Training Archive: kupackmanIn the 28 days ending 2007-02-28:
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| H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | ||||||||||||
Tuesday Feb 27 | ||
| Volleyball 1:45:00 [2] | |
| BENVA Winter League
Officially, 4-2, Unofficially 3-3. We only had four this week... but we beat Sandra's team twice easily. Then we played an undermanned team of 3 (officially two forfeit wins). However, one of those guys had a wicked spin serve and we actually lost. The second game we played much much better, and we won easily. The last pair of games were against the #1 team, and we played them a lot better than I expected us to. We tend to play above or below to the level of competition we have. I managed one spike on Smiley (the super serious dude who is always gruff), however, I made waaaaay too many errors tonight. I missed passes, sets, spikes, serves. It was not a good night for me. We really miss Elan and Sandra.... none of us can set the ball consistently like they could. I mean, sure, we can give really good sets sometimes, but we dump the ball over on too many possessions because the sets aren't exactly where they need to be. I setted a few right to the other team, and another into the antenna. ARGH! | ||
Monday Feb 26 | ||
| Basketball 35:00 [4] | |
| BEEBA Spring League, Week #7
Win, 51-47 DOUBLE OVERTIME!!! I was sick all weekend, so I didn't intend to play much, but Carlos and David were no-shows, so we only had six. Humorously, the other team (a better team) only had five, so it was an epic battle. We had a seven point lead to start the 4th quarter, and we squandered it.... Tom's short jumper with 20 seconds left tied it to force overtime. In overtime, each team only scored once. In the second overtime, I hit a runner in the lane, and then iced it with two 1-and-1 freebies with 20 seconds to go. I think my points were the only ones of the overtime. I played really well, scoring 22 points on 9 of 14 shooting, with two 3's and 2-2 on free throws. I had several rebounds and one block. I may have only had one assist, but it was to Tom on the aforementioned game-tier. I think I had a turnover. I think I play well when the team plays well. We've won two games in a row now and we're passing the ball a lot more than we have before, and things are going so fluidly. We're unselfish, too. And this means that I take better shots (I think I'm 12 for 18 over the last two games). We definitely have a good high-low working now with Blake drawing attention as the big. He can kick it out to me for a long shot, or he can back-door pass it to a guard for a lay-up. As much as I hate to say it... we play much better without Carlos. He's too much of a dribbler and tries to create too much. We proved this week that we can create with the pass much more effectively than he can with the dribble. | ||
Saturday Feb 24 | ||
| Orienteering race 15:10 [4]*** 2 km (7:35 / km) | |
| spiked:6/7c shoes: Vasque Lightspeed | ||
| Today was the big day, the Washington State Relay Champs.... which, unlike last time, turned out to be pretty anti-climatic. Only four and 2/3 teams were there, and the winners were a super-team, made up of the guys who finished 1st, 5th, and 7th in the Winter League. (To contrast, Nick and I finished 52nd and 13th respectively, and Scott just started running advanced courses seven days ago). The 2/3 team would have been interesting to see have a full team (Pederis and Dave were 4th and 12th, FYI). We were about 90 seconds minute behind them after Nick's leg, and we were about 60 seconds ahead after my leg... and then they ran out of people, and Pederis ran again.
