Training Log Archive: mintore

run around the rest stop on the way home

Event: Billygoat 2016
 

Finally catching up...
Ontario Champs meet by STARS, Long M21, 11.4 km
Meet 16, course 22

So, since this was likely to be a good A meet comparable course and I was eligible for nothing and I am a touch worried that running blue might start to get harder soon, I ran my first North American blue course not at a local meet. After the previous two runs, nothing could go wrong ;)

I started off a bit sluggishly but settled in during the first couple of legs. The escarpment was beautiful. There had been an ice storm during the spring which had dropped a lot of small limbs, trees, and debris that made the forest a bit treacherous. I found the long leg 6 pretty challenging to take the cross country route but many of the other long legs were really aided a lot by trail running. Caught up to Alex Teutch by leg 9 and we went back and forth until leg 24. This was fun and kept me pushing and trying to find any place where time could be found. His navigation was with few exceptions better but I was probably a touch quicker. Cutting around to control 21 using the opposite side of a spur, I finally didn't pick my feet up enough and hooked a downed tree, tried to grab a smaller tree as I went down watching the barkless truck approaching my face. Smacked pretty solidly, there was plenty of blood and my nose was a bit numb but I didn't seem to have stunned myself. So I started off again, slower, wiping blood from the map every few steps. By mouth breathing, I figured it would clot up and I could get on with it. Saw a startled Alex a couple of controls later, checked my nose was still straight, and told him I was fine, keep running. I made a significant error on 23 drifting off the E side rather than the S side of a plateau (5 min), another 90+ seconds at C24 (the control had a big black incorrect number modified with a pen to another incorrect number and the actual number in a small blue number below it on the label; it took me several returns to the control before I was positive it was right), and then 90 more seconds at C25 (parallel reentrant to C26 first). Everything from here was fine and I finished well exceeding my goal of not being last.

Long - Course 8 - Splits

Event: 2016 Ontario Orienteering Championships
 

Ontario Champs meet by STARS, Middle Course 6, 3.6 km
Meet 16, course 21

Course was similar in character to the middle from 2012.

However, this was my typical rotten first run or middle run (I am not sure which is most true). Really, the course was not to difficult but I had hill vs valley issues approaching 4 and got very close to the control, but as it was over the crest of the ridge and I never crested, it was a touch hard to see. Otherwise, slow but not very accurately to C1, didn't read clue at C9 resulting in 20 s lost, C13 was harder than it looked with the vegetation leaving C12, and finally grossly underestimated how high the go (C14) was. Weather held and I got stretched out.

Ontario Champs meet by STARS, Sprint Course 5, 2.9 km
Meet 16, course 22

This was a really good run for me. I was up by 2:13 at C15 and over 3 min at the finish in M45-54. My time wouldn't have even been terrible in M21.

The only significant lost time was at C2 which was an exceptionally well set and confusing leg in the residences. Fun looping as well, kudos to the course setter. There was one mistake on my part. Apparently, C17 was planned in a location that was fenced in by construction so we needed to skip it. So this rattled around in my head until control 15. There I punched and remembered there was supposed to be a monitor to remind us to skip. Still I needed to skip so I did go on to C18. I After I finished I was unsettled and confused. I watched some other runners finish, stood in the DL line for a while when I asked Jon Torrance whether C17 was the skip. Seemed to be the case, then it donned on me. I had just left C15. Argh! So, I printed my mp and went to see a high school buddy living in Guelph.

Middle Course 6 - Splits

Sprint Course 5 - Splits

short run with Aragorn

Blustery and damp, felt more like fall than spring. Decent effort given my low enthusiasm.