Training Log Archive: AliC

Lazy day, we bought food, acquired some maps and played Boggle during a rainstorm. Then moved onto training sometime late afternoon. This was the first three controls, which were not so smooth and the downhill really hurt in my bruised-from-a-fall yesterday quad.

Decided it would be better to warm up a little bit before trying more o.

The rest of Brendan's stride course (the idea - long legs of jogging interspersed with little detailed sprint controls done at at least some speed). Was really good fun, I practiced good control reading and direction change flow. But I went quite slow mostly because of how my quad felt. Ran into Neil at control 8, stopped for a chat and found out where the currently here portion of Team Ireland is staying.

C • Control 8 2

We didn't arrive with so much time, but enough to acquire EMIT bricks and mosey over to the start.

Sayneisen Salpa Sprint (splits, quickroute)

And first race in Finland! A village sprint, let's say. Some woods, some ski trails at the end, some puttering around in the open space around people's houses. Most of AUS and NZL also attending, which made things more fun and that the organizers helpfully had English instructions printed out for us. (Google translate may not be trained on orienteering meet info.)

Anyways, a decent race to squeak in 4 seconds up on Lizzie. It was fast running, pretty simple. Early on the choices were mostly what gaps of woods to try running through, later how long you wanted to stay on the ski trails.

1 - Off from the start, saw quickly the route, then ate it *hard* twice in the yellow brashings before going over all of 2m to the white woods. Have a bad bruise in my quad from one of the two falls, really wish I got over to the white in the first place!
2 - Only one way that made sense, going a good running pace, but not full-out sprint.
3 - Liked the trail route, was slightly scared to find, but used the opposite side-of-road parking lot to help.
4 - Whoops! Didn't enact my plan, took trail to start, then cut to road, but then just kept road running past my white woods that I wanted to take in to the control. Apparently missing it and taking the trail in was faster though. Still, was a mistake because not intended.
5 - Out on trail, parking lot, then bearing to the piles of junk that were a ruin.
6 - Choose wrong way around, left on the ski trail was faster.
7 - Cut corners on trails to get there.
8 - Uphill! Running as fast as possible, but jeez low undergrowth = energy sapping! Bearing took me right there.
Finish- Used trails, maybe one gratuitous little zig.

Joggeroo with Alex over to the start.

Sayneisen Salpa Middle (splits, quickroute)

Well, got my butt kicked by Hanny by 5 minutes. Yep, she's fast! I didn't run terribly clean, but still, 5 minutes is a lot! The terrain was kinda thick, lots of recent logging and such, but really, that's no good excuse. A few times (off the start, #6) I was flustered by others, so good training for a bit more people around.

1 - Some Finnish guy rocketed off the start, so I thought that was the pace I should be running and tried to keep up. Wrong! So plan of just running directly on my bearing was shaky, because I wasn't totally sure where I'd come off trail. I put things together eventually using the lower little trail that loops. (3.26 - me, 2. 34 - Hanny)
2 - Up up up the hillside, cruised in on the little trail, then didn't really see the correct hill through the green, so headed to the further and on the left hill that I could see. Wrong. (4.48, 3.19)
3 - I thought not bad, but Hanny still smoked me. Chatting afterwards, I think to a different more cruisable route (trail to corner to follow cliffs), as opposed to my direct, including through some slash. (5.20, 4.19)
4 - A hard little leg, I was very hesitant making sense of what was and was not a cliff. (2.03, 1.33)
5 - Straightish, using quite a few skidder tracks and popped out in and easily IDable location for the final attack. Beat Hanny on it, but she also said she didn't do this one cleanly... (5.19, 6.07)
6 - Ug. I passed my -3 girl and then goofmuppeted trying to run away from her, being a full contour too low and just running at least 100m past. (3.36, 1.39)
7 - Went straight, went well. (2.11, 2.19)
8 - Used skidder tracks most of the way, also went well. Saw a tired-ish running Alex here. (2.27, 2.24)
9 - Short little leg, c'mon legs! (1.14, 1.12)
10 - Used a skidder track most of the way. Hanny went up and straighter, perhaps faster? I'm surprised, I thought I was moving well. I had a bit of hesitation, but not tons... (4.46, 4.21)
11 - A big route choice leg. I haven't yet talked to anyone who did it how I now think is the best (straight out to road on left). I used trails to go to the lower road, but then had to climb a bunch again. Still, I won the split. (Hanny went straight, which wasn't so good.) (5.53, 6.22)
12 - Downhill leg of awesomeness, through open woods! Visibility for miles too, no reason not to kill it. (1.59, 1.49)
Finnish- Got a bit distracted by a guy darting off the wrong way. (53,49)

Beautiful Finnish day. Sunshine and a lovely running temp! Passed mooing cows on our way over.