Nick ran fairly cleanly, with a respectable 17:37. I ran second, and I ran as fast as I can remember in a long time. I made a 15-second boom on #1, when I overran the control a bit, and I caught up to and passed Dave before #2. I missed the gravel trail to #2, and I got caught on the paved trail just parallel to it. I spotted the flag way ahead of time, but I had to but through blackberry bushes to get over to the correct trail. This mistake was worth 5 seconds (and a cup of blood) at the most. I don't remember #3 much except that I nailed it quickly. During the map exchange, Nick said "go straight to #4" and that's what I did. I hesitated a bit in the brush while climbing over some logs, but this leg went very smoothly. #5 was the control that we spotted pre-race when we went over to use the restrooms. I hopped the fence into and out of the soccer field here... I did the same thing a year ago at this park, but it worked better this time around. By #6, I was really hurting, but it was easy. #7 was easy, too, and I was pushed on by passing an oncoming Dave (on his way to #6). I think my time was about 15:10 or so.... I didn't keep my own splits, I just kept our team's time on my clock, which was 48:43. Scott had a fast and clean loop, except that he noticed that the control code on the flag didn't match the map (he was the only one amongst the top 8 runners who mentioned this at the end). Because of his inexperience, he thought he was in the wrong spot, so he hunted around a bit until he saw Pederis come around a 2nd time to punch it. We lost a minute here. Overall, it was a good run by my team, and I'm really happy with the result. I had a clean, fast race, so this might break me out of my slump I've been having. | ||
Tuesday Feb 20 | ||
| Volleyball 1:45:00 [2] | |
| BENVA Winter League
1 win, 5 losses Played well during the first 5 games (4 losses against two good teams), but we stunk it up during the last game, losing to a team we just crushed the game before. I had 12 unforced errors over 6 games, which isn't too bad. I had the biggest, baddest spike of my life last night. The timing was just right, I guess. And I followed it up with a mean back-row spike, too. And then another a few rotations later. Basically, I had my three best spikes ever, back-to-back-to-back. We'll see how that translates to next week. | ||
| Volleyball 1:45:00 [1] | |
| BENVA Rec League
4 wins, 2 losses Blake filled in for my team on the A-league, and asked Gina and I if we wanted to fill in for his Rec-league team. It turned out that Blake didn't need us, but another team that Gina knew asked her to sub for them, so I was sitting down on the sidelines when I was asked by a team of middle aged Indian guys (who only had 4), if I wanted to play. I said sure, so I did. Man, Rec league is crazy. People don't have the pass, set, spike mentality... they just get the ball over the net as soon as possible. Of the 4 guys on my team, only one knew to set me up at the net. Also, another thing was weird was that we played 2 up, 3 back... which is the opposite of what we needed (this means I'm only available to net spike 40% of the time). I played at 50% speed most of the night. I didn't hit serves hard, or spike hard, just because it wouldn't be fun for the Rec leaguers. The last team we played was a group of younger and more athletic Indian guys, and I could tell that my team wanted to win, so I stepped it up just enough so that we could win and make my guys happy. It was fun. | ||
Monday Feb 19 | ||
| Note | |
| I think we've finally settled on a relay order.
1st: Nick 2nd: Me 3rd: Scott We've decided to put me 2nd because it's the leg that requires the most independent running (less of a pack to run with, and zero input from teammates). Since I have the most experience and I've run on this map before, this makes the most sense to have me run 2nd. Scott is going 3rd because he's our fastest runner, and even though he's inexperienced, he only finished 30 seconds behind me on his first ever advanced course this weekend. He pretty much knows what's going on out there, but he hasn't learned some of the nuances that can shave off some time. By having him go 3rd, Nick will be able to give him about 15 minutes worth of tips and tidbits while I'm out there running. Nick will go first because I think he'll be able to keep up with most of runners. I would assume that most teams won't put their fastest guys first, so I think Nick will be fine. In fact, Nick might be the fastest guy in the opening leg (like I was last year), and he's got enough experience to handle breaking away if that's the case. I really like this order, except for one thing. As the most experienced guy on the team, I think there's some weight to having me go last, in the big time pressure (if it comes to that). In basketball, when it comes to late game free throws, I want to have the ball. That being said, I think the Nick-Patrick-Scott sequence is the most likely to produce the fastest time. | ||
| Basketball 30:00 [4] | |
| BEEBA Spring Season, Week #6
Win! 49-32! After last week's incredibly inept performance (losing by 29 to a previously winless team), we put together our best performance I've seen in any of our games. We beat a solid team by 17 points! Blake was an animal on the offensive boards, Tim C was posting up and scoring a lot, Tim T hit some clutch backbreaker shots in the 4th quarter, and we hit free throws. We had the inside-outside game working great, too (surprising, considering we don't have any offensive plays). I had my most solid game in a while. 8 points on 3-4 shooting (2-3 on 3's). Zero turnovers, zero fouls, 1 block and probably 5-6 rebounds. | ||
Sunday Feb 18 | ||
| Note | |
| I'm in a bit of a slump. After a *really* successful fall:
