Saturday Feb 23 |
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| Event: Western States + Intercollegiate Championships
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 | Orienteering 58:23 [3]*** 10.4 km (5:37 / km) +300m 4:54 / km | |
| spiked:17/17c shoes: esa-pekka olsson |
| Tucson A-meet day 1. Pretty close to flawless - the only improvement would have been to run faster, not check out for insurance purposes an extra control near number 4, and run straighter at number 16 rather than ducking into one too many reentrants. Winsplits agrees: no mistakes. Orienteering is a very zen pursuit - the search for a perfect run. This, given my fitness at the moment, was very nearly it.
Terrain: open spur-gully, just like Australia but with even higher visibility. Temperature: low 60s, hefty W wind.
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| C • The search for the perfect run 1 |
| Orienteering 14:28 [4]*** 2.9 km (4:59 / km) +90m 4:19 / km | |
| spiked:13/13c shoes: esa-pekka olsson |
| Sprint. Another excellent run. Same terrain as the other two races, although not in the rockiest part of it, so that slightly faster times were possible, but I'm extremely pleased to be (2 seconds) under 5:00/km on this kind of course.
Today was one of the most satisfying pair of races I've ever had. |
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Blue 1 - Splits |
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Sprint - Splits |
Friday Feb 22 |
| Running 40:50 [3]5.7 mi (7:09 / mi) | |
| shoes: johann brutus bach |
| Waugh loop. Much better day for running: 61F, dp 45F, clear and sunny. Traffic a little much, though: seemed to have to stop at every road crossing (San Felipe * 2, Kirby * 4, Shepherd * 2, Westheimer * 2). |
Thursday Feb 21 |
| Running 1:02:00 [3]9.0 mi (6:53 / mi) | |
| shoes: johann brutus bach |
| Lazy Lane - Sabine St loop. Unpleasantly humid (72F, overcast with ceilings around 75-100m, dp 70F), but a good time. Not too many people out, given the weather and the (essentially expired) tornado watch. |
Tuesday Feb 19 |
| Running 55:00 [3]7.33 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
| shoes: esa-pekka olsson |
| Canal loop. 23F, extremely icy, so much so that almost all off-paved path running was dangerous, and some uncleared paved paths weren't exactly safe either. This diminished both speed and training value a bit, but since the real purpose of this session was to introduce esa-pekka to the world, not much lost. (esa-pekka didn't think much of it.)
There was a brief partial eclipse of the clouds by blue sky towards the end, but at least the beginning was cloudy, so I didn't feel too disconcerted. |
Sunday Feb 17 |
| Orienteering 1:06:05 [3]*** 9.8 km (6:45 / km) +170m 6:12 / km | |
| spiked:16/22c shoes: kaija rautavaara |
| Much less good run than yesterday - all over the place in easy terrain. A minute left at 2, wide left twice on the way to 4, then stuck in the briars near the yellow start (some of the green was as mapped...), then wide left onto the parallel knoll at the control area. After that I began to wake up, and 5-12 was clean; then too low at 13, too far at 18, through the green unnecessarily at 19, and wide left at 20. Pretty sketchy run, really. I don't know how to count making four separate mistakes 3-4 on the 'spike' list - worst-executed leg for a long time. Had no flow until leaving 4.
Perfect weather for orienteering, if not a little on the warm side: 55F, dp 42F, sunny, 10mph W wind. |
| Running 30:00 [2] | |
| shoes: kaija rautavaara |
| Out to the SW corner of the map and back, mostly on the road.
It was a momentous day for two reasons: kaija rautavaara was retired, trashed unceremoniously at a Chevron trash can near DFW after the sole on the left detached at the tip. A replacement is being shipped. Also, Athens, TX turned out to be a cosmopolitan place, home of the Flying Gatto coffee shop, site of excellent coffee and a culture clash (also forum posts). That's one awesome sign, and one awesome attempt at a transplant of Oregon culture into east Texas. |
