Training Log Archive: BorisGrIn the 7 days ending Oct 2, 2011:
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Sunday Oct 2, 2011 #
Note
Survived the Highlander. A pleasant cruise around the course with Will, who mercifully let me tie for the win with him. Now, off to JFK.
3 PM
Orienteering 3:19:03 [3] 30.95 km (6:26 / km) +781m 5:43 / km
shoes: VJ Supra Fall 2011
Hudson Highlander XVI.
See the maps with PG's routes on his log: http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_62/per.... I don't have my first map and haven't scanned in the others.
After hurting my back just before the Highlander last year and not getting to run, I was excited to find out that this year's date coincided with the last day of my brief visit to the States. (Incidentally, I hope that next year's date is somehow tied in with NAOC and the surrounding training camp, so that potential European visitors have an epic race in Harriman to look forward to.)
Before the race, I was thinking to myself that good goals would be (1) to survive, (2) to be less than 20 minutes behind Will and (3) to finish ahead of everyone else, in particular, Wyatt, who raced better than me all spring. I have trained reasonably well the last couple of months, so I felt like this would be a good test of my fitness, and that the goals were fairly reasonable.
In the past I had enjoyed running with people during this long race, so I asked Will before the start if he wanted to keep me company for a loop before disappearing.
I: Jackie Jones
S-1: It was obvious from the shape of the map on the ground that we would be on Jackie Jones, so I was facing in the right direction from the beginning and was in the lead group right from the parking lot. After crossing the campground I let Andrew and the cadets navigate into the control as I tried to figure out the best order for the Scramble.
1-2: Bashed out through the green and crossed the trail well East of the line, but it was easy to correct, and I hit 2 with the cadets, Will, and Andrew.
2-3: Jogging on the trail, still trying to figure out the options for the Scramble. Thought about ACDG at first, but then saw CDEF, and suggested that to Will.
3-C: We were still discussing the decision on the way up the road, but when the two cadets ahead of us turned off towards A, it became clear that we would go to C. I think we picked up the pace a bit on the road and were pretty much alone after turning off the road at the bend.
C-D: On the climb out of C Will picked it up some more, and it was clear that he was stronger than me on the climbs. I caught up a bit on the flat part, but we were too far south and had to fight through the green some to get to the control. As we were leaving D, Wyatt and Andrew were coming in.
D-E: Well east of the line towards the yellow trail, but the woods were open and white, and so I don't think we actually lost time here. Will thought that Wyatt might have gotten by us with a better line, but we woke up the unit.
E-F: Nice, fast running here, staying in the white. No problems.
F-8: I wanted to find the white passage through the green just west of the swamp that PG found, judging from his routes. We took a look but didn't see it, and so ran around to the trail. Then up the big hillside, staying in the reentrant and across the top down into the control. Woke up this unit too, so we knew that no one managed to pass us with a smarter Scramble route.
8-9: Diagonally towards the road and then to the map exchange. Ate a Gu.
II: Trail run
9-10-11-12: The first part along the lake was a lot of fun, the rest kind of boring. I told Will to run away if he felt like it, as I didn't want to push hard on the trail run for fear of my butt starting to hurt. He didn't feel like running away, and I appreciated the company and set a steady pace that wasn't particularly hard. Towards the end we saw Andrew racing Sergei F on the final loop, both running really fast.
III: Rockhouse
12-13: We stopped to eat and were still eating as we ran along the road towards 10. I had a few cookies, half a banana, and a Gu. We were both still eating when we were attacking 10, when it turned out neither of us was reading the map. Oops. We missed way low and had to come back up.
13-14: Along the road and in. Could see the flag from a distance.
14-15: West to the road, and then along the road, around the two bends, and up through the saddle between the two hilltops. Down, then across the flat white area, across the stream, and then along the hillside right down to the boulder in the green. We were running at a pretty easy pace at this point, and Will again insisted that he did not feel like racing or running away from me unless Wyatt showed up.
15-16: Trail to the bend, then across the power line and contouring to the control.
16-17: This leg looked tricky. We climbed a bit out of the control in order to read the cliffs to the right. That worked well, and we followed the line of cliffs nicely to the control.
17-18: Very slow and careful down the slope and to the control, where we realized this was the beginning of King of the Mountain.
