Training Log Archive: Bash

Final training camp session at Hilton Falls North, just beside the map for the North American Champs this fall. I didn't want to follow footprints in the snow, so started doing the course in reverse after the first few controls. And later, when I started to find footprints doing the same thing, I just started going between random controls that weren't connected on the map.

Let's just say that I'm glad I've set a performance goal for this year's COCs, and not for NAOC!! I have a really tough time relating map to terrain in this area, and it's a good thing that I generally don't allow myself to get discouraged when I'm navigating like a frigging idiot, because otherwise today would have been a downer. The 2.5 m contours are so subtle that I don't always notice them, and I discovered a strange tendency to over-estimate distance travelled, probably because the hills looked bigger on the map than they really were, so I think I was operating on a gut feel that *everything* on the map was small in real life.

Oh well, next time. I raced in this area as a new orienteer and it went OK, so perhaps today's confusion had something to do with getting 13 hours of sleep in the past 3 nights!

The day got better from there with a post-race lunchtime bender at ThePiller family's beautiful stone house in the country. Thanks!

Big thanks are due to Hammer for all his work to orchestrate an excellent training camp. It was a huge success, and a particularly great opportunity for many of North America's national team members and juniors to work on technique, attend informative presentations, and learn from more experienced orienteers as well as each other. Well done, Hammer!!

Thomass National Team Fundraiser in the Dundas Valley. Put out SI controls and checked flags for the non-SI controls. With 5 cm of new snow on top of glare ice, the trails were treacherous, and I worried about being forever remembered as the race course designer who singlehandedly destroyed Canada's entire national team in one morning.

Because I wanted the race leaders to earn their victory, I took pains to approach and depart each control using totally useless routes, so that my footprints wouldn't lead anyone around the course. It took longer, but felt deliciously devious. ;-)

The race went reasonably well, with several lessons learned that will help me to do a better job next time. I was happy to see several age groups represented in the top 10 racers in a field of 90, since I'd had a hard time trying to make that happen, given the constraint of using the World Cup course after the Thomass Box. The winner was a very talented 13-year-old girl, with Mike S. and Hammer rounding out the podium after a sprint finish.

Picking up controls from the race, and shadowing/coaching Bent as he led the way. (He had a good race this morning - I'm proud!) This outing wasn't any more effort than this morning, but both sessions were around level 1.5, so I'll call this one a level 2 to balance things out.

My knee is hanging in there without the severe pain I had on Friday, but it's still twinging. I wouldn't want to repeat the Ancaster Creek exercise anytime soon.

We had more excellent presentations by Holger and Sandy Hott Johansen, this time focusing on their training schedule.

I won one of Holger's old Norwegian team jerseys in a draw, and I'm feeling faster already! Theshadow got a good photo of me wearing it and standing with Holger. It will look great on the Tree Hugger web page, where there is already a photo of me with Ian Adamson, last year's Adventure Racing World Champion.

National Training Camp Sprint race at Rattlesnake Point. In deference to my stupid knee, I didn't try to run particularly quickly. Instead, today's goals were:

1) Keep head up and look around.
2) Try to read one control ahead.

Oh yes, and "don't climb any uncrossable fences". Which I didn't. But I could name names if I wanted to.... ;-)

National Team Training Camp - Group relay exercise at Bronte Creek Park as part of Tiny's harem. We would go out and do a few controls individually, then meet up to exchange maps at a new start triangle further along the course. There were controls close together that belonged to different courses, and we'd see runners nearby who might be going to different controls, so we had to stay focused on what we were doing. Lots of fun and an interesting twist on orienteering training. (Subtracted 15 minutes of "standing around" time as we waited for our group to reconvene at various points in the course.)

Event: National Winter Training Camp
 

It's been 2 weeks since I hyperextended my injured leg in a fall, and since then, my knee has had the same "loose" feeling that it had after I injured it (mysteriously) on Labour Day. It hadn't given me any problems, but yesterday there was a twinge when I was snowshoeing. No big deal - I assumed it would go away. But today, after 90 minutes of slippery, hilly orienteering, it came back with a vengeance. My knee feels almost as bad as it felt in September. Horrible timing, right at the start of a 4-day orienteering training camp. I would utter a very bad word at this point, but I like to keep my training log suitable for family viewing. The only small consolation is that this time around, I have more faith that I will feel better some day than I do right now. :-(((((((

Putting out controls for Saturday's Thomass race. Subtracted an hour to account for the time of hanging flags and installing SportIdent stands. Any racers reading my log don't need to worry about the length of race based on how long I was out - it's just that I am totally paranoid about setting my first real orienteering course for such a large and highly qualified crowd of racers. I tried approaching each control from several directions to make sure it was properly located and visible. As mentioned above, my knee began to throb about halfway through. Rats.

