Training Log Archive: ebuckley

Easy jog round the hood.

Berryman Adventure 24-hour solo.

Berryman Adventure, 24-hour solo division. Start was moved from midnight to 12:30 on account of the weather (which did not improve during that time, but everybody wanted to go, so the RD relented and sent us off). Intermittent thunderstorms some of which were quite violent.

Long trekking section for a race of this length. Time was split between running pretty hard on trails and fire roads, fighting through some really nasty vegetation, and looking around for control 8 which was misplaced by about 300m. That last activity transformed a 30-minute lead into a 20-minute deficit. Just before the end of the section, I caught one of the teams that passed me and they agreed it was way off, but they just got lucky and looked in that direction first.

At about 7:00AM, the worst of the storms hit and lots branches and a few whole trees started coming down. It seemed pretty crazy to be out in the woods alone in such conditions and I started thinking that maybe this solo thing wasn't such a good idea.

Decided to bail, but the fastest way back was to paddle the next leg. Besides, why turn down a perfectly pleasant downriver paddle?

The paddle was on the aptly named Current River, which was flowing at a good clip with all the rain. The river is quite wide, so there's nothing above class I. The only challenge was trying to stay in the fast water. I scraped bottom a few times, but managed to paddle through it.

At the TA, I packed it in. The decision seemed like a good one as another front was rolling through. Things did improve later in the day, but Baby-O needs a father more than I need another Adventure Race.

C • Parenting and racing 4

Took the whole day off work so I could sleep in a bit. Figured I wouldn't be sleeping agian until Saturday evening. Drove to race in the afternoon.

Easy (even by "easy lunchtime" standards) lunchtime run with Jeff.

Under the heading of "If I can do this, I can do anything" I went to Rockwoods Range with a USGS map and a set of 10 UTM coordinates for the permanent markers. I used the steep section of the park because generally avoid that area. Thus I couldn't just recognize the features near the controls; I had to rely on the rough map. Plotted the points on the map (6:30, not included in time) and then ran to find them. If Berryman has a fiberglass stake stuck down in a rocky pit that's not on the map, I'm ready.

C • Go Man Go !! 1

Then I rode the new mountain bike trail both directions. It's been a while since I've ridden really fast hard pack and it took me a few minutes to get up to speed. After that, it was a blast; the trail is every bit as good as I thought it would be.

Early morning paddle on CC Lake. A bit chilly, which is a nice change.

Late evening run. 49 degree temp encouraged me to run a bit faster than I should have (around 7:15/mi, which is getting into the junk mile range). Just felt so nice.

Easy spin after work.