18-19: Will said he wanted to race it, I said I didn't, and we agreed to meet at the top. I set off first and was feeling quite out of energy on the climb. Somewhere along the way Will went past me, and then apparently Wyatt saw us, but I didn't realize this. I lost focus about 2/3 of the way through the leg and sort of drifted along until Will yelled at me from above to climb up. He was a bit unnerved by having seen Wyatt and wanted to speed up again.
19-20: This was probably the part of the race when I felt worst, and I really appreciated the company. Will ran off quickly, and I set off in pursuit, not reading the map until we hit the trail. On the trail I caught my breath a bit and started paying attention to the map again. We attacked off the trail from the saddle, and the knoll just above the control was very obvious.
20-21: To the trail, along the trail until the first white gap appears on the left, then around the green, staying in the flat swampy white area. We almost ran by the control, but managed to spot it as we were going by.
21-22: I turned my ankle coming out of 21, and stopped to tie my shoelaces tighter to prevent it from happening again. I was also feeling pretty bad and told Will to run off. After some convincing, he did, and disappeared pretty quickly. I was low on energy and in some pain from the ankle, and so I walked for a while, half-expecting Wyatt to catch up. When I reached the bare rock linear gap in the green, I started jogging again and then returned to normal running speed on the trail. After crossing the stream and climbing up to the end of the green blob, I left the trail and realized that I was feeling pretty good again. The navigation wasn't hard, as I just had to climb to the top of the gentle ridge and then just stay on top of it all the way down to the marsh just west of 22. Running on the ridge was nice, so I sped up again. Hit the swamp, went around it, and right towards the control, where I was surprised to see Will, who had been there searching for a little while and still hadn't found it.
22-23: Now it was decided that we'd stick together unless I completely fell apart. Straight to this one, no problems.
23-24: Along the slope to the NW, and then back up the same ridge I had come down to 22. We saw Wyatt coming towards us. I was guessing he was maybe 4-5 minutes behind us here, but he didn't look very fresh. We saw Vadim a while later, looking very strong, and wondered if Vadim was more likely to catch Wyatt than Wyatt was to catch us.
24-25: Straight. Feeling pretty good on the flats, but struggling a bit on the slightest uphills.
25-26: Clearing, underpass, then straight down the hill to the parking lot.
IV: Lake Welch Beach
26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33: I was happy to see that the last map was very short. I stopped to eat a bit (half a banana) and to tape my laces again to avoid more ankle twists. Will was a bit impatient and wanted to get on with it, but was gracious enough to not abandon me. Even with the taping, I still don't think we spent much more than a minute here, maybe 1:30.
The sprint course was straighforward and not very interesting. I think it would have actually been really fun to have a challenging sprint course at the end of the Highlander, but maybe at the pace one moves at after three hours it doesn't matter anyway. The route choices were pretty obvious, except for 31-32, where we debated for a while whether it was allowed to run next to Lake Welch Drive (J-J said something about it being forbidden before the start). We decided not to risk it and took a silly winding route instead.
33-F: A very slow speed "sprint" to the finish. We tried to punch the finish at the same time, but failed, and my punch registered first. I obviously don't deserve to be the winner here, so I repeatedly asked Guy to count us as co-winners, which he agreed to do.
This was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the race. Thanks Will for the company, and J-J, Alan, Bernie, Guy, and others for all the organization! The Highlander is one of the best events in the US year in, year out.
251/2000
See the maps with PG's routes on his log: http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_62/per.... I don't have my first map and haven't scanned in the others.
After hurting my back just before the Highlander last year and not getting to run, I was excited to find out that this year's date coincided with the last day of my brief visit to the States. (Incidentally, I hope that next year's date is somehow tied in with NAOC and the surrounding training camp, so that potential European visitors have an epic race in Harriman to look forward to.)
Before the race, I was thinking to myself that good goals would be (1) to survive, (2) to be less than 20 minutes behind Will and (3) to finish ahead of everyone else, in particular, Wyatt, who raced better than me all spring. I have trained reasonably well the last couple of months, so I felt like this would be a good test of my fitness, and that the goals were fairly reasonable.
In the past I had enjoyed running with people during this long race, so I asked Will before the start if he wanted to keep me company for a loop before disappearing.
