Day 28, 29 and my Birthday!

Here is a Picture of the Team. Charles, Steve, and Simon. They are both French so I am excluded from a lot of the converstions while on the run in the bush.

Day 28

My Birthday. 33 Years old.

Today was the CIOR Cup! This is basically a reenactment of what we will experience in Turkey. We are treated like they will treat us there. Line up with ID card for the start of the rifle shoot. Draw our weapons and ammo. Lay down on the firing point and wait instructions. After the instructions it was game on. FIRE! We fired five confirmatory rounds to ensure our rifles were still zeroed. Then 9 rounds at a precision target from 200m. We had 5 minutes to fire these rounds. Highest possible score was 90. I scored 76. I had some issues with my rifle that I don’t need to talk about. After that 9 rounds for a rapid shoot. We have 1 minute to get all 9 rounds off. The targets measure 12 inches by 16 inches. Highest possible score is 90. I scored 68. I normally score better. Oh well.

After this it was the pistol range.

Same deal as the rifle shoot. 25m range with a precision and a rapid. 3 minutes for 9 rounds and 35 seconds for the other 9 rounds. I scored a total of 154. This was a good score for me on the pistol so I was happy with that score.

Land Obstacle course.

3:15 total time. This was a good score for us. All were happy.

Clean weapons for 4 hours and then back to base for supper.

Day 29

Orienteering Race. Our last race before Turkey.

Staggered start of five minutes. My team was 2nd in the rotation. We got all 5 maps at once and when it was our time we were driven to the start. This was so we couldn’t cheat and look at the maps before.
15km race was completed in 3:22. This seems pretty slow for only 15km but in the bush it is a fairly fast time. There were some mistakes made of course but we quickly adjusted and got back on track.

We leave for Turkey on Tuesday at 1600hrs. 2 days off to clean our gear and pack our shit. I will most likely not be able to get to computers over there so after Tuesday I will be away and not be able to post any updates.

So excited!

CIOR 27

Day 27

Today was a long one. We had the ranges like usual. Nothing too exciting to report on that.
We then went to the land O and did our regular warm up which is much too long for my liking, but anyways. We had time to work on the obstacles that give us problems. I usually work on the balance beam since it is near then end and that is where I am most tired. We then worked in our teams and did the course 2 times for time. Our best time today was 3:14. That is a good time but the winning time will most likely be around 3:00.

Lunch

Orienteering at Mont McGregorie. This was no joke of a mountain. Freaking large. It was very humid today and I think I lost about 5lbs of water weight. Today was with 3 maps. A topo, coutour/trail, and a orienteering map. The topo was straight forward but the contour one we had to do using a radio. The map and navigator sat at base camp with a radio and we went into the bush with just a radio. He had to direct us to all the points by only talking us through it. It was pretty fun and not as hard as I first thought.

Swimming. Our last day in the pool. We are doing the warm up and then once through the course at full speed to see our time. Should be fun.

CIOR 25, 26

Day 25

The 25th day of training was... you guessed it. Orienteering. We did all three maps with our teams. The day started out like all the others. I was happy to be running around in the bush without a care in the world. Except not getting lost and finding all our points. The first and second map we cruised through. No issues what so ever. We had a great time for the race up until that point.

We were in the bush running/walking for over 3 hours. At the end of the second map we cam back to the meeting place for lunch. Wrong. We were handed another map and told to get going. The clock was ticking. This was at 1pm. We were starving and without very much water. The map looked short so we didn't mind too much.

Off into the wild we went. After about one hour of racing we started to make small mistakes. We would take a back bearing only to notice after 5 steps that we were going in the wrong direction. Later we missed a point that we should have seen easy. Since we were tired and hungry we were not thinking straight. Stupid things were causing us issues.

This is about the time that I started to lose my mind. I was going insane. Not because of the mistakes. It was the stinging mettles and rasberry bushes that were driving me to the brink of calling it quits. Because it is a race we don't have the luxury to go "around" these obstacles so you just go through them. I was wearing shorts and that compounded all my problems. Add to that me tripping on every branch in the forest and you can picture me cursing aloud every 3 steps. the other guys were laughing because they thought it was funny that I was losing it.