Memory-o at Herttoniemi with Brendan, right by Neil's. Good to do, I was often just slightly off. It's hard to remember both what's in the circle and the plan to get there! Also pretty hard to read the map while following Brendan, even though we weren't being super-speedy, wanted to not awkward-step-hurt ankle on something or other... I did unfortunately go over mildly on my left ankle towards the end, we took it easier from then on in.

Woo! Arrived in Finland, awesomely picked up by Neil's friend/clubmate Riikka who took us straight out orienteeering. Fantastic!

The Iltarastit course at Kattilajärvi.

This is the open Monday training type course that the Helsingin Suunnistajat club puts on. Apparently 500-1000 people typically show up. Wowzers! They have the EMIT controls out there just the Monday evening, but the flags stay up for the rest of the week, allowing late people like us to still play.

I opted for the 7km course. The woods were great - very open compared to Pontiac and no prickly things! Well, occasionally the spruce trees, just a very little bit. Was focusing on going pretty direct with bearings and trying to figure out what I could note along the way.

1 - Got off bearing on the right, noticed close in when marsh was on my left. (6.27, +2.26)
2 - Big marsh on left first hill, second hill, just go right of cliff, then on grey rocky top stuff which is nice running. (4.29, +1.05)
3 - Diagonal to road (some cliffs are dangerous going down!), then used trails until close to 3, finally realized the marsh was at the very top of the hill after trying to have contours inverted for awhile. (5.48, +1.00)
4 - Probably more skirting big spur would have been better than my straight up-and-over approach. Felt a little unsure in the low with some marshyness, but then could sense uphill a big rock ledge and knew my boulder was just beyond + below it. (4.22, +1.31)
5 - Skirted contouring, to the road, then through the marsh (not terribly fast, foot captured every so often) and on the trail before diagnoling nicely into the reentrant. (7.43, +1.58) Was going right maybe better?
6 - Down to trail along marsh, but got confused before I got on it, then trails for awhile before ducking up to the rocky hill top, attacking quite nicely from the narrow top. (7.42, +2.11)
7 - Yeah! Went well on my bearing, noted some boulders in passing, and spiked to control right where I expected it. (2.46, +39)
8 - Also on bearing, got a little bit to left, determined by proximity to big boulder in reentrant, then steered to correct, popped pretty much right in, although a bit hesitant in last stretch. (3.41, +41)
9 - Ug. My big mistake. A similar-feature panic mistake. I was right on my bearing, came up to the grey hill I was looking for, but then started to worry because it seemed to have a cliff on it in reality, but not on the map. Then I attempted to execute my plan from there anyways, thinking maybe it just wasn't big enough to be mapped, but then felt uneasy and decided it must be the further hill and reversed direction, doing a full little loop of nothing making sense before I determined I really had to have been right the first time... (7.34, +4.53)
10 - Down then up, on a bearing, cliffs on my way up placed me precisely. (4.45, +1.05)
11 - On line, road junction, then up, one grey nose, then second grey nose right before and found it on third grey nose, but a bit higher than I was expecting. (5.55, +1.36)
12 - Ug. A bit caught in green marshes, should have picked my way better on grey tops. (4.22, +1.43)
13 - Decided the lower route would be faster, but boring and I'm here to train the skills, so went high and picked my way amongst grey tops and marshes. (7.21, +2.19)
Finish - Just in. (1.15, +22)

C • Wow! 2

There are mosquitos here.

C • buzz buzz 2

Early morning joggeroo! Trying to start to adjust East, so at 5.30am. But it was still pretty dark, hard to read the Finnish TT middle race map for the first 10 minutes or so!

This eve- to Finland - very excited! Still some packing to do... (And hold off thunderstorms, pretty please!)

C • Don't forget 5

Track session with Kevin again finally! Did 6 x 800m, where I read the Finn TT Long map while he led four of them. A really good way to get instant feedback on dropping off the pace due to map reading.

As Alex wrote, I found this map hard to make plans for. Nothing popping out as attackpoints. Approach seems to be follow good on compass and note smaller things...

10 min abs, 2 min back

Haven't done core in ages, because I've had a really sore tailbone, which makes it really unfun. But it's finally getting better!

Had an interview for teaching at a nearby college (Adrian) in the fall. Not sure if I'll get the position, it will be a ton of work if I do, but at least learning more about the probable next career step...