2012

The 2011 season had some highs and lows for me, and a little bit too much getting sick around important times. I focused quite a bit on running this year, training with a small running group. I ran a pb for 10k in April, finally breaking 40 minutes. Also, I ran the Knee Knacker (a 30 mile race with >2000m of climb). This in a Vancouver trail running classic I have always wanted to run, but since it is in the middle of the summer I am often not around. It was definitely a high to edge out a win in this race. The Canadians up in the Yukon showed that I was a bit rusty with my technical orienteering, particularly the first race, but I felt I got a better handle on it as the week went on. Then came the travel to Europe, where I unfortunately caught a bug. I missed a good deal of my chance for last minute races/prep because of this. The highs were making two finals, and really enjoying the sprint final (even if I do not really have fast twitch legs). Additionally of course, the collective effort of the women's team coming together for a great result at the relay. The lows were missing out on the long final and struggling to feel I could run aggressively in the difficult lumpy terrain.

My goal for this year is to try to figure out how to keep my imune system happier. I also need to work on my strength/imbalances, as I have been somewhat injured over the past few months. Since it is coming up soon, I am looking forward to the sprint training camp in Victoria this year (and being healthy at that too, which I was not last year). Being involved in the organizing and mapping, I know how different the terrain is compared to Vancouver and I look forward to the open rock and interesting vegetation.

Another goal is to do more race analysis, which is something I used to be more disciplined in doing. I remember always sitting down after a race and drawing out my route. I even have old journals from orienteering travels where I wrote pages about each race. However, these days my psychology has been getting the better of me. I get complacent if the race is good, or too angry to look at it if the race is bad. There is not necessarily something to be learnt in all your mistakes - sometimes mistakes just happen - but at the very least you can work through the race, and hopefully move towards the next one with a clearer head. I think I have still been managing to work through some of these things in my head, spending hours obsessing over how a race went poorly and trash talking myself, but it may not be as effective as a structured race analysis (which should hopefully involve less negativity).

In the spirit of this, I want to see some of your race analysis (non-hpp, since I know you can post yours here if you want)! If you are willing to let me read over anything you have written about a race (hopefully including a route on a map), then I would be interested in seeing it - and posting the map and some hopefully constructive comments on the blog (after your approval). Depending on the response, will see how many I can look at - as in only the first few (send to: lc[my last name][AT]gmail[DOT]com).