After one mistake I stopped the other guys and we had a little pep talk. Something to the effect of: "look we are tired, thirsty, and hungry. We have to start making the right choices. If that means we slow down a bit that is okay." The navigatior agreed and we carried on without incident.

Total KM: 15

Day 26

Ranges
Land Obstacle course
Water O Course.

One the Land O, we did the warm up as always. We had 20 minutes to practice the obstalces that gave us the most problems. Then it was 30 minutes of as many round as possible. After 15 minutes I got taken out of the game because my knee was causing me severe pain and I was not doing the technique properly to compensate for the pain. The coach pulled me from the practice and told me to go ice my knee. I felt kinda shitty that everyone else had to finish but I was sitting out. I think in the long run it was a wise choice but at the time I was pissed.

Pool.

100m Crawl
100m Arms only
2x50m one leg kicks
2x50m 2 leg kicks

100m = each 25m progressively faster

4 x 25m Racing Sprints

5 x Water course in teams for time.

Eyes are sore again from the water. I keep diving and the goggles fall off.

CIOR 24

Day 24

Yesterday was our day off and I did sweet F-all. Iced the knee and finished the new Bourne Book. It was an okay book.

Today:

Ranges. Did some good shooting today. I think the rest day really help me refocus and relax while shooting.

Land O was fun today as well. Today the warm up was like always. 1500m run with some dynamic stretching afterwards.

We practiced in teams how to assist each other on some of the more difficult obstacles. For example the “Irish table” and the “bear pit”. It is significantly easier with some assistance.

For the main portion of the practice it was do half of the course all out, 2 minutes rest and then the last half.
We did this 3 times. It was a very challenging day on the land o. I see pukie in my future when we have to do the complete thing.

Pool:
The warm up was the usual: arms only, legs only, arms and legs, hand paddles, and front crawl to finish the warm up.
The main practice was the complete course 5 times with 2 minutes rest. During the first portion on the course I do very well. I am out of the water first and back in first. It is the last 25m that really gets me gassed. I finish first most times but the other guy is much faster then me. He has to help the 3rd guy onto the “bridge”. So he is a little behind me but not because I am faster.

That is all.

CIOR Day 22

Day 22

Orienteering at Mont Royal.

The first Map was an air photo. This was a good fast race. I was paired with my new team members. One of the guys is way too fast of a runner for me. I spent the whole time just trying to keep up. Sweaty.

Every Sunday we are entered into a Montreal Orienteering Race. Today was a fun race. I am not sure of our placing because everyone starts at different times. I think we did pretty good.

After the official race we had another map to do. No compass this time. Just the map to go off of.

Total distance for the day: 17km

I really like the orienteering days. I think that when I get home I will try to do some orienteering with the Forest City Orienteering Club.

I think that the jist of the training is pretty obvious. We only have one more week to go then it is off to Turkey. It is going by so fast. I am getting pretty excited.

CIOR 21

Day 21

Ranges/Lunch/O Course/Water Course

The Rifle range was good and my groupings were good. The pistol ranges were dismal. Everyone was shooting such garbage that they shut the range down early.

Today everyone started to really feel the effects of training for 21 day with only 2 days off. Aches, pains, and extreme fatigue, both physically and mentally.

After the ranges it was lunch time and we had a nice boxed lunch. (that was a joke) Off to the land O. Today was a good one. I was feeling very tired at the beginning but as the practice went on I found that my energy levels were coming up. Maybe it was the food entering my system.

We did the course 3 times with breaks every ¼ of the track. We had a 2 min break before we had to start up again. The rest was just enough for you to catch your breathe and go hard again for the next quarter.

Pool. The pool is now getting to be my favorite time of the day. Not only is it the last thing we have to do but it is a nice low impact way to get a high heart rate.

Pool:

100m crawl
100m arms only
100m legs only
30x25m (4 crawl, 4 arms only, 4 legs only, 6 crawl, 4 legs, 4 arms, and 4 sprints)
200m easy

4 x 12.5 sprints with coveralls on

30 minutes water course practice. We just practiced all the things we needed more experience with.

Everyone was wiped out at the end of the day. Early to bed tonight. We have to go orienteering tomorrow!

CIOR 19,20 Another lost story!

