Training Log Archive: bill_lIn the 7 days ending Dec 5, 2015:
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Saturday Dec 5, 2015 #
7 AM
AR race 4:41:46 22.82 mi (12:21 / mi) +730m 11:14 / mi
ahr:134 max:171 slept:2.0 shoes: altra L. P. 2.0
I adjusted the time. Had to put garmin in a sealed, opaque, plastic bag prior to start of race. Started the garmin, sealed it, and found out we were getting on a bus.... Garmin showed 5:20:ish . I think our actual time was about 4:35 - 4:40.
Raced as 4p male team with DC, Stephen, and Kyle (new to AR) as Blue Tails.
Because of the family room hardwood flooring project, I spent zero time prepping for this race prior to Friday. Packed my stuff Friday night after I got home from the team meeting out in Chesterfield. Got to bed about 11 but firetruck sirens woke me at 1 and I didn't go back to sleep until about 3.
Map pick up at Alpine Shop on Friday night. One large topo map of the paddling and biking sections, with clue sheet (nice job on the clue sheet, very detailed), a couple of supporting aerials and instructions. Trek maps to be handed out (pre-plotted) during the race. 12 CPs to plot for paddle and biking.
To be gleaned from the clue sheet and maps:
Leg 1 - Trek - unknown dist - Allow an hour - was thinking we'd have to hoof it to the canoe put in from Wyman.
Leg 2 - Paddle - 7 miles - Good water, with CP stops, allow 1:15
Leg 3 - Bike - 10ish miles, mostly road, some single track. A couple of route options. I'm slow on the bike and there are 2, very big hills - Allow 1:20
Leg 4 - Trek - unknown distance - Allow up to 2 hours. Buckley said he vetted the course in about 70 minutes but said not to trust that time.
Unless the treks were super-long, I figured we'd be done in 4 - 5 hours.
Food and water for the race: With the course layout, we'd have frequent chances to resupply on food and water, so no need to carry more than two hours worth at any given time. Consume an ensure during the pre-race meeting, that would get me 90 minutes out. For the first 2 Legs, carry one ensure, a gel, a bar, and 2L of water (I actually consumed none of the food because Leg 1 was short). For Leg 3, pound an ensure at the bike drop during TA, reload on water if needed. Pound another Ensure at HQ prior to Leg 4, carry an Ensure on the trek.
I started my morning with a fairly large breakfast, eggs, toast, and a couple spoons of nutella. Not my normal routine, but I figured I had a couple hours before the start, so it should be ok (and it was).
Left house at 5:15 for the bike drop at Allenton Boat Ramp which opened at 5:45. Wanted to get there early because it looked from the aerials that the drop area would get very congested (it did). It was already busy, and still very dark, when I arrived at 5:50. Dropped bike at a fairly primo spot (easy to find later) and headed to Race HQ @ Wyman Center (Race HQ) with plenty of time to make the pre race meeting at 7:15. Arrived at Wyman about 6:15 and was able to park in the 'close' parking area. That gave me about an hour to move gear from the car up to the meeting hall and relax before the race.
Starting temp about was about 30F with forecast high in the mid-50's.
To start the race I wore: running hat, buff around neck, s/s base top, l/s top, light bike vest, orienteering-pants, orienteering-gaiters, Altra LonePeaks with a pair of wright sox and a pair of smartwool phd mid cusions, a pair of kevlar knit gloves + hand warmers. A little cold standing around but knew that would change once we got moving.
Thought I might get cold in the boat, but had the required fleece, rain pants, and jacket in my pack. Plus a warmer pair of gloves.
Pre-race meeting ended with a surprise announcement: bus ride from Wyman Center to ???. Everybody I talked to earlier was wondering (or even worried) about the possible trek from Wyman to the paddle put-in (presumably at Pacific Palisades). The surprise bus ride stirred up more speculation. As it turned out, the buses took us to Pac Palisades Boat Ramp.
Opening Run - 6 cps. about a 1.2 miles? 2 clusters of 3 controls. Start/Finish at the PP boat ramp. Only 2 routes made much sense to me - 4,5,6,2,3,1 or the reverse (mind is a bit fuzzy on 3 (pond?) and 2 (road?), could have those backwards). I really thought most would go to #1 first since there was a trail leading directly to it. (Edit: It seems a fair number went 2, 3, 1 first. Not a bad choice to get an easy first punch out of the way at #2, just off the road, but it left you out at #6 with a longish run back to the boats.)