--2nd at Woodland Park --4th at Lake Sammamish --3rd at Lake Hyak --2nd at Vampire-O --2nd at the Fremont Street Scramble --1st at the Carnation Turkey Hunt) My winter has been pretty bad: --Suffering big time at the Bog Slog --A half-assed run at the Pike Place Scramble --Two poor Winter League performances in a row, three overall. I'm definitely in a bit of a slump, as my paces are slower, I'm making more mistakes, and my rivals are beating me more often. However, I don't know why this is happening? Maybe all of the course design stuff in Nov/Dec really took me out of it? Maybe now that I have several friends who routinely orienteer now... my race day focus is gone? I'm not sure. | ||
Saturday Feb 17 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:08:22 [4]*** | |
| spiked:8/15c shoes: Vasque Lightspeed | ||
| Point Defiance Park
Winter League Champs, Course #7 11th place of 24 Absolutely beautiful weather, and, well, a not so-so beautiful performance. Start to #1:Spiked it, spiked it, spiked it! Within 10 seconds, I was on my way, I ran well, and I was aware enough to avoid the soft trap by hitting up the earth bank early. I had the second fastest time on this leg! #1 to #2: Lost about a minute on this one due to route choice. Dave Enger ran straight at this super-short leg, going down and up the ravine. It looked a little sketchy to me, so I contoured around this one. In fact, I was only 2 seconds faster than Nick, who ran out to the road and around. #2 to #3: Lost another minute on this one, mainly within the circle. The clue was an earthbank, NW tip, but it didn't say whether or not it was up top or below. Unfortunately, I guessed low, and I had to climb back up and around to this one. #3 to #4: Since I'd already explored the lower part of the earth bank, I knew that it spit out to the beach, so I went down and ran along the path on the shore to the control. #4 to #5: Shoulda shoulda shoulda taken the beach around on this one. This was a long leg, and there wasn't a shoreline path on the map, and I was worried about the terrain being too rocky, and the tide being too high or something. Instead, I lumbered up the hill, through the woods, (in not a very direct path, I might add), on the road, and down the trail. I reckon I lost 4 minutes here on route-choice. #5 to #6. ARRRRRGGHH. The color of the maps weren't printed well, so what was light green on the map actually looked white. Couple that with the fact that the light green should have been mapped medium/dark green. I tried to take the direct approach by plowing through the "white" woods after taking a trail about 1/3 of the way through. Well, once the trail ended, it was a slog through all of that junk. My offset method worked, as I spit out on the other side about 20 meters east of the flag. But my gosh, I lost 4 minutes on another route choice error. #6 to #7: I learned my lesson on the previous leg, so I ran around and spiked this one. Some other folks took some interesting (and I think not as good) route choices on this one. Spiked it. #7 to #8: I missed the wrong trail leaving the control, and it cost me about 100m of extra distance by not taking the hypotenuse. I didn't stop and contemplate the error any, so I lost less than a minute on this one. #8 to #9: I spiked this one, too, with a quick decision on the route early. As it turned out, this one had a "six of one, half a dozen of the other" route choice (which I didn't see until afterward). I'm glad that I made a decision before punching, so I could get out and go. This made the rest of the leg super easy and quick. #9 to #10: My killer leg. It was really short, and I passed the attackpoint (a gap in the dark green) by 50 meters. Anyway, I ended up being in the next reentrant over, with poor visibility and LOTS of downed trees and branches. I decided to relocate back to the trail and try again. I hit it the second time. I lost 5 minutes here. #10 to #11: I spiked this one, too. This was a runner's leg, no doubt, and I passed three people to this one, mainly because they were unsure of themselves on the map and had to stop. I was pretty confident and nailed it. #11 to #12: Another runner's leg, until the very end. The guys behind me passed me at the end, but they didn't pay enough attention. They took the "shortcut" trail that really wasn't. I saw the trick, and got it, but I sprained my ankle at the flag. #12 to #13: A third consecutive runner's leg, and a third consecutive spike. #13 to #14: DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB mistake. This one was "underneath stairs", and we started way atop the bluff, so we had to get down there. I saw fences that seemed to block a lot of the most obvious route, so I decided to backtrack and go around from completely the opposite direction. As course-setter in Dec, I put a control under a bridge at UW, tricking everyone. I thought that Glenn was pulling the same prank on us here, so I went around the other way. However, the most obvious way to go here was the best option, by a good minute. I'm dumb. #14 to #15: A short spike. I even super spiked this one by climbing up the rock retaining wall and crawling under the wooden fence, saving my self the hassle of having to run over to the sidewalk/road junction several meters away. #15 to Finish: 17-second sprint. --- This was not a very good run, as all of main "rivals" beat me considerably, even the ones I normally beat. Scott, who was running in just his 4th orienteering meet, bumped up to Course #7, and I only beat him by 34 seconds. If he keeps it up, he's going to be a beast. Nick ran well, too, earning his first top 50% (and first top 1/3) finish on a COC advanced course, finishing 2 minutes behind me. Mistakes: Route Choice: 4 errors worth 10 minutes Parallel Error: 1 error worth 5 minutes Navigation Error: 1 error worth 1 minute Searching for Flag: 1 error worth 1 minute TOTAL: 7 errors, 17 minutes, 25% of total time. Positives: Great first leg, didn't get caught Offset technique worked perfect, despite speed Planned 8-9 route ahead, no slowing 10-11-12-13, lots of running, no mistakes or slowing | ||
Tuesday Feb 13 | ||
| Volleyball 1:45:00 [2] | |
| Much like basketball the day before, this isn't worth mentioning. We lost all 6 games, 4 against teams we have absolutely no business losing to.
