Saturday Mar 31 |
 | Orienteering race 52:49 [4]5.9 km (8:57 / km) +240m 7:26 / km | |
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| DVOA A-meet at Fair Hill. I ran well here in the long-O in 2005, so I was looking forward to it. Both days were on the north side of 273. Large open fields that you run through to get between the low-lying pockets of forest and streams and sometimes steep hills. Lots of vines, especially rimming the fields, make where to enter and exit the fields is a major factor in route choice.
I had a good run, though I was flagging towards the end due to poor conditioning. Made a one and a half minute mistake going too far on the trail to 9. Otherwise just a couple 20-30 second errors. Good enough for second M50 on the day, 20 seconds behind Marcus Gloor, who I found out was a Swiss orienteer transplanted to HVO-land for two years. |
| Orienteering race (sprint) 19:23 [5]2.7 km (7:11 / km) +60m 6:28 / km | |
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| Sprint, on the south side of 273, in part of the area of Day 1 in 2005. Fast open woods sprint with trail options. I was tired from the morning, but when the starter says go, you just run as hard as you can. I had one small miss when I didn't see the depression at 5 from 10 meters away (unlike some sprints, the flags were sometimes hidden, though not unfairly). I lost fastest old guy honors to Glen, who got me by about 10 seconds. |
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Sprint - Splits |
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Day 1, Green X - Splits |
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Day 2, Green X - Splits |
Friday Mar 30 |
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| Event: DVOA A-Meet (Interscholastics)
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Thursday Mar 29 |
| Trail Run (tempo) 23:08 [3]3.1 mi (7:27 / mi) | |
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| Noho XC course, at a moderately hard pace. Wanted to be under 23 but trails were very muddy, especially the last mile.
7:21, 7:16, 7:44, 46. |
| Trail Run 22:00 [2]2.5 mi (8:47 / mi) | |
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| Trails from Smith gym to start; road back (twilight). |
Tuesday Mar 27 |
| Road Run (tempo) 42:23 [3]5.6 mi (7:33 / mi) | |
| ahr:144 max:152 weight:148lbs |
| Clement Street loop, after dark. Decent effort, almost a 4. |
Monday Mar 26 |
| Road Run 33:57 [3]4.1 mi (8:17 / mi) | |
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| UMass, slow. Short on time and motivation. |
Sunday Mar 25 |
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| Event: Mine Falls Sprints
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| Orienteering race 27:11 [4]4.3 km (6:19 / km) | |
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| First sprint at Mine Falls in Nashua, NH, courses again by Michael Commons. It was advertised as 2.7 k, but it was 50% longer (OCAD scaling error), plus a bit extra when measured properly around uncrossable features. This sprint went fine, just a 20-30 second miss on 6. I liked the cool temps in the 40's, and not too much snow on the ground. "Sprint" is a bit of a misnomer: it was a white/yellow mix with some very, very long (and rather boring) trail legs. Hence the fast per/k, even though I didn't feel especially fast. There was some interesting route choice, but you couldn't always tell the best route from the map. |
| Orienteering race 32:53 [4]4.3 km (7:39 / km) | |
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| Second "sprint" was also more than 50% longer than advertised, also with some very, very long trail legs. This one didn't go so well, and I probably lost about 4 minutes on three controls, even though in each case the map was somewhat to blame. I lost 1:30-2:00 on the first control. I expected to see it from the trail since the map shows it 10 to 15 meters off, but I went by it. (Forerunner confirms it was further from the trail than mapped.) When I didn't see it right away coming back, I noticed that the contours didn't look right and I got nervous that I wasn't where I thought I was. So I went to the main trail by the river, confirmed my location more or less, then went back and found it pretty easily. Too much thinking and second guessing did me in. Then heading due west to the main trail going to 2, I hit an uncrossable stream, mapped as crossable. I wasted some time following the stream south looking for a place to cross, then gave up and backtracked to the bridge. Then, going from 5 to 6, I wasn't thinking and found myself expecting to cross the same uncrossable steam, though at a different place. This time, it looked possible to wade across, so I ran up the stream to a spot that looked good and ... my feet sunk into the muck and I was totally immersed with my map underwater. It took some time to get out of the muck without cramping a hamstring or losing a shoe. The pink course lines and circles on the map were obliterated but fortunately the last control, 6, was our first sprint's 1 (right by a main trail), and I didn't much need the map the rest of the way. Always an adventure. |
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It's Pits 1 - Splits |
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It's Pits 2 - Splits |