We did 4,5,6.... a lot of people went that way. Curious to know how many went the other way. From the parking lot, the route constricted to a narrow path with a lot of vines and deadfall. No room for passing. This was just a massive train of people to number 4. The cp was on a narrow spur about 10 feet above the river, with a narrow, muddy access. Did anyone get pushed in? There was a lot of fighting and pushing to get down to the control, and then more to get the single punch. 5 was a little better, still a lot of fighting for the punch. By 6 the crowd had thinned out. 3, 2, and 1 were not a problem. Only a single punch at 1, as well. Honestly, the first 5 - 10 seconds after the "Go" determined how long this leg was going to take.
This section was shorter than I was expecting, about 17 minutes, but time-of-day-wise, it was about where I expected to be getting in the boats (8:30). And about an hour after consuming the ensure during the race meeting.
Canoe put-in was a little crazy with a lot of teams trying to pull boats from the pile and get down to the water. DC and Kyle in one boat, Stephen and I in another. Usual mix of wenonah's and discovery's. I happen to like the discovery's better. Other than dragging a foot in water on push-off, we got on the water uneventfully. Paddle was about 7 miles with 3 controls (2 drive-ups and one get-out-of-the-boat). A little bit of traffic at the drive-ups, but we all helped each other move about, get up to the control, and/or punch. We passed a few teams and caught several others including Alpine Shop and OTF Racing. Stephen is a super strong paddler. Took me a couple miles to get used having that power up front.
Had planned to put on rain pants, but didn't. I wasn't feeling cold at all and just put my rain jacket over the pfd. Stayed with knit gloves and hand warmers. Even my wet toes didn't get cold.
Take out at Allenton Boat Ramp. CP 11. Gear check. Emergency Blanket, Blinky light, cell phone, couple other things I don't remember. Took a while to get our team over to the check after getting ready to get on the bike. This TA was about 14 minutes. I hadn't been on my MTB since Nov '14 (last CW8), so the platform pedals were still on the bike. No bike shoes for me to change into, no muddy running shoes to stuff into my pack. That worked out reasonably well for this race (lots of road, little trail).
Bike was straight forward enough. CP's 12 - 22. From an orienteering perspective, it was basically a white course (beginner) with CP's at most major turns. Couple of route options for strategy. A killer hill at the start had me worried about cramps, but none materialized. It appeared that a team ahead of us missed #12 at the top of the hill. They were coming back up the other side as we were on the way down. Costly mistake. A little detour through a creek to get under I-44 to get #15 and #16. For the bit in the creek I was advocating that we drop our bikes, run the 200m from 15 to 16 and then take the flat route back to Allentown road vs the hilly outer road. Team decided to take the bikes up the creek. The problem here was getting out of the creek at 16. 2 steep embankments to climb. Total time from 15 to back on bikes was about 8 minutes. No way to know that ahead of time....
Outer road to Holiday Inn for 17, up Allenton to Greensfelder Scenic Loop road for 18, back to the tower for 19 (down the hill from the tower), out the ridge to 20, and then a connector trail into Wyman. The last 300 m of trail was steep downhill on an eroded track that was slicker than snot. There was a camera drone above that hill so probably got some good video.
Only significant mistake on the day.... At 20 we were supposed to follow the taped route to the connector trail. There was some extraneous tape up in that area but the mapping was pretty clear. We headed off in the right direction but missed the tape going down the hill. It was totally obvious coming back to it, but just didn't see it from the control. 8 minutes gone + my quads were beginning to feel crampy.
Another 15 minute TA. Alpine Shop was just finishing (about 3:35ish for total time) as we headed out for the last nav section. I expect they crushed the bike section, smoked the trek, and took another 20+ minutes out of us on TA's.
Our final trek was clean. 24, 25, 27, 31, 29,.... Except getting 24 first, same route as Alpine, 37 Down, and some others I talked to. 24 was low, near the finish - out and back to 25. Figured get it out of the way early. Took a hard fall coming back from 24. Landed on the left side and bruised my arm and some ribs, and really fired up the cramps in the quads. Made it around the course but totally locked up at the finish.
