Training Log Archive: Bash

Ontario Orienteering Championship - Part 2 of the Long Event

I had a great first 60 seconds in today's race. Found the start triangle right away (unusual for me!) and started running in the right direction. But then things went horribly wrong for awhile, and it took me almost 25 minutes to do the first 3 controls of a 12-control course that I was trying to finish in 50 minutes. By then, I was with people I knew had started behind me, and worse - they looked clean and relatively burr-free.

On #1, I got sucked down the wrong re-entrant on a steep hill. It even had a control in it, but luckily I noticed that it wasn't mine. On #2, I just must have picked a bad route. I haven't had time to look at the map to see what the other options were, but clearly my route sucked. On #3, upon discussing it with another competitor afterward, we think there was a trail mapping issue, but at the time, I just assumed that I was continuing my trend of being a complete idiot today, and wondered if I would ever again have that nice feeling of running straight to a control and finding it exactly where I expected. Actually, that is how the rest of the race went, but unfortunately I will mostly remember this race for my very bad start!

There is always a silver lining - and in my case, it's that I was able to run (OK, sometimes I walked) for 65 minutes through the woods! The terrain was nastier today, and I was less able to protect my bad knee. I twisted the ankle once and I even had a face plant - but I didn't go gimpy after that. When I got home and took off the knee brace, it still felt loose and bizarre, but I'm excited that I seem able to run short distances. This is a big improvement from a month ago!

Oh yes, and there's another silver lining that I almost forgot to mention. While I was out there having a tough time, I guess that some other people were too. Somehow I managed to hang on and win the Ontario Orienteering Champs for my age group. Nice medal and a yummy pie delivered personally to my home through the kindness of Etoile, Hammer and Adventure Girl. (I had to make a post-race dash to host our family Thanksgiving.)

Event: Ontario Championships
 

Ontario Orienteering Champs - Part 1 of the Long event.

I am SO HAPPY!!!! Not because I did all that well, although I did OK. (I am leading my category, but only by 1:06, so I'll need to be sharper tomorrow.) I am happy because my main issue today was a lack of fitness from not running recently. This realization suddenly hit me about 35 minutes in, and I was thrilled. Yahoo, I'm not running along thinking about my knee hurting - I'm thinking about my lungs hurting. And that's something I can work on.

My nav was reasonably good, if a bit rough around the edges (overrunning a couple of controls and having to run back 60-80 m). Having orienteered less than half an hour since July, it's reasonable to assume that a bit of practice could improve things there too.

I did need to run differently because of my loose knee. I had to place my right foot down deliberately for each step, keeping my knee bent and with complete certainty that I wasn't going to twist an ankle on a rock or in a hole. Eugene said that I looked a lot slower than he remembered when we met on the course. The other thing that was different was that I couldn't read ahead on the map at all, unless I happened to be running on a road. I had to watch my footing too carefully, so I headed off from each control in the direction marked on the map, but I didn't actually look at where the next control was until I had travelled 20 m or so.

YAY! If I can do this - and if I can hike on trails with a full backpack - that is enough to ask. (Assuming that the doctor agrees to these activities when I get my MRI results next week.) If it turns out that I have to give up longer running events, I guess I can deal with that, as long as I can still get out in the woods and do something.

:-)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Ontario Orienteering Champs - Sprint.

Fun course on a beautiful day, with several non-obvious route choices along the way. Winning female time was 14-something, so I'm happy with my result. Sprinting will never be my strong point!

Lower body strength training - aiming to stabilize my loose knee. Personal trainer K/O has worked with my chiropractor to come up with a challenging set of exercises that I can mix and match to avoid boredom. The goal is 20 minutes on alternate days. I am mentioning this in a public forum along with an invitation to hurl well-meaning abuse if I slack off. (Similar to the caring, considerate way in which I keep pointing out that Hammer's weight isn't decreasing.)

Trail run around Palgrave West with BulletDog, who found a huge mud puddle and wallowed in it - yuck. The strength exercises I did earlier had almost immediately produced the usual twinge on the inner edge of the kneecap. The run didn't seem to make things any worse. Things felt pretty good, actually - a bit of bounce and reasonably good cardio, considering how little aerobic exercise I've been getting. Working on muscle strength seems to be helping.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Ontario O Champs, just down the road from our place. Many months ago, when I heard that it would be in our neighbourhood, I'd thought that it would be pretty cool to be in peak condition and use this as the first step to performing well at next year's COCs and NAOCs, both of which are within a 2-hour drive. As it turns out, I don't think I could be more poorly prepared. I've done about 2 hours of slow running in the past four weeks. I've looked at an O map exactly once since the COCs in mid-July - and that was for a sprint race in a city park. I've had mild food poisoning for a week, which has left me svelte, but quite dehydrated. Oh yes, and there's that stooopid knee injury. Here's hoping I don't embarrass myself too much!!

After phoning many places, the earliest date for an MRI on my knee in Ontario would still be two months away. So... today I crossed the border to Buffalo, where you can get an MRI in 2-3 days with a Visa card. It felt faintly unpatriotic until it occurred to me that I had already paid for having an MRI in Ontario, and it was hardly disloyal to pay for a service and then NOT use it. (I recently spent 3 years consulting to the Ministry of Health, so I feel somewhat attached to our healthcare system.) Now I have a CD with scads of scary images of the inside of my knee sliced in every conceivable direction, and I await the radiologist report which should be more understandable.

Trail run around Palgrave West with BulletDog on a warm and annoyingly smoggy day. This didn't go quite as well as hoped. On the bright side, it felt more like a run than Sunday's outing - with longer, bouncier steps and much less of a sack-of-potatoes feeling. However, I'd awakened with a twinge in my kneecap today. (It seems that sleeping is the activity most likely to aggravate my injury.) If I'm totally honest about it (and I really, really don't want to be), I could feel the twinge while running and perhaps it got just a bit worse by the end. I could definitely feel my hamstrings working harder than usual, and can see why I'll need to strengthen them more to stabilize the knee. It'll be interesting to hear what others think when they watch me - I'm conscious of a limp the entire time, but I suspect that it is only noticeable on downhills. Anyway, I think I'll risk the Ontario O Champs, since I can always stop and walk - especially since nobody else has entered my category yet, so my medal prospects remain strong at any speed. :-)

Lower body strength routine. Bulletdog loves helping me with floor exercises, especially the ones that use the big, fun ball. K/O is dropping by on Friday with a new leg muscle-strengthening routine.

No new knee twinges from yesterday's short run, so I'll give it another try tomorrow. If I'm still OK after that, I will risk entering the Ontario O Champs.

Wildlife watch: Today is one of those "country life" days that isn't for everyone. All the wildlife is indoors - we have simultaneous invasions of ladybugs, flying ants, stink bugs and cluster flies. At least the bats have stayed outdoors so far this year. (Except for the one in Hingo's house.)