Ancaster Creek control picking exercise. I wish I knew what proper flow feels like... I wonder if it's even possible for someone as slow as I am. OK, I admit that sounds negative, but I was feeling down by the time this exercise was done. I started off with a nice jog to the start triangle with The Piller, then enjoyed the physical challenge of the first part of the course. Then at the halfway point, all the slippery, steep, muddy hills made my knee throb again, and I had to choose the nearest escape route to the rail trail. Unfortunately, I was at the farthest point when that happened, with two steep valleys to get across. The run back on the rail trail felt not too bad - it seems that uneven ground is what really hurts.

Urban Night Orienteering - fun course designed by the Nev-Monster. Yes, I know - I should have sat this one out to give my knee a break. It was actually OK on the flat roads and park sections, but twinged painfully in the relatively small wooded sections. Yikes - don't tell me that I might be forced to become a... road runner!! Yuck!

Presentation by Holger Hott Johansen tonight. Two of the most interesting points for me:

1) All of the world's top orienteers get some sort of map of a major competition venue, and use it to set a number of different possible race courses. By the time they run the race, they have thought through most of the possible route choices and race legs. They use all the info they can get from race organizers to refine their guesses about the course, e.g. course distance, location of competition centre, elevation gain, etc.

2) Holger purposely does NOT concentrate all the time, especially in longer races. He works on achieving a smooth transition from "boring" sections (e.g. road runs) to sections where detailed concentration is required.

A short jaunt in Palgrave West through heavy, mushy snow. I threw in a few short speed intervals, as suggested by Tiny, plus 3 hill intervals on different parts of Raspberry Hill. ThunderDog thought I was crazy at first, then she really got into the intervals. (Our dogs would have excellent training logs if we set them up in Attackpoint!) Didn't want to do too much today, because I'll get lots of exercise at the orienteering training camp, including setting out and taking down controls for the THOMASS race.

I tried the other Caron Shepley DVD that Bent gave me for Christmas: "Hard Core Conditioning". I made it about a third of the way through before it hurt too much, so I moved on to my usual leg strength exercises. Obviously I haven't been doing nearly enough core exercises, and I'll need to work my way up to the full 45-minute core session with weights. I'm glad it's tough! I've tried exercise videos before, and they are often far too easy.

For Christmas, Bent gave me "Power Yoga for Endurance Athletes" - a DVD by Caron Shepley, a yoga instructor and occasional adventure runner who helps Barrie Shepley (Simon Whitfield's Olympic coach) run the C3 triathlon training club in Caledon. This was my first attempt at yoga in a long time, but Barrie swears by it to reduce injuries in endurance athletes, so it seemed worth a try. It went well except for a couple of exercises that required more arm strength than I currently have, e.g. "low plank position" and "yoga push-up". I gave it the old college try though - skinny arms shaking wildly as I tried to hold myself up, then the inevitable crash of my body to the floor. That's OK - it's good to have something to work on!

Skiing at Horseshoe - Expert Loop in the Western trail system. There were some lo-o-ong hills to climb! I feel like I'm crawling along when I'm skating, but obviously that's not true, given the distance we covered in a relatively short time. I also felt like the uphills weren't very high compared to the amount of effort I was putting out, but the long downhills proved me wrong on that too. I have more fun climbing and descending big hills on classic skis than skate skis, but I'm starting to really love the skate skis when the terrain is flat or slightly rolling. :-)

Horseshoe - Expert Loop in the Northern trail system. We hadn't intended to do the whole thing, but I missed the shortcut, and we are very glad I did! The winter scenery was right out of a picture book - snow-laden trees and big white hills. We decided to do an optional expert loop marked "Lookout", and when we made it to the top, we were surprised that there wasn't more of a view. It was just the same lovely forest that we'd been seeing all day. OK, no biggie... So we skied 50 m and arrived at the top of a steep chute labelled "Look Out!!". Oh...

I was wishing that someone would pass me so I could watch a good skate skier, and instantly my wish came true (the only time it happened all day). It was Saul Goldman, the owner of Velotique - and boy did he look smooth as he flew along!

Somehow I've managed not to make it to Horseshoe in winter in all my years of skiing. Until getting the skate skis, we were mostly able to avoid ski centres with groomed trails and user fees. It's a beautiful area and we'll definitely go back!

Leg strength training + 75 sit-ups of various types