Beautiful day to be outside with some awesome teammates! Thanks to Emily, Erl, Alpine Shop and all the volunteers! Good race. Excellent course for beginners. Excellent volunteers. Well organized. Nice change up for the start and paddling. A really fun Nav section at the end. My only suggestions are fairly simple: Break up the pack before the start of the nav. Even a mile out-n-back road run to get the passports and the map would have helped a lot. Also, make the potential first controls easy to access with two or three punches at each.
We were 13th OA. 4th in Division. 3rd place in our div was only 1 minute ahead of us!
Raced as 4p male team with DC, Stephen, and Kyle (new to AR) as Blue Tails.
Because of the family room hardwood flooring project, I spent zero time prepping for this race prior to Friday. Packed my stuff Friday night after I got home from the team meeting out in Chesterfield. Got to bed about 11 but firetruck sirens woke me at 1 and I didn't go back to sleep until about 3.
Map pick up at Alpine Shop on Friday night. One large topo map of the paddling and biking sections, with clue sheet (nice job on the clue sheet, very detailed), a couple of supporting aerials and instructions. Trek maps to be handed out (pre-plotted) during the race. 12 CPs to plot for paddle and biking.
To be gleaned from the clue sheet and maps:
Leg 1 - Trek - unknown dist - Allow an hour - was thinking we'd have to hoof it to the canoe put in from Wyman.
Leg 2 - Paddle - 7 miles - Good water, with CP stops, allow 1:15
Leg 3 - Bike - 10ish miles, mostly road, some single track. A couple of route options. I'm slow on the bike and there are 2, very big hills - Allow 1:20
Leg 4 - Trek - unknown distance - Allow up to 2 hours. Buckley said he vetted the course in about 70 minutes but said not to trust that time.
Unless the treks were super-long, I figured we'd be done in 4 - 5 hours.
Food and water for the race: With the course layout, we'd have frequent chances to resupply on food and water, so no need to carry more than two hours worth at any given time. Consume an ensure during the pre-race meeting, that would get me 90 minutes out. For the first 2 Legs, carry one ensure, a gel, a bar, and 2L of water (I actually consumed none of the food because Leg 1 was short). For Leg 3, pound an ensure at the bike drop during TA, reload on water if needed. Pound another Ensure at HQ prior to Leg 4, carry an Ensure on the trek.
I started my morning with a fairly large breakfast, eggs, toast, and a couple spoons of nutella. Not my normal routine, but I figured I had a couple hours before the start, so it should be ok (and it was).
Left house at 5:15 for the bike drop at Allenton Boat Ramp which opened at 5:45. Wanted to get there early because it looked from the aerials that the drop area would get very congested (it did). It was already busy, and still very dark, when I arrived at 5:50. Dropped bike at a fairly primo spot (easy to find later) and headed to Race HQ @ Wyman Center (Race HQ) with plenty of time to make the pre race meeting at 7:15. Arrived at Wyman about 6:15 and was able to park in the 'close' parking area. That gave me about an hour to move gear from the car up to the meeting hall and relax before the race.
Starting temp about was about 30F with forecast high in the mid-50's.
To start the race I wore: running hat, buff around neck, s/s base top, l/s top, light bike vest, orienteering-pants, orienteering-gaiters, Altra LonePeaks with a pair of wright sox and a pair of smartwool phd mid cusions, a pair of kevlar knit gloves + hand warmers. A little cold standing around but knew that would change once we got moving.
Thought I might get cold in the boat, but had the required fleece, rain pants, and jacket in my pack. Plus a warmer pair of gloves.
Pre-race meeting ended with a surprise announcement: bus ride from Wyman Center to ???. Everybody I talked to earlier was wondering (or even worried) about the possible trek from Wyman to the paddle put-in (presumably at Pacific Palisades). The surprise bus ride stirred up more speculation. As it turned out, the buses took us to Pac Palisades Boat Ramp.