Day 18

Day 19

Morning was First Aid and Obstacle course. Had to slow it down on the o course today due to my knee being an issue. I had a talk with the coach and he thinks it is a good ida to go easy on it now for a bit and then give it hell in Turkey. I like that idea.

This afternoon was the Orienteering. Again I was the navigator. I never thought they would allow me to hold a compass and map again after my little issues from before.

Today was a totally awesome experience navigating at Mount St. Bruno. This was another ski mountain. I don’t know the vertical but walking/running up it was a massive challenge.

We started the nav with 4 maps (remember that number). Each map joined with the ones that followed. The 4 maps were each different. One was a topo, one was contours only, one was a park map, and the last was aerial photo.

It was a shotgun start so we all take off in the same direction at once. Me and my partner were off like lightning. We completed the first map (topo) first of the 4 teams. Right on the 2nd map (contours only). Off we go into the bush and start up this mountain. We are doing well and getting some good ground covered. At the top we were looking for a 4 ft cliff with a boulder behind it. After 15 minutes of searching we were like a pinball in a pinball machine. Getting every point in quick succession. I was very happy with our performance and was thinking to myself that we will make a great team for Turkey.

At the end of map 2 it was time to get map 3 (Aerial) out and start on that one. This one was a little tricky because we had a hard time lining it up right. After some discussion we had what we thought was the right section. It is harder then you might think to line up a contour map with a sat photo. Down the mountain we go. At the bottom we see some houses. Okay maybe the map from the satellite is an old one. Into the streets we are running at top speed. Dirt covers our entire bodies from head to toe. We zigzag along the subdivision streets trying to find our next point. After about 5 blocks I am getting nervous that we did something wrong. “Okay lets stop and assess the situation” I say. We line the two maps up to face north and try to get our bearings as to where the hell we are.

That was when we learned that the maps were wrong. Or better put we were wrong. In fact map 3, the one we should have been naving off of was still in the bag. We were on map 4. That was why we were all fucked up. We were using the wrong map.

It is now 4pm, we should have been back at the vans to get picked up by now and we had NO idea where we were. What are we going to do? Shit, fuck, shit fuck. We are screwed. Our only option was to go back up the mountain and start again. So up we go. Half way up we see something that we know was on the photo map. A quarry. Awesome. Now we can finish. So up we go.

We pad our way over to the top point on the ski mountain and there was see the instructors with worried faces. “Where have you two been?” “oh just looking at the sights.” We reply. After some discussion about our adventure we finish the map by sprinting down the ski hill and collecting the last 4 points on our map.

Into the van and home for supper!

What a day. Even though we were off our map we still managed to get back on track. I was happy with the performance even though we ran an extra 10km in the process.

You may be thinking to yourself what idiots. And yes you are correct. The best thing was that we finished last. only 2 minutes behind the team in front of us. Another team was just so slow getting all the points that even with our 10km detour we still had the same time as them.

Our coach put a GPS on us to see what we did. I am looking forward to seeing all the twists and turns we made. I be it will be pretty funny.

Day 20

Ranges were awesome today. Finally getting all the bullet on the paper.

Land O Course was fun as well. 30 minutes straight. As many rounds as possible. 13 was my score. I was totally smoked.

Track workout was indoors today. I spent 45 mins on the bike with a HR of 135. After I had some time so I did 50 kipping pull ups and 25 HSPU’s. While I was doing this a guy came over and asked if I was Crossfitting. He wanted some instruction on kipping and the HSPU’s. That was a fun diversion to be teaching here while I was training. The head coach was watching and he started asking questions a well. He mentioned that was why I was able to do some of the obstacles so fast because I have good upper body strength. Too bad for the running portion!

Swimming! I am really starting to love the time in the pool.

100m Crawl
50m legs only
50m arms only
50m legs
4x25m (2 progessivly getting faster, 2 all out sprints)
4 x 12.5m dive and sprint

15 x first half of water course as fast as possible. This was fun. I really liked that we had to go all out. Very tiring.

CIOR 17 Codename: Brutal!

Day 17

Utter hell! That is the best way to put how today went for me. The whole day was a race against the other teams.

We were orienteering again. This time was at Sutton Ski Mountain. It was a real mountain as far as I was concerned. It was supposed to be an easy first one for the day. An aerial photo of the mountain. We were in teams today and I was the navigator. That means a lot of responsibility for me to get us to where we had to go. (I used a new special compass today. That may explain some of the mistakes.)

