Training Log Archive: TomN

Addie, Glenn and I went to Blockhouse at around 4 p.m. this afternoon. Peggy D. set 4 short courses. We did A and C without going back to the start, as recommended (last control of A to first control of C). We were out for about 1:20. We took turns navigating, and someone other than the navigator had the dog by the waist leash. The forest is very nice. Even the green areas are pleasant, but slow. Good orienteering terrain, with some technical challenges. The major challenge I faced was staying on my feet with the dog pulling like crazy while trying to get up front. There was one notable fail.

Fine running on a fine day. I did 3 uphill intervals on Old Spring Road coming up out of Rock Creek and felt great.

Felt much better today, probably just as hot, and at the end my clothes were as wet as tech fabric can get. Near the end I did 6 hill repeats ~35s each on a gentle slope.

I don't know if it was the heat or what, but it was really hard to push the pace today. I pretty much gave up on it after a couple of longish intervals of higher intensity.

Easy run with 4 strides at the end.

Orienteering training on Ted Good's course at Patapsco-Woodstock. The little parking lot by the tracks was overwhelmed with about 100 times as many cars as can fit there, but I parked on the side of the road a quarter mile away.

The woods were nice at the start, and good orienteering, with a flourishing layer of wavy leaf basket grass covering everything. At #7 I got off course in pretty bad woods, all thick with thorns, and headed down to the trail by the tracks, planning to skip the rest of that loop and pick up the course somewhere later on after I figured out where I was.

Then Peggy D. came down to the tracks right where I was, looking for a way through the crap to her next control, which was 12. She was navigating with her phone, having left her map at home. I know someone else who did the same thing this weekend. Forgetting to bring your map is the new orienteering mistake that everyone has to make a few times before learning to avoid it.

Peggy and I kept pace for the rest of the course. I took different routes on purpose to avoid just following, which mainly involved going up hill more, but we ended up with similar times.