Training Log Archive: Bash

ECOC Long - beautiful terrain in the Gatineau Hills. It seems like I'm trying out new gear in every event lately, and today it was my new Atakpants - Canadian-made orienteering pants. Regular AP readers have heard all about them - and yes, I liked them. 'Nuff said.

I don't think my ankle sprain played a big role in today's race, so I've removed myself from the "injured" list (even though my foot is still purple). The major distraction today was blisters from my new O shoes after the first hour - not a big surprise, I guess. The first hour of the race went well (other than a bobble where I chose the wrong trail from the start triangle), then I had 3 bad controls near the end. In analyzing what went wrong, I see that I should have stopped and looked harder at the map when I had a sense that something was wrong, because I could have fixed two of my errors sooner if I'd followed up on my gut feelings. My 3rd error happened in a complicated trail network where there seemed to be extra trails, and it took me awhile to process the fact that I could get where I wanted to go without using trails, so I might as well ignore them if they weren't helping matters.

I lost almost 20 minutes on those 3 controls, but the rest of the race went well, and even though it seemed that I was out there forever, I finished 3rd of 7 runners, behind two orienteers I respect a lot - The Amazing Kempster and Cherie M.

It was a great A Meet debut by 'Bent! In both of his events, he was in the closely-spaced midpack in his age group. In today's race, he finished 7th, but won 5 of 13 splits, which shows that he has tremendous potential if he can find more time to practise his navigation.