Our full team is only 5, and we only had 3 of those 5 play, so we have commitment issues with the other 2. We found two last-minute subs, and well, they were sub-par (I can't fault them too much, as they helped us out big time). After a pretty bad opening pair of games, I wanted to focus on making as few mistakes as possible, and over the last 4 games, I only made 5 errors that cost us points (served into the net, was out of place on a dig, set it up for the other team, hit it out of bounds, and passed one out of reach of the setter. So, out of 100 lost points, I was only responsible for 5 or them. I've never focused specifically on not making any mistakes before, and it seemed to work really well, even against the hardest hitting of the bunch. | ||
Monday Feb 12 | ||
| Basketball 30:00 [4] | |
| We had a basketball game, and I played on a sprained ankle (because I'm too stubborn to rest).
We all played like we had two sprained ankles. And sprained hands, and sprained brains. I should have rested it, because we were so worthless that it wasn't worth playing. | ||
Sunday Feb 11 | ||
| Running 9:11 [4]1.4 mi (6:34 / mi) | |
| Pretty lazy weekend, where I logged 24 hours of sleep (running a little low on sleep these days with working overtime + sports + Gina). Yesterday was a perfect day, and I just did chores around the house. Today, I just napped all day and watched sports.
Scott and Nick have been amped up for the relay, and Nick (for the first time ever) is actually doing some training by running sprints and playing catching features. I decided to go for a run around Green Lake tonight in the rain, and I was making great time, before I sprained my ankle pretty bad on the side of the pavement. I got about half way 'round the lake. | ||
| Running 25:41 [2]1.4 mi (18:20 / mi) | |
| The other half of the Green Lake loop, mostly walking, some jogging. | ||
Tuesday Feb 6 | ||
| Volleyball 1:45:00 [2] | |
| BENVA Winter League, Week #4
2 wins, 4 losses. Our 4 losses came against the two best teams in the league, and we definitely held our own, finishing with 20+ points in all 4 of those games. I was playing really steady, which was nice. Probably one of my best all-around volleyball days. After the first two rounds, Carlos had to leave, so Blake joined the team. We had to adjust a little bit, but we won our last two games easily (thanks to Matt's super serves that bailed us out of a big deficit). For these last two games, we had a lineup of 6'5", 6'5", 6'4", 5'9", and 5'8"! | ||
| Note | |
| The relay team is set: me, Nick, and Scott. (Choosing Scott turned out to be such an easy decision, after all).
Now the dilemma is to set the order of the team for the relay. Scott is the least experienced, but the fastest. Nick is the slowest (not by too much), and I have the most experience, by far. With the mass start, I think we're wise to have Scott go first. He's fast enough to pretty much keep up with everyone (except for maybe Nikolay and Eric, who likely won't be running). Even though he's mostly acing advanced intermediate courses now, it'll be good to have him run with the herd for a while. If he can gain some sort of lead (which is possible, since I was the lead runner during last year's first leg), that's great. I think it makes sense to have your most-experienced guy to go last. He'll be the one who'll have to run the most without a herd (if at all). And he'll be the one who'll have the least potentional for mistakes. I think it makes a lot of sense to have me be the anchor. However, since we're all running the same loop, Scott will have about 15 minutes to explain the course to me while Nick is out there. Of the three of us, I'm the one who needs this information the least (especially since I've run on this map before). So... maybe I should go second, since I need the least amount of input. This will give Nick more information. Patrick (no info) + Nick (info) > Patrick (info) + Nick (no info) But that seems to go against how track & field relays work. I'll have to think about this more. | ||
Monday Feb 5 | ||
| Note | |
| I think my blog just died. I guess my 3 years of free web hosting ran out. I wonder if I can renew and it'll just magically come back? | ||
| Basketball 30:00 [4] | |
| BEEBA Spring League, Week #4
Win 51-40 This was definitely our best game of the year. Everyone scored, everyone contributed, and our defense was outstanding. We also hit buzzer-beating 3-pointers on fast breaks to end the 2nd and 3rd quarters. Blake is a beast. He's 6'5" but has a 6'8" presence out there. I had a great game, shooting 3 of 5, making both of my free throws, finishing with 9 points. I also had several rebounds, too. After last season's 1-9 finish, 3 of my old teammates jumped ship to this "better" team. It felt really good to wallup these guys. We have a winning streak now! | ||
Saturday Feb 3 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:07:30 [4]*** 6.57 km (10:16 / km) | |
| spiked:9/12c shoes: Vasque Lightspeed | ||
| The final race of the Winter Series, and I had plenty of motivation coming in. With a decent race, I'd get enough points to pass Dave Enger and Rick Breseman in the standings and finish as high as 11th overall.
