Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Mid-day run on the Hojack Trail, from Klem to Lake and back.

Relatively comfortable day, compared to recent weather -- upper 70s.

This run was partly done as a shake-down run for a new pair of shoes, Asics Gel Kahana 4, purchased a couple of days ago at DSW. I initially started using Kahanas (the first version) in 2007, and liked them a lot -- they're inexpensive (around $60), fit my feet and gait very well, and the soles hold up for many miles, even on some tough trails. They're the shoes I wore on the Pike's Peak ascent, and on the Ridge Walk, both in 2007.

The subsequent versions have also been good, although my sense is that the original version was somewhat more durable in terms of sole wear.

In any event, I liked this new pair, based on a very non-challenging run for them.

Urban run, from Park Ave a few blocks west of Culver.

Had planned on dropping some orienteering supplies I borrowed off at Lavine's garage after the run, but totally forgot. A lame excuse is because it started raining pretty hard about when I got back to the car.

I started out roughly, finished roughly, and didn't usually feel like I had any sort of "flow" (a term I learned from Cristina's recent log). Thus I was quite shocked to find out that I wound up in second place. Guess others had even more trouble.

When I looked turned over the map at the start, it took me a while to decipher things -- there was a mass of control circles, numbers, and criss-crossing connection lines in the area of 1, 2, 8, 9, and 11. It took me a while to find where "1" was (not finding 1 in the terrain, mind you, just finding 1 on the map!). I headed up the hill and was immediately disoriented. Not a good way to start. I finally got connected with the map, found 1.

Then no major problems, but like I said, no real flow, after that. Well, one problem that I recall now, going from 8 to 9, a distance of less than 100 m, I'm sure. I probably should have gone on a compass bearing, but I tried to use the trails and got fairly botched up. No major loss of time, maybe 20-30 seconds, just felt very clumsy having to struggle with what should be such a simple leg.

From 11 to the finish, I intended to take the trails that go almost right from the control to the finish, but got disoriented and headed more straight down the hill, hitting the parking lot 50 m or so west of the lodge, then running in from there. I was about 30 seconds slower than Zach on this leg, and we had similar total times, so that's how much I figure my bumbling cost me on the final leg.

Garmin distance was 1.53 miles.

C • Correct;-) 3

Got 45 out of 50 controls.

A major aggravation was that my punch card started disintegrating after about the 5th control, and was a soggy mess by the time I finished. I learned after the race that there was tape available to semi-waterproof the punch card, which I certainly should have used. As it was, I bet I lost 10-20 seconds at each control, between fishing my punch card out of my folded-up map (to minimize touching it with wet hands), finding the state I needed on the soggy punch card, then putting the punch card back into the folded-up map.

Really lousy strategy that I picked, but that is to a large part a credit to the challenging course that Steve set. No real "good" route. But still, I picked an unusually poor route. Almost embarrassed to show the order I did the controls in, but I will when I have a bit more time later. Even over and above my poor route, I made some real blunders. One of them was going for the relatively remote WY (how appropriate) when it should have been obvious to me (this was relatively late in the hour) that I was never going to get them all. I suspect I could have gotten three other controls in the time I spent getting to and from WY. If I had bypassed WY and MA, I think I could have gotten the rest, which would have given me 48 instead of 45.

C • Ah - sorry 6

This was actually rogaine training, as opposed to other "workouts" by that name, which consisted of following LPGA golfers around Locust Hill.

Anne S. has entered the CNYO rogaine with Stina, in the 24-hour division, and she wanted to get in a couple of fairly long hikes to get in shape so she wouldn't be a drag on Stina. This was the first of them. We parked at the Ellison Wetlands parking lot, walked up Empire into Lincoln Park, did a loop around some trails there, then back to Empire. Then went through Ellison Wetlands to Ellison Park, managing barely to get through the very overgrown trail along the creek that goes under Browncroft, into Ellison. Didn't go far into Ellison, because it was about time to turn around and head back.

The climb, once again, is what AP says it is. It seems high this time, but could possibly be close to correct, because there were certainly a lot of substantial hills we climbed in the two parks. I still think it's a bit suspect, though.

This workout fell far short of what I intended. Probably because I decided to do some painting related work first, and it was quite warm when I finally ran.

Intended to do a moderately long run on the Whiting Rd trails -- my goal was three loops around the perimeter trail (total distance around 7.8 miles). By the time I started (after 11:00), it was around 82 and humid. When I finished, weather report on the radio said it was 87. The sunny parts of the trails (which is the better part of the first mile) were really unpleasant, and you could just feel the humidity rising up from the vegetation.

Anyway, about halfway through the first loop I scaled back my ambitions to two loops. Then toward the end of the first loop, I scaled them back further, to one full loop and one abbreviated loop (omitting the part of the Orange loop that is in the southern portion, which is predominantly in the sun).

Even though the pace wasn't impressive, the effort was pretty significant.

PS: The climb reported (110 feet) is what AP calculates from the GPS information and/or USGS contour information (not sure how it does it). I suspect the climb was significantly more than 110 feet. The Garmin Training Center, which I know gives totally bogus climbs, says it was around 1100 feet, obviously way higher than true climb. I'll have to look again at the LIDAR contours and see what that gives for climb. I'll report back when I've done that.

C • adding the path 2