Training Log Archive: gwilliams

Today was the long distance courses for Run Black Diamond, at Shell Ridge and Diablo foothills. I ran red.

I had a much better run today than yesterday. The terrain was much easier to navigate, and there were many more legs with route choices.

For the most part, I believe I took good route choices. In addition, I found all controls with pretty much no difficulty. Late in the race, though, I was feeling very tired, so I wasn't able to go full speed for the last few legs. To some degree, I was still feeling the effects of the cold I've been struggling with.

I finished 13th place out of 32 finishers.

Long red - Splits

Event: Run Black Diamond
 

Today was the middle distance courses for Run Black Diamond, at Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. I ran red.

With this course, my troubles started immediately. I think that I attacked #1 fairly well, but when I got to the control location, I ran right by it, because it was hidden in a very steep reentrant. I looked around the entire area before finally finding it.

I left #1 on a bad bearing and found the wrong trail. I had to relocate, and I lost significant time again.

After this I proceeded with caution. I made no serious mistakes to #3, but I did get there very slowly.

Numbers 4,5 and 6 were quite difficult in terms of navigation and the terrain was also very difficult to get through. Each of these I got to very slowly.

After this, my race really started to improve. I felt as though I understood the map more, and I also was moving through the terrain faster. I made it to numbers 7,8,9 and 10 with no real mistakes.

After this however, I began to feel much more tired physically. This is partially due to the cold that's been bothering me for a few days. For the rest of the race, I didn't really have any navigational difficulties, but I felt completely exhausted.

I finished 17th out of 29 finishers.

Middle Red - Splits

Still feeling pretty terrible...

Nasty cold... Hopefully I will be able to run well this weekend at Run Black Diamond.

Event: BAOC: Pt Pinole
 

BAOC C-meet at Point Pinole Regional Park. This course was middle distance but felt more like a sprint because there were many controls with short legs in between and sharp changes in direction. I had very few costly mistakes, but I often wasted between 5 and 15 seconds looking for the control bag once I had already made it into the area of the control. These small errors really do add up, especially when there are so many controls. I ended up 8th out of 48 finishers.

This was a steep middle-distance course designed by Lubomir Sebo. I made several very costly mistakes, all when I was right in the area of the control. For next time, I will work on reading the map carefully when entering the control circle.