Training Log Archive: abiperk

High cadence/low power over/unders. Felt like my legs would benefit more from a shakeout ride than a rest day.

Snowgaine Day 2. Blue skies and "warming" temps made for a beautiful day.

We tackled the northern map and opted for a counterclockwise route that had us skipping the two furthest outlier points (80 and 54, I think?) but clearing everything else. We criss-crossed with a few folks but spent most of the day on our own - fun to see all the different route and strategy decisions. Definitely one of the best parts of this race.

Very little to report on the day. We executed a solid plan with no real bobbles, and got all the points we set out to get. We thought we MIGHT have time for two we left out on Day 1, but we ran out of clock. We estimated that the closer of the points would take ~40 minutes, and we got back to the finish with under 20 minutes left.

As expected, Alex and Carinne of Bend ran a great day and ended up taking over the top spot in the coed division. We finished second in the division, eighth overall, and third American, behind two long-legged all-male duos: Rootstock's Brian and Joel, and John and Eric of NYARA fame. Neither CP81 on Day 1 nor the two additional checkpoints we contemplated on Day 2 would have changed the results. I think we probably could have added ~150 points with slightly different strategy/route decisions and no snafu on Day 1.

I felt better physically and mentally than Day 1, and just enjoyed being in the woods.

SO happy that Russ, Bruce, and Gian brought the Snowgaine back. It's consistently been one of my favorite weekends of the year. Already looking forward to 2021.

Event: CNYO Snowgaine
 

Snowgaine, Day 1. Winona State Forest - start/finish at the CCC camp, which was relatively centrally located on the two maps. We started off eyeing a northerly route but when we saw that most teams were heading south, we switched up our plans to avoid having to break snow all day. We started with a tight loop right out of the TA - two 70 pointers plus 46 - also part of the avoid-breaking-snow strategy - and then swept south and east. We debated going for the most easterly points - a lot of work for relatively few CPs - but ultimately decided to go for it.

We were generally moving well and made it through most of our planned route. We debated whether we had time to push to the SW corner for 81 and ultimately decided that we did - until we failed to pay attention coming out of a CP, followed someone else's tracks, and ended up traveling a 1+ kilometer in opposite direction from where we intended, essentially back to the previous CP. It was our one major nav blunder of the weekend, and it cost us.

Knowing we were up against the clock, we headed north/northeast toward the start/finish, picking up a few more points that were en route. We were surprised to finish the day first among the coed teams, but we had a feeling that other teams might have some tricks up their sleeves for Day 2.

A few notes and observations, in no particular order:

1. I felt good about my nutrition. We watched the clock and made it a priority to eat something small every 30 minutes, to maintain steady energy. Could have done better with hydration. Hose was frozen for the first while and I got out of the habit of drinking.

2. I got down on myself about five hours into the race, feeling slow and out of shape. And then I realized that I've been training in a fifty-degrees-and-rainy kind of winter, I haven't experienced real snow in a few years, and other than nationals (which for some reason doesn't really register for me) I'm still coming off a year away from racing. I was able to snap out of it with about 90 minutes left on the clock, but it made me realize that more than physical strength, I need to rebuild some of my mental reserves on the race course.

3. I had SO much fun following along on the map. I wasn't doing the navigational heavy lifting, but I was always aware of where we were and helping make decisions. It felt good to know where I was and where we were going!

4. I am/we are unbelievably inefficient at putting on snowshoes.

Recovery ride

20min push, the rest easy. Last 10min on muddy trail. Underfueled and sluggish, but otherwise pleasant enough.