Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Whee Team Giggles!

Alex emails me on Monday: do you want to go to Ontario to go running and be crazy? And I say "yeah, pretty much." Then they couldn't find another woman to be on their team (this is Alex and Ali, of course) and I was it. With a good chance to win the mixed division, and a decent chance to win overall.

Off we went 500 miles to Canada. And in the morning we woke up early, I PRSed which was very good and we went to the start. Alex and Ali looked the map over, and I made unhelpful remarks. Then we took a bus and without any warning started.

First control was sort of a pain to get to; we didn't seem to lose much time by running the road rather than through the brambles and burrs. I was to go to the furthest but easiest-to-find control on the split-up piece, and had to go down a slope and then scramble up it. This was a theme of the day. Then a trail run back to meet the rest of Team Giggles. Also a theme.

Then we sort of galloped through high brush which was kind of gross and missed some faint trails. We were a few seconds behind another team but just missed a stoplight before a checkpoint so we had to wait and couldn't get a cross. Bummer. We did, got checked, and ran off to the second part. Here was orienteering. The great thing about running with two of the top orienteers in the US is that you don't have to look at your map. At all.

A couple controls in we had to jump through a stream. Bye bye dry feet! Luckily my feet currently are in callus-not-blister phase, so this is good. Alex fell behind a bit and we ran with a bunch of others, including two other coed teams, to 5. Ali and I overran it, but Alex yelled us back. But we had competition, and gave them some time with a quick bathroom break.

Then we went in to the part of the course which had all the roads blocked out. It turns out some would have been helpful, but we weren't supposed to use them. The orienteering here was not too bad, but I left it mostly to the rest of the A team. We also utilized the bungee system for Ali to tow Alex (because I have bungees in my car) which worked well; although it meant I couldn't bungee my water bottle to my back, which works VERY well. Learned something new.

We ran out of the road section and in to the woods. We passed the other coed team and I found a hole in a fence which helped us out a little; then it was in to the woods. Thanks to some good navigating, we went right to the flag, then gave some time back bobbling the climb in to 9. Plus we got some nasty burrs and stumbled along pulling them off.

We cut through a subdivision and gained some time (my idea!) and then went up and down a couple of wet, clayey cliffs. I was sort of okay going down the cliffs, but good going up them. Hooray for huts and November Project. Leading in to 10 I found myself in navigator position which was, well, a thing, but found the right way to go and then gave navigation back to the others.

10 to 11 was another steep climb uphill and then trail cruise, but it started spitting rain pretty heavily as we came in to the feed. I grabbed some water and several twizzlers, which are a great feed! Chew them up and stick them in your cheek, and it's like gatorade. Yum. We went up a wet reentrant, then had a very steep climb. I spit out the last bits of twizzlers so I could put my map in my mouth for the climb, which was certainly good for climbing, and only kinda tasted like mud.

12-13 was a trail run where I didn't pay attention to the map. 14-16 was "the void" which was moderately difficulty orienteering, but, again, I let the actual orienteers do the orienteering and didn't look at my map. 17 was back on a trail, and we had a glorious run along the trail to 18.

Then things started getting interesting. Most of the run to 19 was pretty fantastic but then we got to a slidey downhill. I got going a little too fast and went ass-over-teakettle and somersaulted and then slid forward. Got up. Head it? Nope. Cuts and abrasions? None. Dislocated shoulder nope? Cursing? Oh yes. Time to get up and start running again. Yeah team Giggles!

Second interesting bit. At the start, they said "Do Not Go Across 16-Mile Creek." They didn't say "people who do will be DQed" but almost got there. We didn't look at the route choice because they said don't do it. Another team there did. They did the waist-deep wade and beat us by 4 minutes. We could have, because the climb out of there was brutal. I think they should have done a better job at saying "the river is out of bounds" because if someone had taken a slip in the current it would have been bad news.

So up, up, up. Trail run. DOWN (but more control). Feed. Cross the river. Up up up. DOWN! I got to have a very nice ski down the slope in grass and mud, which was great, and then just glissaded the rest down to the river bottoms. This got us to 22. We punched, and then had another brutal climb up a muddy clay slope. I crawled the last bit as my feet got no traction.

Then it was on to pipeline ROWs, roads and trails. Run to the bridge and write down the number. Then run in to the wind some more and off to the finish. We finished 6 minutes back of the winning men's team, and the first four teams were within 2 minutes, so that must have been fun to have been in sight. We were 8 minutes ahead of the next, so we put a lot of time on the coeds behind us in the navigation and big hills. Had we taken the river we would have been two minutes off. And pretty cold.

We had lunch, got our awards, took pictures, and it was off to the races on the QEW, by the falls of Niagara and east on 90 to Massachusetts.

Team Giggles

After 500+ unlogged miles, a couple logged ones with Team Giggles. Happy times, except I felt pretty lethargic from 9 hours sitting in a car. Also, Canada!

Ran some O. I went slow and deliberately with a few fast ups and downs. And guess what? I can actually orienteer when a) it's not all stupid rocks and b) my leg is working. The second part is big, actually. Working legs are important for orienteering, it turns out.

The terrain was great and I was able to navigate by both contours and by compass, which was good. I got to 12 and navigated towards 13 and then decided I didn't want to play in mud/trees/stupid so I ran back. And was the last one back but the only one with dry, not-too-muddy feet.

Guessing here at everything since I didn't have a time or track. Ran back about a mile and a half. Ran a bit pretty fast, but then had to push a bit up the final climb, which was a pretty good climb there, eh.

Good times at NP today. Brought a couple of newbies and ran with one of them up the hill. Decided not to do more than five repeats and not go all out since I do have some trail race orienteering thingy this weekend.

Weird eating habits do not make for good runs.

Ran home from Microcenter with a thing so that we can listen to tunes on the drive to Canada.

Remember that #deckaday thing? When you don't do it for a week, it's a whole. lot. harder. Ugh. Muddled through in decent time; will try to do this every day or two.

Felt really good doing 50 sections today. Think I stayed in a pretty good L3 most of the way around (need a HRM) and finished the 50-flight workout in shorter than last time, and then scurried off to work.

Busy day, so unplanned day off!

Pretty much closest NP ever. 1 mile round trip.

Little sprints across the basketball court a few times.

Planks, wall jumps, sumo squats and some other thing. Not that hard, actually.

Quick run around the river. Cold! Ran through a closed tunnel by the Longfellow and avoided a road crossing. Fun!