Training Log Archive: Mona

Up north - to western rd, with jeremy

As usual, I was slow starting, then he was slow on the way back.met Greg rollerblading on the way down too. Snowing wanderland.

Brown Deer - annoying instructor

down south - warm up (oil up the joints!)

Down South - Cranked it a bit after a caffeinated hammer gel

Up north with jeremy

I finally decided to take all my gadgets. After all, I dropped "o poala de bani" on them!!

We took it quite easy, i slowed him down at the beginning, he slowed me down in the second half. So weird. I need like a mile to oil up my joints, and then..uuhh... and then I can go 10min miles :) ha-ha-ha

Good workout, nevertheless. And if I can trick anyone to run a slow 9 miles, I'm preparing psicologically for that for this weekedn!!

I think I over did it or something. My lower body is in plenty pain (pretty much all there is: quads, hams, gluts, calves, shins!). Or maybe I should be happy the upper body is fine...

Ran 3 miles, at some relative comfy pace. Not sure on the time.

Brown Deer - fun instructor lady (Br or Aussie)

Up north, met up Greg on the way.

I strated all umphy, but 10 min in my legs were shut. probably from friday and saturday. Nothing better to do on a sunday afternoon then rollerblade till your butt and ears are all frozen.

Thanksgiving capucino run - lapham peak

The whole gang was there, and I was almost the slowest person, nothing unusual, but evry year I'm thinking 'oh, yeah, next year I'll be fast". I know I was faster last year.

Well, Gardar and Co made excelent coffee (and foamed choc milk for caffeine intolerants like me). So, overall, I was happy i went (even if i had to get up at 6:30!!!)

Cranked too much chest loading, I'll be sore. And I'm already sore from my tiny attempts on this chin up bar.

Y - men falls

I was gonna do a spin class, but it was booked and I only had the bike shoes with me. So I splashed in the pool for a while, racing some out of shape person next to me.

Up north - I think I'm getting hooked on gels. I didn;t have any today and i was barely moving... or that's how it felt.

Up north - a bit cold, could use a neck thing. and some gloves. maybe a nifty headband too. Oh, looks like shopping to me!

Fat Otter - Sprint AR - Chicago

Team Huckleberrys with Carol

This was a low intensity AR, Carol promised to make a writeup soon, and I'm planning to leverage that.

Brown Deer Y - remodeled real nice

weather for saturday (AR) is snow showers. Grrr.... O should be OK. But paddling and MTB in the snow?!?! And with a texan as a team mate?

C • good 2

Up north with jeremy

perfect temps, perfect relaxing pace, chatted and laughed the whole time. I think this is the first 6 miles in a while train wise.

So little energy, and it seemed like the triceps didn't heal since Friday.

I'm so sleepy, I thought I was gonna fall asleep during a meeting I was hosting :)

Tomorrow off! Yes!

Up north - in the rain. Didn;t have time for more.

Cranked a bit too much on chest and bicep. we'll see tomorrow. I did hit it with the after glow..

ok... this gets me sweating real bad, but still not sure if it's a workout or not

healthy. will try to break the rest pattern today and do some exercise...not sure yet what.

This was tough! Gotta do it again :) And remember to take my bike shoes..for a change.

healthy

healthy

healthy

Adventure Day II - WI, Lapham Peak

Team Huckleberrys - Greg and I.

We finished 2nd in our category, 1 min!!! behind first place. Best navigation split overall.
http://www.yamule.com/adventure_day/2008/a_day_hom...

Completed all sections (full size).

I looked back a bit: this was my first AR exactly 2 years ago. In the meantime: did 8 ARs, bought a new MTB, got hooked on MTB and AR, had some awesome mentors such as Melaine, John and Paul.

The race started with a trek (before hand was the "do you have the pen" act, but I'll skip details). I should start with noting that I entered this race with a competitive mind set, sooo unlike me. (wow, this waldstein sonata I'm listening to now is just awesome...doesn't have to do with anything, I know, but two years later when I read this it will be fun). So, Greg said we will crank it this time, so we did. Therefore, we started running decidedly in this treck, only that not where we were supposed to. I didn't take the right turn on a trail (no excuse really, I really have been running there for 50 times, I should know every inch by heart). Well, after we circled around (got a good workout, scenic route, insert your own joke here), we finally made to the objective: a bench where we had to find an unusual object next to. So, we look and look, and nothing, and then we look some more and then I scream in fear from the top of my lungs. Greg, jovially, to that: "oh, you must have found it!" I sure did, it was a HUGE spider, 2 feet diameter, right in my face, fake, obviuously...

