Training Log Archive: mikeminium

Setting controls at Ubion County. I expected a good turnout today and set a 22 control score-O on the school grounds. Of course the result was an abysmal attendance of only 5 students (4 MS, 1 HS).

Score course at Union County. Mpage gave me a good run for my money, finishing in 32:50, but we quickly discovered that he had missed a control, so he ran back to get it for a revised finish of 36:04. Two other students also cleaned the course.

Control pickup at Union County.

Political note: I finally got around to putting up a yard sign today before heading up to school to set up the afternoon course. Six hours later, I returned home to find that somebody had thrown a bag of deplorables at it (actually a fast-food bag with a bunch of trash), leaving a mess for me to clean up. Talk about your dirty politics!

C • I can't imagine... 1

Steve Barnhart's red course at Germantown West.

Nice clean run did the first 10 controls, and a good route choice to 11. Then catastrophe.

Lost 30 minutes looking for a mis-placed control number 11. Should not have spent nearly that much time on it. Worried too much that Steve sometimes "hides" a bag, although generally not so terribly that you won't find it. By far the biggest factor was the distraction of conversation with Bill Donnelly. Bill had already spent a lot of time looking for the control and was relocating at my attack point when I hit the AP. BIll immediately began to tell me how he couldn't find it and was attacking again.

At that point I made multiple mistakes: I was overconfident that I would go straight to the control; I made a couple comments about my injuries from yesterday (yes, with the devious intent of distracting him), and I actually listened and engaged in conversation as we headed toward the control. As a result, I wasted time looking for it too soon; never was completely sure when I did hit the correct site, ended up duplicating Bill's futile relocation exercise with Bill dogging my heels the whole way (I let that be very distracting), hit the control point again, then thoroughly re-searched behind every rootstock, fallen tree, and large trunk, went on a bit farther, then finally gave up and started toward 12, down the hill and crossing the valley, still not completely sure where I was.

Started to climb the wrong hillside, positively ID'd my location, and decided to go back for one more try at 11, assuming that Steve had possibly set it from this side (and that possibly, just possibly, I had never really gotten to the correct spur - don't ya hate that self-doubt!). With Bill still on my heels, went back down and up, directly to the spur where 11 should have been (and exactly where I had looked before), and unhappily turned around and headed toward 12 without ever finding 11. What really bugs me about my TOTAL STUPIDITY is that the mis-placed 11 was on a parallel feature, only 125 meters farther north. I convinced myself not to look carefully there (I had looked down from a neighboring spur) because those reentrants and spur descended at a significantly more northerly angle than the correct one, intersecting the stream on the wrong side of a major junction, and I just didn't want to believe that Steve could have been that far off. Duh.

After that, the rest of the run went okay, but the 100 meter wide field mapped as rough open that has now grown into level 3 dark green tangled thorns of multiflora rose, Russian olive, and other deplorables, was an unpleasant surprise that sent me on a 300 meter detour through tall grass prairie and then a deep ravine full of light to medium green woods. Bill Donnelly, who had been a few steps behind me at 12, arrived at 13 exactly when I did, after somehow having bashed through the green wall that had deterred me.

That gave me some motivation to turn on the speed and "leave it all on the course" for the final 3 controls, which were mostly trail running with a few corner cuts. It paid off; I didn't see Bill again until about ten minutes after I finished.

My total time from 10-12 (approx 1100 meters) was 44:18. Bill's was well over an hour. Morals: don't get cocky, don't get distracted by others!!!

C • Another moral... 3

Yard and garden - got home with just enough daylight left to move a few wheelbarrows of mulch, and water the most recently planted trees.

Event: Quail Hollow State Park Night-O
 

Event: The Stockville
 

COO meet at Great Seal State Park. Blew a few minutes on a combination of sloppy navigation, not prepared for a 1:15000 map, and difficulty to read poor print quality of said map. Open parts of this park are fun, but the thick and thorny areas not so much.
Hard fall going to the final control, got up and finished with a bit of a limp. Badly bruised shin and nice cut on the palm seem to be the only visible injuries and were not enough to stop me from later trail work, walking, and a short jog.

Repainting blazes on 1 mile of my section of Buckeye Trail, Scioto Trail State Forest, then a short walk into the neighboring segment. Assisted by Jordan and Sky, who walked through the whole 3+ mile segment with loppers and did some minor looping and removed a few fallen logs from the trail.

Wyoming OH- city map for urban score O.

Rentschler - checking controls for Trail of Treats. Ash tree removal has created some new dead end paths and connectors, and blocked one existing trail, so a number of map updates and had to move a couple control sites.

Yard and garden - digging, loppers, Pulaski.

Setting controls at Wyoming Middle School.

Planted a tree.

Yard and garden.

Spent much of the day drafting a map; took a break from the computer every couple hours to move some mulch, chop up a log, level a few bricks, pull some weeds, and a few other odds and ends.