I: Jackie Jones
S-1: It was obvious from the shape of the map on the ground that we would be on Jackie Jones, so I was facing in the right direction from the beginning and was in the lead group right from the parking lot. After crossing the campground I let Andrew and the cadets navigate into the control as I tried to figure out the best order for the Scramble.
1-2: Bashed out through the green and crossed the trail well East of the line, but it was easy to correct, and I hit 2 with the cadets, Will, and Andrew.
2-3: Jogging on the trail, still trying to figure out the options for the Scramble. Thought about ACDG at first, but then saw CDEF, and suggested that to Will.
3-C: We were still discussing the decision on the way up the road, but when the two cadets ahead of us turned off towards A, it became clear that we would go to C. I think we picked up the pace a bit on the road and were pretty much alone after turning off the road at the bend.
C-D: On the climb out of C Will picked it up some more, and it was clear that he was stronger than me on the climbs. I caught up a bit on the flat part, but we were too far south and had to fight through the green some to get to the control. As we were leaving D, Wyatt and Andrew were coming in.
D-E: Well east of the line towards the yellow trail, but the woods were open and white, and so I don't think we actually lost time here. Will thought that Wyatt might have gotten by us with a better line, but we woke up the unit.
E-F: Nice, fast running here, staying in the white. No problems.
F-8: I wanted to find the white passage through the green just west of the swamp that PG found, judging from his routes. We took a look but didn't see it, and so ran around to the trail. Then up the big hillside, staying in the reentrant and across the top down into the control. Woke up this unit too, so we knew that no one managed to pass us with a smarter Scramble route.
8-9: Diagonally towards the road and then to the map exchange. Ate a Gu.
II: Trail run
9-10-11-12: The first part along the lake was a lot of fun, the rest kind of boring. I told Will to run away if he felt like it, as I didn't want to push hard on the trail run for fear of my butt starting to hurt. He didn't feel like running away, and I appreciated the company and set a steady pace that wasn't particularly hard. Towards the end we saw Andrew racing Sergei F on the final loop, both running really fast.
III: Rockhouse
12-13: We stopped to eat and were still eating as we ran along the road towards 10. I had a few cookies, half a banana, and a Gu. We were both still eating when we were attacking 10, when it turned out neither of us was reading the map. Oops. We missed way low and had to come back up.
13-14: Along the road and in. Could see the flag from a distance.
14-15: West to the road, and then along the road, around the two bends, and up through the saddle between the two hilltops. Down, then across the flat white area, across the stream, and then along the hillside right down to the boulder in the green. We were running at a pretty easy pace at this point, and Will again insisted that he did not feel like racing or running away from me unless Wyatt showed up.
15-16: Trail to the bend, then across the power line and contouring to the control.
16-17: This leg looked tricky. We climbed a bit out of the control in order to read the cliffs to the right. That worked well, and we followed the line of cliffs nicely to the control.
17-18: Very slow and careful down the slope and to the control, where we realized this was the beginning of King of the Mountain.
18-19: Will said he wanted to race it, I said I didn't, and we agreed to meet at the top. I set off first and was feeling quite out of energy on the climb. Somewhere along the way Will went past me, and then apparently Wyatt saw us, but I didn't realize this. I lost focus about 2/3 of the way through the leg and sort of drifted along until Will yelled at me from above to climb up. He was a bit unnerved by having seen Wyatt and wanted to speed up again.
19-20: This was probably the part of the race when I felt worst, and I really appreciated the company. Will ran off quickly, and I set off in pursuit, not reading the map until we hit the trail. On the trail I caught my breath a bit and started paying attention to the map again. We attacked off the trail from the saddle, and the knoll just above the control was very obvious.
20-21: To the trail, along the trail until the first white gap appears on the left, then around the green, staying in the flat swampy white area. We almost ran by the control, but managed to spot it as we were going by.
