Training Log Archive: Mona

Cold is almost over. yesterday I started having this lower back pain. No idea where it came from (maybe NOT exercising ;)

Event: Fat Otter Fall Sprint
 

Fat Otter Fall Sprint - Palos Hills, IL

Team Huckleberries - with Greg

Very fun sprint adventure race organized by team fat otter. great job Rod & team.

This was my very first sprint AR, so I was not exactly prepared for the pace. Which means I still made my sandwitches (this time only pbj), got a few sets of clothes to change in, hats, jackets and so on. Not to mention I didn't need or use any of that. Only food consumption was a few gels and ... oh, yeah, cough drops. For more than a week I had a cold with bad cough and other minor common cold bonuses. However, we still decided to go.

So we got there with plenty time to spare, as they didn't give any information out before the race meeting. So, first time ever, I actually had time to set everything up... and plenty twiddling thumbs after.

Got the skinny during the race meeting, and off we wnet on the first leg:

1) short O, to get one control up the hill. From my previous races I have learned i can;t focus on first thing, so I just followed the crowd for a while till I figured they were going to the wrong hill, so veered left and joined
melaine and her teams to hit the first control. return to TA. (the parking lot was the only TA)

2) got back in the first half teams, so we got to kayak first. I was already positive, as we didn't mess up and we were quite at the top after first challenge. We biked to maple lake, ang got on the lake probably the 10th team or so(out of 40). I knew last year i did so bad steering the kayak, so first loop greg was in the back and i had no worries, as he's an excellent paddler. But they had us swicth after 1st loop, so i thought, sinusoidal here i come. we already saw a team of 2 guys who kept slaloming the whole time... which is funny to watch when you're not it. well, somehow, we kept a pretty straight line, I figure greg was helping from the front, but did not have the heart to tell me :) Anyway, we made awesome progress, passed a few teams, no-one passed us. we ended up with second best time overall paddling. Biked back to TA and remembered to get a robitussin dose as my cough was getting bad.

To be continued... in a few days

Still recovering from cold. I will be mellow like a jelly fish for this race.

Cold

by my house

felt good running, finally, even if i was sickish in the morning. it's all about attitude.. for me.

Lion's Den - beautiful!

I just looked at my log, and it seems for the past 2-3 weeks, I'm tired at the !beginning! of the exercise. Now this might have been too quick after the 8 hour race.

Event: MAFF Adventure Race
 

Mule Adventures Fall Frenzy (lapham peak, WI) - Team On Fire w/ John

This was a great race set up by the yamules, and I would rank it way high in my favourites, for the way it was set up and organized: not a huge amount of biking, extensive orinteering, and all biking broken up by fun events, or CPs of some sort to keep your brain from going numb. good job mike, paula and the team!

We got there at 7:30 which is only 15 min later than planned, so not too bad, but we could have always used a bit more time to look at the maps. If I'm ever to win, gotta spend some time of that too. the weather was just perfect, could not have picked a better day. So, we had the race meeting, and noticed lot of new comers, which is always great to see. And off we go.

1) trek/run on the west side of C.

boardwalk and then the spring. i could tell andy and his gang had their act together right away. There was no issue finding the CPs, but for some reason I got tummy ache and could not run. As a chnage, we did NOT come back as the last team after the treck (not even close) (I usually end up last after first act and then play catch up ).

2) Bike
To CP1 and then TA2. All was road biking except the small stretch of trail at the government hill road (which i knew about it from last time). I could not get John to draft me, as i had the faster bike. I do have to admit that once I'm into competitive mode (not my normal mode, which is "let's have some fun and see what comes out of it"), then all my patience is out the window, so working on that. . At TA2 we got asked for our space blankets, (each missing mandatory item would have cost us a cp!) John did not intend to take it so I made sure to put it in his pack :) Well, there's more fun to this story, as most people don't quite know what an "emergency or space blanket is" :)

2) Paddle
One of the funnest part of the course up the bark river, just beautiful weather, we got our act together, (a LOT better than last time) but still figuring out how to get faster w/out looking like we're about to spit our lungs out. some low (low-low-low) bridges to go under. That was interesting and slightly scary in the same time, as we got stuck both on the way up and down. then one bridge we sent only the canoe under and we hoped over. We got all point on the canoe, which now looking back it would have been faster to get more O points, but we had fun, and eventually that's probably all that counts.

3) Bike
CP2,3, to TA4. John navigated the bike the whole time. Most time he did pretty good, but in the end I think he got tired cause we definetely took the scenic routes to some CPs :) oh, i can laugh now, but did not laugh then :)

4) Mistery events!!!
again a very fun part. those yamules just rock at setting up things. so this was a combo of 3 :
4.1 walking up on an incline pole (say 20deg) at about 20' up in the air, strapped and harnessed. for some reason, i was not so scared as last time, mostly not scared at all, I got up and walked very quickly as i was afraid i might fall if i slow down. John did not show much fear either, so we both got better with heights. Fun!

4.2 telephone pole climb
Now this was somthing else! We watched someone else do it and it seemed obvious to both of us that there was NO WAY we could do it. So, strapped again, you had to climb on top of this pole (I don't know, 50feet, high enough!), then stand on this pole (again, this is just a regular pole, 10" diameter), then move your feet to rotate yourself 180 while standing on this pole (did i mention this pole was rocking at a good clip while on top of it??). then jump and ring a bell on a rope about 6' in front. yeah, right!
So... we looked and looked, and I got picked to do it! So I basically ran up the pole and did it so quick i didn't have time to freak out. I recall that I looked around as I'm standing on top of the rocking pole "Hm, nice view". then jumped :) Did not even remeber to say 1-2-3 before jumping as instructed. this was awesome!

4.3 team exercise: walk on some ropes and poles (all close to the ground now). we did that pretty quickly with a bit in inventivity.

5) Bike to Aerial O
Picked up 4 controls, and took off as we figured we'd get more at lapham

6) Bike back to lapham for orienteering
Only had time to get 4 controls, (out of 17!, I guess we didn't know how many points were waiting at the end, or we might have skipped some optional stuff or kick in in a higher gear).

good race, looking back, some things worked better (read instructions!:), some still need working on.

C • Fun! 2

Pictures:

The pole experience

http://picasaweb.google.com/pawaite/MuleAdventures...

Oh, maps

http://picasaweb.google.com/pawaite/MuleAdventures...

Biking into the mistery events area

http://picasaweb.google.com/pawaite/MuleAdventures...

I was planning for 5m this morning, but by the time the start came, I just didn't have the energy or the drive to do it. I had to force myself to get out there, and even then I had to walk after .5m... I guess if it's not in the heart it's just not happenin.

To the library, got a boatload of movies, barele able to stuff them in my pack.

padded shorts definetely improved the situation.

not sure about the padded gloves, it was awfully cold, and if anything, I think warmth comes before comfort, so ski gloves it is.

last night I had an agitated sleep (work dreams don't help much!) so i was a bit tired again, but kept challenging myself nevertheless.

I'm only planning to run a bit wed and that's it before the race. can't start that in the state i'm right now or John will have to drag me all the way.

C • Race 4

tested greg'd road bike for the next race. whoo, it flies!

to do:
1) padded shorts (and gloves): a MUST!
2) install clips
3) move seat back a bit and downwards