* the markers are about 12 inched cubed red and white markers that are hung from trees.

On the first point I missed the target by 200m. After realizing where I went wrong we simply had to do an about turn and go back the 200m to get back on track. This should have taken 10 minutes max. After 1 hour of searching I abandoned hope even though I was sure we were at the right spot in the first 5 minutes of searching.

On to point 2. Again it was only 500m away and should have been easy to find. Again another 45 minutes searching for the marker. Screw this lets hit point 3. Point 3 we found exactly where it was supposed to be. Thank god I am not loosing my mind.

At the bottom of the hill we stroll up to the final check and there they are waiting for us. After explaining how frustrated I was that I couldn’t get the points. They explain to me that they had taken them down while we had gone past the first one. Fucken’ hell! I spent 1 hour and 45 minutes looking for something that wasn’t even there.

That was not the right way to gain the confidence of my team. They understood and we soldiered on.

At the base of the mountain we checked in and got two more maps and each got a bike. This was going to be fun. We went screaming into the town on our new mountain bikes with reckless abandon. A turn here, a skid there, and a huge ass hill every other turn. We arrived at the farm in the middle of nowhere. Off the bikes and into the bush. We were told that we had to eat our lunch on the run. We were behind by a lot so we skipped lunch thinking that we were almost complete and we would eat after. WRONG!

In the bush we go at 100 mph. The next mistake was my fault. I take all responsibility for it. Off by 300m again. So mad. My confidence was shattered. What was I doing? Why am I all screwed up? The next leg I took super slow and didn’t run or rush. I needed to get my head on straight and prove to the guys I know what I am going. We get there! YAHOO! I was so happy.

After finishing the map we headed back to the vans for some lunch (3pm). No time for lunch. We had another map to get finished while everyone else waited for us because they were finished to race. Off we go to the bush again. I was so pissed off. Lost, no food, and everyone waiting for us. I didn’t want to make any mistakes so we just took it slow and steady. We made it out of that hell hole in 1 hour.

No time for eating, no time for a swim, just get in the van and lets get the hell out of this shit hole.

That was my worst day by far and I hated every minute of it.

CIOR 15 and 16

Orienteering again.

Yesterday was a hoot. We went to a park a hour and a half away. We were dropped off on a dirt road with a map and told to find our way to the last check point for lunch. I did pretty well and found all the points. The second one gave me a run for my money. We were to find a small pond in the bush. I got turned around and finally decided to just follow a river. I thought rivers go to ponds. It worked.

The rest of the day was spend running in the bush and getting assualted by bugs.

I am started to get a real handle on this orienteering business.

Today is a rest day and I will be resting for sure. Not doing much other then icing my knee and reading.

CIOR 13,14

Day 13

Range G33 and 9mm. Same stuff to report.

Obstacle course was a fun one again. We had only 30 minutes after the warm up to practice the ones we thought we needed more time on. I just did them all but really focused on what foot and hand went where. I want to make it robotic so when I am completely gassed it will just happen.

Todays o-ring was done on the Campus at St Jean Royal Military College. We did aerial photos, topo and sketch maps. At the end of one of them we had to board assault boats and paddle across the river to a point and then carry the boat back to the starting position. People on the campus must have thought we were a bunch of crazies running all around the place sweating and looking at sheets of paper.

Day 14

Ranges 9mm and G3. Did well other then the fact that I had some issues zeroing the G3 again. Stupid piece of Shit.

We did some first aid review and what the judges will be looking for with the First Aid portion. Not too interesting.

Piste de obstacle (obstacle course)

This one today was hard. We broke the course down into 1/4ths. We did each quarter three times before moving onto the next. It was very cardio intensive. I missed the ladder once and crushed my balls on the first rung. That hurt. Finally got some pictures.

Swimming!

200m warm up

4x100m crawl (100m with hand paddles 100m without. Repeat)

4x50m Flutter kicks

300m (100m legs only, 100m Arms only, 100m arms and legs with paddles)

4 rounds of
25m sprint
10 Muscle ups out of the pool
12.5m under water
12.5m sprint

30 minutes of water o-course. The course is only 50m but it is very hard. Will try to get some video.