Opening Run - 6 cps. about a 1.2 miles? 2 clusters of 3 controls. Start/Finish at the PP boat ramp. Only 2 routes made much sense to me - 4,5,6,2,3,1 or the reverse (mind is a bit fuzzy on 3 (pond?) and 2 (road?), could have those backwards). I really thought most would go to #1 first since there was a trail leading directly to it. (Edit: It seems a fair number went 2, 3, 1 first. Not a bad choice to get an easy first punch out of the way at #2, just off the road, but it left you out at #6 with a longish run back to the boats.)
We did 4,5,6.... a lot of people went that way. Curious to know how many went the other way. From the parking lot, the route constricted to a narrow path with a lot of vines and deadfall. No room for passing. This was just a massive train of people to number 4. The cp was on a narrow spur about 10 feet above the river, with a narrow, muddy access. Did anyone get pushed in? There was a lot of fighting and pushing to get down to the control, and then more to get the single punch. 5 was a little better, still a lot of fighting for the punch. By 6 the crowd had thinned out. 3, 2, and 1 were not a problem. Only a single punch at 1, as well. Honestly, the first 5 - 10 seconds after the "Go" determined how long this leg was going to take.
This section was shorter than I was expecting, about 17 minutes, but time-of-day-wise, it was about where I expected to be getting in the boats (8:30). And about an hour after consuming the ensure during the race meeting.
Canoe put-in was a little crazy with a lot of teams trying to pull boats from the pile and get down to the water. DC and Kyle in one boat, Stephen and I in another. Usual mix of wenonah's and discovery's. I happen to like the discovery's better. Other than dragging a foot in water on push-off, we got on the water uneventfully. Paddle was about 7 miles with 3 controls (2 drive-ups and one get-out-of-the-boat). A little bit of traffic at the drive-ups, but we all helped each other move about, get up to the control, and/or punch. We passed a few teams and caught several others including Alpine Shop and OTF Racing. Stephen is a super strong paddler. Took me a couple miles to get used having that power up front.
Had planned to put on rain pants, but didn't. I wasn't feeling cold at all and just put my rain jacket over the pfd. Stayed with knit gloves and hand warmers. Even my wet toes didn't get cold.
Take out at Allenton Boat Ramp. CP 11. Gear check. Emergency Blanket, Blinky light, cell phone, couple other things I don't remember. Took a while to get our team over to the check after getting ready to get on the bike. This TA was about 14 minutes. I hadn't been on my MTB since Nov '14 (last CW8), so the platform pedals were still on the bike. No bike shoes for me to change into, no muddy running shoes to stuff into my pack. That worked out reasonably well for this race (lots of road, little trail).
Bike was straight forward enough. CP's 12 - 22. From an orienteering perspective, it was basically a white course (beginner) with CP's at most major turns. Couple of route options for strategy. A killer hill at the start had me worried about cramps, but none materialized. It appeared that a team ahead of us missed #12 at the top of the hill. They were coming back up the other side as we were on the way down. Costly mistake. A little detour through a creek to get under I-44 to get #15 and #16. For the bit in the creek I was advocating that we drop our bikes, run the 200m from 15 to 16 and then take the flat route back to Allentown road vs the hilly outer road. Team decided to take the bikes up the creek. The problem here was getting out of the creek at 16. 2 steep embankments to climb. Total time from 15 to back on bikes was about 8 minutes. No way to know that ahead of time....
Outer road to Holiday Inn for 17, up Allenton to Greensfelder Scenic Loop road for 18, back to the tower for 19 (down the hill from the tower), out the ridge to 20, and then a connector trail into Wyman. The last 300 m of trail was steep downhill on an eroded track that was slicker than snot. There was a camera drone above that hill so probably got some good video.
Only significant mistake on the day.... At 20 we were supposed to follow the taped route to the connector trail. There was some extraneous tape up in that area but the mapping was pretty clear. We headed off in the right direction but missed the tape going down the hill. It was totally obvious coming back to it, but just didn't see it from the control. 8 minutes gone + my quads were beginning to feel crampy.
Another 15 minute TA. Alpine Shop was just finishing (about 3:35ish for total time) as we headed out for the last nav section. I expect they crushed the bike section, smoked the trek, and took another 20+ minutes out of us on TA's.
