model event outside of Buena Vista. Tried to jog the course, but not much jogging involved: a lot of downhill which required running, and a lot of uphill which required walking. Read the map quite well (although the white vs. rough w/scattered trees is sometimes tough to see) - hopefully that can carry over to the weekend.

Mostly walked the model controls with Nate and Zach, letting them take turns navigating. From the bottom, Nate wanted to run back, so I picked features for Zach to find on the way back up the hill.