21-22: I turned my ankle coming out of 21, and stopped to tie my shoelaces tighter to prevent it from happening again. I was also feeling pretty bad and told Will to run off. After some convincing, he did, and disappeared pretty quickly. I was low on energy and in some pain from the ankle, and so I walked for a while, half-expecting Wyatt to catch up. When I reached the bare rock linear gap in the green, I started jogging again and then returned to normal running speed on the trail. After crossing the stream and climbing up to the end of the green blob, I left the trail and realized that I was feeling pretty good again. The navigation wasn't hard, as I just had to climb to the top of the gentle ridge and then just stay on top of it all the way down to the marsh just west of 22. Running on the ridge was nice, so I sped up again. Hit the swamp, went around it, and right towards the control, where I was surprised to see Will, who had been there searching for a little while and still hadn't found it.
22-23: Now it was decided that we'd stick together unless I completely fell apart. Straight to this one, no problems.
23-24: Along the slope to the NW, and then back up the same ridge I had come down to 22. We saw Wyatt coming towards us. I was guessing he was maybe 4-5 minutes behind us here, but he didn't look very fresh. We saw Vadim a while later, looking very strong, and wondered if Vadim was more likely to catch Wyatt than Wyatt was to catch us.
24-25: Straight. Feeling pretty good on the flats, but struggling a bit on the slightest uphills.
25-26: Clearing, underpass, then straight down the hill to the parking lot.
IV: Lake Welch Beach
26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33: I was happy to see that the last map was very short. I stopped to eat a bit (half a banana) and to tape my laces again to avoid more ankle twists. Will was a bit impatient and wanted to get on with it, but was gracious enough to not abandon me. Even with the taping, I still don't think we spent much more than a minute here, maybe 1:30.
The sprint course was straighforward and not very interesting. I think it would have actually been really fun to have a challenging sprint course at the end of the Highlander, but maybe at the pace one moves at after three hours it doesn't matter anyway. The route choices were pretty obvious, except for 31-32, where we debated for a while whether it was allowed to run next to Lake Welch Drive (J-J said something about it being forbidden before the start). We decided not to risk it and took a silly winding route instead.
33-F: A very slow speed "sprint" to the finish. We tried to punch the finish at the same time, but failed, and my punch registered first. I obviously don't deserve to be the winner here, so I repeatedly asked Guy to count us as co-winners, which he agreed to do.
This was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed the race. Thanks Will for the company, and J-J, Alan, Bernie, Guy, and others for all the organization! The Highlander is one of the best events in the US year in, year out.
251/2000
Saturday Oct 1, 2011 #
5 PM
Running 54:15 [2] 5.52 mi (9:50 / mi) +149m 9:04 / mi
shoes: Red Asics 2011
Easy run with Kat (for the first five minutes) and Becky at West Rock. Nice and fun. No squirrels were harmed.
Friday Sep 30, 2011 #
Running 15:00 [2] 2.5 km (6:00 / km)
shoes: Rob's shoes
To/from start/finish
8 AM
Orienteering 33:21 [4] 7.02 km (4:45 / km) +62m 4:33 / km
shoes: Rob's shoes
Rerunning Becky's Yale sprint course from the May training camp. Tried to run it at race pace, but quickly realized I had no energy and toned it down a notch. A beautiful morning, nice to be out. Squirrels kicked: 1.
Thursday Sep 29, 2011 #
T.rex training 10:00 [1]
Rock climbing with Kat and her friends at Prime Climb. Once again I am reminded that I am not meant to be above ground. I think if rock climbing all took place horizontally and not vertically, I'd be a much better climber.
Wednesday Sep 28, 2011 #
4 PM
Running 49:15 6.38 mi (7:43 / mi) +54m 7:31 / mi
shoes: Red Asics 2011
Tempo intervals on the flat trail north of Lake Wintergreen in a downpour. The two laps were 8:53 on the way out and 8:56 on the way back, which is faster than I'd run this in the past. Felt a bit queasy - must have been the box of hazelnuts I had for lunch.
Tuesday Sep 27, 2011 #
8 AM
Running 59:45 [2] 6.76 mi (8:50 / mi) +135m 8:19 / mi
Morning run with Becks. I was glad for her company and for her initiative.
Monday Sep 26, 2011 #
7 AM
Running 1:33:40 [2] 11.2 mi (8:22 / mi) +195m 7:56 / mi
shoes: Red Asics 2011
Morning run with the Yale skiers and then an extra loop with Mattias, who is leaving New Haven for Göteborg in a week. Very humid: I weighed 171lbs before the run, and 165 after.