We got back, we were last, nothing completely new for me (I had couple other races I messed up first section), only that now I had this inconvenient competitive mind set and I was mad. Greg did a good job cheering me up and we hopped on the bikes. I used his roadie, and he used a MTB. We started going an average of 20+m/h, and caught up immediately a couple teams, which brighten up my spirits. Then we kept passing people, I had this huge drive, and simply felt like cranking it. One team, 3 guys, I passed 2 of them and then I could not pass the leader and almost lost my temper there :) So weird! Biking went pretty uneventful, except one spot where we got actually lucky to catch up a ton of people. The whole route was on road, and suddenly there was no road to make a left. I had a road bike, again. Anyway, luckily, a local guy was nice enough to share that there was no connecting road, and we found a little trail and figured that was it. After a long investigation I got convinced to hop on it with my super skinny tires bike. Oh, and the last section, government hill. Oh, wow! My bike was apparently geared really low by some racer or something, so you had to get off your seat on any hill whatesoever. Well, I can do that for a minute or two, but after that I realize that some muscles are just not ready for it. So, Greg had to give me a push once in a while....

Now unto the paddling section. We used again our canoe with oars, which drawn quite some attention. This was my rest time, I tried to paddle a little bit, but I was not much help, except with stearing. I need more practice, definetely. We did ok here, no-one passed us, and we caught up with some teams.

Then returned to TA (there was only one TA at Lapham Peak). And we had to do 4 "challenges":
1) wheel barrel: we had to take turns each one lap around the lake by home stead, yes, you guessed it: one carrying the other person. Not as easy as it sounds....aaaaaahhhhh... that was tough, almost could not finish the last 5 feet
2) rope walking: a rope about 100', was set up in an "S" shape, and we had 2 wooden boards, one board had to always touch the rope, and we had to be standing on the boards and not touching ground at any time, or would have to start again. So, basically we both stand on one board, place the other board ahead, hop on it both of us, repeat. We managed this without tipping pretty quickly.
3) Puzzle: some geometrical stuff. Got that too in the adventure racing style
4) Change a tire

Finally done with the silly games, where ...we actually had pased 3 teams in the process. Now that was funny. So, now it was 3:30 and we were just starting the orienteering section. I was getting quite impatient as I figured that was our chnace to get a few more spots up in the ranking. So, we left in quick order, and we actually jogged almost all the course. (Ran parts of it too!) I was wearing this yellow bright jacket and Greg's main concern was : "you are too visible, take off the jacket" Me ... hmmm...last time I did this I ended up with arms like I went to a torture room before hand. So, I could not be convinced to loose the jacket but we practiced all good "hiding" orienteering practices. So, he'll get the control, and I was hiding in a spot getting ready for next control. Now one control was really mean placed (#4). First you had to go all the way down for this control (I mean WAY down), and then balanace on a log above this marsh/lake thing. Definetely you would not want to fall. Anyway, we got back after 1h and 6 min, best nav time overall, next team came in with 1h 19min.

Finish Line! My whole competitive mind set melt down like butter, and I was as happy as a clam! We completed all sections, got all points, and managed to get from the very last spot after first section to 3rd. Lessons learned: I need to let my team mates check the route, or consult sometimes on non-orinteering sections....Maybe orienteering too, but that may take too much time, so unless the other one is an orinteer himself, I'll skip the consultation part.

If you read the whole thing I buy you a beer.

C • Nice writeup 6

WI State O Champs - Greenbush

Beautiful day to orienteer. And great woods too. I bit of thorns but just by looking at the very minimal amt of scratches, it was quite all right. A bit more variation than Cat's mew, in the way there was some flat areas, as well as vegeation variation.

I was second after Anna (junior from Missouri), but suposedly, as she's out of state, I ended up as champ. Apparently it's new for a woman to win the championship. I hope I did a good job blowing my own horn!

I had this awesome energy at some points during the race, but for some reason I am SOOOO tired now. Better recover quick for the AR tomorrow.

C • nice run 4