And, eh, I didn't have a very good race. In fact, I made my biggest boom in a while. The course was at Fire Mountain Scout Camp, which compared to the one I went to in Missouri, was super tiny. Anyway... Start to #1. I navigated ok, but the map seemed sketchy in places so I hesitated longer than I should have. 4:31 was my time, but I probably wasted 15 seconds in slowing down. Oh, this was my first ever control at a cave. #1 to #2. Getting up to the road was challenging... do you take the west side full of thorns, or the east side up the super steep and tall earth bank? I chose thorns, and Nick chose earth bank, and we concluded that thorns was the way to go. However, INEXPLICABLY, I chose to attack #2 from the road above the cliff, not the OBVIOUS road below the cliff. I lost perhaps 90 seconds on this stupid, stupid mistake. #2 to #3. I took the fast road around on this one, not because it was a handrail, but because I knew it was fast. There was potentional on the map to cut through two open areas separated by some thin woods, but when I got there, there was a bunch of construction equipment in the way, so I didn't want to risk it. #3 to #4. There were lots of downed branches along the trail by the silt pond... it wasn't too bad, but it makes me wonder how much time it would have taken to have backtracked a bit and taken the cleaner trail. I got kinda lucky on hitting the flag, because it was in a clearing (campground), but there were no buildings on the map here, and in reality there were. I thought I was in the campground just before it, so I was going to cut the corner, and bam, there was my control. #4 to #5. My best control of the day. I thought it was obvious which way to go, but I saw two experienced orienteers take two completely different ways to get there, and I passed them both, and pulled ahead of them by at least 45 seconds. I took a main trail right to the junction, which was my attackpoint. From the attackpoint, you could see the boulder at the top of the hill, so I ran for it, and the control was on the boulder just past it. #5 to #6. One small bobble here (15 seconds) and one major boom (3 minutes). I'm not going to fault myself too much here, because there were several boulders that weren't mapped, and I got pulled over about 50 meters too far east. I'm a little confused about the maps/printing here... Nick ran the same course I did, and he had some boulders missing on his map.. one of which was hanging a flag. #6 to #7. Worst leg in a long, long time, and I didn't follow my own advice: don't expect flags too soon. Because the event had longer distances, fewer controls, and a smaller scale map, I told Gina, Nick, and Scott to remember this... and I didn't. And this was an easy leg. I think what confused me was that I got to the scout lodge waaaay earlier than I intended to (I knew where I was at this point... but I think I must have zoned out or something on the way there). I crossed the creek like I should, ran on the trail like I should, and then I saw a large rock thing... something that was on the map... 300 meters past my control. I was convinced that I ran too far, so I ran back, only get back to the lodge much quicker. I started to think that maybe I was at the wrong lodge.... On my second time down the trail, I looked for every tree stump I could, and I finally found the flag... about 20 meters down the trail from when I originally turned around. My leg was 16 minutes long. Between controls #5 and #7, Nick made up a whopping 9 minutes on me. #7 thru finish. There are six legs here, but they were all so simple that I don't even think it's worth mentioning. I guess one of them had a way around some thorny areas, which I took, and Nick did not (which saved me some time), and there was a little 10 second hesitation while looking for a trail, but this half of the course was too easy, I thought. Even my big screw up on #7 involved handrailing the whole way. I finished 8:30 ahead of Nick, and about 4 minutes ahead of Tyler, a guy who I beat about 75% of the time. Unfortunately, I didn't beat Rick, so I didn't pass him in the series, and I'm guessing that with my time, that I didn't pass Dave either. Jake, my "rival", who I've haven't lost to since June, beat me by a whopping 10 minutes. I was 10 points ahead of him in the series going in, and depending on how things shake out, he might have had a monster of a result to make up those points. Gina did pretty well on Course #5, especially on a bum ankle. Scott pretty much rocked Course #5. The latest results showed him in 1st place by a big-time 11 minutes, and he clocked a 9 min/km pace. He's only done 3 races so far, but I think he'll be ready to bump up to the advanced ones when the Ultimate Orienteer series starts next month. Also, Nick's wife's parents were in town, so they tagged along with Angela on a Course #2. Mike was supposed to come today, but his lead called him into work today, so he couldn't. | ||
| C • Killer Mistake 1 | ||