Sunday Sep 23 |
 | Orienteering race 15:19 [4] 2.02 km (7:35 / km) | |
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| US relay champs. Watching the races was lots of fun. The courses were well designed by PG for spectating. I ran in an 8 point NEOC team with Tim P. leading off, me second, Hilary third, and Sam fourth. We took 2nd to WCOC in a close finish. I was oddly nervous about doing yellow; I'd never competed in a yellow course before, and it seemed there was a distinct possibility for serious embarassment if I went too fast and got stupid. But the run went well enough; I was second on the course to Pavlina by 30 seconds, but well ahead of all the kids and West Pointers who can run a lot faster than me. (I didn't have a single fastest split.) But it was far from a perfect race: I probably lost at least 10 seconds on each of three legs, two by being inaccurate, one by not choosing the best route. (I should have taken the road to 10; I went around to the right.) The course was more interesting than I expected; not at all trivial, with lots of route choice, like a sprint course. |
| road 9:00 [2] 1.0 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
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| Warm-up. Surprised that my legs felt pretty good. |
| Trail Run 51:43 [3] 5.2 mi (9:57 / mi) | |
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| Hadn't done much exercise in CT, and it was a beautiful day, and Adam needed to do a 5-6 mile run. So we went to Mt Tom late in the day and, starting at the gate, did a shortened loop climbing up Goat Peak (slow, but no walking), then cutting out the climb up Whiting Peak by taking the Quarry Trail to the Keystone extension and back down to Lake Bray. |
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Yellow - Splits |
Saturday Sep 22 |
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| Event: Sprint Series Final & US Relay Champs
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| Orienteering race 18:46 [4] 2.22 km (8:27 / km) | |
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| Sprint Series Finals at Cranbury Park in Norwalk. 3 sprints: the first two were were an A-meet with staggered starts; I ran in M45. The last was the sprint final run as a mass start after the finalists ran. It was a fun day, with excellent courses set by Joe; and a good day for me, with no mistake over 30 seconds, and the last sprint clean as a whistle. I felt my hip when I tried to go fast, but it held up pretty well throughout the weekend.
Sprint A had the most green, and the most potential for trail or stone wall confusion. It started badly with the worst mistake of the day: I got confused right off as to what trail I was on ( the 1:4,000 map scale didn't help), and ended up taking a circuiitous route to 1, losing 30 seconds. Beyond that maybe a couple 10-15 second mistakes for under a minute total. |
| Orienteering race 18:58 [4] 2.33 km (8:08 / km) | |
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| Sprint B had more open woods, and more distinct contours. Another solid run with just a couple of 20 second errors. Most people were at least a minute faster on this sprint than sprint A, but I guess I just didn't have any higher gear to move in to. |
| Orienteering 19:24 [5] 3.15 km (6:10 / km) | |
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| The sprint finals course, done after the finalists as a mass start. This was great fun: the course started with 3 short loops that could have been done in any of six orders depending on the map you got. I had variation 1 where I first went north, then east, then south. The orienteering on these loops was very fast and easy. Then there was a map exchange with a 1200 meter loop to the south, also fast and pretty easy: the only challenge was coming straight at 19 from the stone wall junction, and I nailed it. I can think of only two controls where I lost as much as 5 seconds; and I tried to put out a bit more physical effort from the start than the first two sprints. |
| grass 8:00 [2] 0.8 mi (10:00 / mi) | |
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| Some easy jogging before the first sprint to loosen up. |
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Sprint A Course 3 (R/B) - Splits |
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Sprint B Course 3 (R/B) - Splits |
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Sprint C - Splits |
Thursday Sep 20 |
| grass 29:01 [3] 3.6 mi (8:02 / mi) | |
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| 4 loops around UMass athletic field. Felt kind of hot with the sun beating down and high 70's. 7:32, 7:14, 7:10, 7:02. |
Wednesday Sep 19 |
| Track 14:09 [4] 2.0 mi (7:04 / mi) | |
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| After lifting at Smith. Too dark to run trails, so I did a short, easy tempo run on the track. (Well, it didn't feel that easy, but it should have.) 7:05, 7:04. |
| dirt 25:00 [2] 2.8 mi (8:55 / mi) | |
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| Before and after. |
Tuesday Sep 18 |
| Trail Run 45:29 [4] 5.5 mi (8:15 / mi) | |
| max:160 weight:140lbs |
| Juggler. Best time on this course in years, 3:20 faster than last week. Felt really good. I had only planned to run something under 48, but about 12 minutes into the run some tall, buff, bearded Nordic-looking guy (definitely not my Dean) was coming up behind me, so I instinctively sped up to keep ahead of him. He continued on the Frost past Juggler, but I felt committed to maintaining the same pace on the way back.
8:12, 9:01, 6:09 (23:23), 6:12, 8:37, 7:16 (22:06). |
Monday Sep 17 |
| Trail Run 38:48 [3] 4.5 mi (8:36 / mi) | |
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| After lifting at Smith. Tired, and unmotivated. |