Our final trek was clean. 24, 25, 27, 31, 29,.... Except getting 24 first, same route as Alpine, 37 Down, and some others I talked to. 24 was low, near the finish - out and back to 25. Figured get it out of the way early. Took a hard fall coming back from 24. Landed on the left side and bruised my arm and some ribs, and really fired up the cramps in the quads. Made it around the course but totally locked up at the finish.
Beautiful day to be outside with some awesome teammates! Thanks to Emily, Erl, Alpine Shop and all the volunteers! Good race. Excellent course for beginners. Excellent volunteers. Well organized. Nice change up for the start and paddling. A really fun Nav section at the end. My only suggestions are fairly simple: Break up the pack before the start of the nav. Even a mile out-n-back road run to get the passports and the map would have helped a lot. Also, make the potential first controls easy to access with two or three punches at each.
We were 13th OA. 4th in Division. 3rd place in our div was only 1 minute ahead of us!
Thursday Dec 3, 2015 #
7 AM
Run 27:21 3.08 mi (8:52 / mi) +47m 8:28 / mi
ahr:127 max:160 slept:7.0 weight:162lbs shoes: Newton Fate
Finally! Felt good enough for a run and actually had time this morning to do it. Firehouse 3. Left foot is good. Right foot, not so much. Thought right hip was ok, but some pain started after a mile.
7 PM
Misc (construction) 2:00:00 [1]
door frame row. lots of measuring twice, cutting once. validated and adjusted pattern for the remaining 60 inches of flooring. Need to land on the far wall with a reasonable cut (i.e. don't want a small strip of wood for the final bit).
I would be nice if we had a place to lay out all the lumber other than in the family room. We've got 3 piles, one for each plank width. As we progress, the piles must be migrated. Had to move 2 piles last night. Time consuming.
I would be nice if we had a place to lay out all the lumber other than in the family room. We've got 3 piles, one for each plank width. As we progress, the piles must be migrated. Had to move 2 piles last night. Time consuming.
Wednesday Dec 2, 2015 #
7 PM
Misc (construction) 2:30:00 [1]
2/3rds done.
Tuesday Dec 1, 2015 #
Misc (construction) 3:00:00 [1]
weight:162lbs
8 more rows are down. About half way across the room now.
Monday Nov 30, 2015 #
7 PM
Misc (construction) 2:00:00 [3]
counting linear footage. installed 3 more rows.
Sunday Nov 29, 2015 #
Misc (construction) 11:00:00 [1]
0830 - 1700 flooring
1900 - 2130 flooring
Moving faster now. About 1/3 done. But discovered that I'm short on 5" planks. The sales rep at the store said to install in a 5"-4"-3" repeating pattern. This would require equi-linear quantities of each width.
Email to the company that produced the flooring - uh-uh. Random widths. Look at tally sheet that should have accompanied the shipment to figure out a 'random' pattern that will work with the room and quantities provided.
Ok. The flooring retailer (Boardwalk Hardwood Flooring) didn't give us a tally sheet when they delivered the wood, reinforcing the idea that a repeating pattern would work.
I've got the tally sheet now (Monday morning). Sure enough. About 80 linear feet short on 5" planks (I was guessing between 80 and 100). Fortunately, there should be enough of both 3's and 4's to make it across the room without an extended, mono-width stretch. I was in a really bad mood this morning until I got the numbers. Of course, that all depends on having received everything that was shipped. Will be doing a lot of measuring tonight.
1900 - 2130 flooring
Moving faster now. About 1/3 done. But discovered that I'm short on 5" planks. The sales rep at the store said to install in a 5"-4"-3" repeating pattern. This would require equi-linear quantities of each width.
Email to the company that produced the flooring - uh-uh. Random widths. Look at tally sheet that should have accompanied the shipment to figure out a 'random' pattern that will work with the room and quantities provided.
Ok. The flooring retailer (Boardwalk Hardwood Flooring) didn't give us a tally sheet when they delivered the wood, reinforcing the idea that a repeating pattern would work.
I've got the tally sheet now (Monday morning). Sure enough. About 80 linear feet short on 5" planks (I was guessing between 80 and 100). Fortunately, there should be enough of both 3's and 4's to make it across the room without an extended, mono-width stretch. I was in a really bad mood this morning until I got the numbers. Of course, that all depends on having received everything that was shipped. Will be doing a lot of measuring tonight.