Training Log Archive: ernst

Around the hole and down the field. I tried to add in a hill climb over the field which was runnable early summer but now completely densely overgrown with bushes and some brambles. Had to walk to avoid too much blood. Then back on the trails first some hills, then flat tempoing at the.

Forced rest day - too much work.

Mixed training. Goal was to run for 3 hours, but I ended up not having enoug time between start of daylight and my dentist appointment. So I cut it short to 2 hours, but ended up just over a 1/2 marathon distance. To Spruce Wood, then Mill Rd to E Foss Farm Road, then trail to Bennett Road, then to Longmarsh, and onto the Sweet trail until it hits the Dame Road section. Then on Dame Road to Newmarket to Packers Falls to Wednesday Hill Road, then Griffith and S trails to home. Cool morning, pleasant for running, no temperature change. Leaves are turning in places.

A brisk loop run at dusk. (no headlamp). S to Griffith to Thompson Farm loop. Then on road to J's trail head and switch backing to Troy's connector, to Spruce Hole, and a down to field and up and home on the access road. Had to slow down on the single tracks due to darkness. Otherwise very pleasant. No people, but a couple of deer that I seemed to spook out of their peaceful grazing.

Run to work. Usual way. Wet and a hint of rain.

Running home via W Foss Farm. Raining hard a time. Had to jump over numerous puddles and eventually was thoroughly soaked. Just wanted to get home, so I rushed it.

Bike to work on road as usual (no shortcut)

Running home via College Woods. Directly to Spruce Hole, then 2 loops around field (2 hills), then one hill climb at Solar field, and another loop to Spruce Wood and back. Cool, a bit misty - pleasantly refreshing.

Townsend NEOC event. Nice course by Doug S - 6.3 km. He kept us out of the green (mountain laurel) areas for the most part. Compared to yesterday, this was very (very!) runnable, even the light green parts. A lot of standing water, and most streams had multiple branches that were not on the map, but it was obvious.

I started out with imprecision on the attacks of 1 - 3 probably lost between 30s and 1 min on each. 5 was a problem control, because the dark green was not precisely mapped - I encountered additional boulders each of which could have been a candidate location. I caught up with J Campbell who had relocated to the trail and Bridget, meanwhile Victoria and Paul were catching up with us all. Jon and I met each other on and off for the rest of the course, but each navigated individually on different routes to the majority of controls - I tended to be in the lead out of the controls, but then imprecision on the attack made Jon catch up with me. I came too high on 9, but corrected very nicely. I forged ahead spiking through 10, 11, 12, but blundered at 13; somewhat a bingo control when you attack from the E as we did. Several equal sized small boulders in the area and the fine form line stuff (2.5 meter contours on this map) was not recognizable when you approach up the hill. Lost 3 minutes and Jon caught up with me.

Then a goose chase through the flats / light green. Never saw Jon again after 14 until the finish, and was surprised that he was ahead of me. Apparently he had a faster route to 15. But in the end I beat him by 1.5 minutes, so I ended up 2nd, 16 minutes behind youngster Ethan. Not too bad! One of my better finish at Townsend.

Control Pickup. Had the same leg to # 13 from my course, and still could not find it immediately. Grrr!