Training Log Archive: AliC

Scampering around Tahoe Donner, mostly with Tom, who was rocking it! He did the full loop that was open, woo!

C • My friend who works at TDXC... 4

And then a loop on my own, but backtracking once or twice to check in with the Ian/Lori contingent. So great to be up in the mountains!!

Running up Prosser with a merry crew of myself, Alex, Will, SGB, Lori, Presto, Zan and John. Great to run up some hills! A bit snowy, but still totally runable!

(Stole Alex's GPS track. Forgot to bring my Garmin out here!)


And then woooooo! Carol + Greg wedding! So pretty and just perfect and so happy to help them celebrate!

Run in North Sacramento just from the hotel. Not so different than Toledo strip malls, but way more Taquieras. And fewer Lebanese bakeries. Then on the way back, I found a old railroad bike path that went along some water. Several homeless people living along it in tents, a few just starting to stir for the morning, one fixing up a bike.

C • Sacramento o-maps 2

Normal running drills, felt very good to do, glad I motivated! Think they are both good for injury prevention and as some low-key plyometric training (oxymoron?).

Arrived in Truckee, accessed house and went off adventure walking through the snow at Tahoe Donner with Tom, Alex, Zan, John and Ed! Went right through the backyard of Hidous Hideaway, where we stayed for the ski-o world cups.

Ottawa Park loop with Tom, legs finally recovered. Or at least mostly recovered, still can't say they felt all that sprightly! But, Tom made it around with 0 stops, woo! And the trail is almost entirely ice-free now. Bring on the spring!! =)

C • Twinkle, twinkle 2

Holy moly sore legs from the past two days. But I was far from the only one - an intense weekend of racing, that's for sure!

This wasn't my best sprinting, I was caught out by #2, but then upset from losing that time ran fast and pretty cleanly through the rest of the race. But much better sprint flow to be achieved...

Trying out a grade-system for my legs (no grade inflation, B = good):

1 - B - Starting alongside Addison, found the start quickly and immediately clear what to do.
2 - F - Thought I was so clever for finding the passageway diagnoling right to #2, but then got to the end and no way through. Noooooo. Addison was there too, also not happy. I didn't even recover well, just panicked and went the very first way I saw, back around to the W of the building, but from there clearly going E would have been faster. Not good damage control.
3 - B - Frustrated and channeling energy into trying to get as much time back as possible.
4 - B - Used the left little passageway.
5 - C - Tori was coming at me as I went over the bridge, I correctly gauged she was more than the 2 minutes ahead of me that she started. Argh! Still need to catch time up. I think based on thoughts like these, I lost focus and almost went around the wrong side of the pond, losing some seconds.
6 - B - Tumble down the hill. Ouchie legs.
7 - B - Focusing on running fast.
8- 9- 10 -11 - A - Control pick around the finish field. I feel like I did this well, I was reading a head, knew where I was going next, kept good flow!!
12 - B - Took the correct (earlier) bridge.
13 - C - Not excellently read ahead. Now looking at the map, I should have been more suspicious of the bridge-wall apparent blocking on the map, that you could in reality easily get through. I think the symbols are separate and just even harder to tell because of a red line over the mini-gap? But I should have read that ahead. Also could have done more cutting to 13 directly after bridge.
14 - ? - I can't even remember which way around I went for this one...
15 - B - Slightly stuttery on reading enough to choose a route, but not bad.
16 - A - Had read this ahead, had motivation in passing Viktoria, everything worked as planned.
17 - B - Slight hesitation looking for stairs down too early. Should have realized they were nearly at the building corner.
18 - B - I'm now less sure of my route, which was right. I kinda like the stairs + diagnol up from road now. Because I had to climb steep through loose dirt + blocked by trees...
19 - B - Contemplated going up and around, but too much climb, even for 2.5m contours- the woods just aren't bad here. Almost an A, but wish I had read that ahead.
20 - D - Simplified as 'easy' in my head, 'just go the clear way'. That should have meant go over the bridge immediately downhill, instead I started pounding down the diagnol paved path, which was *not* the right direction!.
21 - B - Sprinty times.

A lot of ok legs, few really good ones. I guess that's not surprising given not having done really any sprint training since sometime in the fall. But more reading ahead just has to happen at sprint. It's so often a binary choice early on in the leg...

Sprint Red - Splits

Sprint Relay Variant H - Splits

Black Diamond TT Red - Long

1st for the team-trials, but 2nd overall to Magnus J. by 34s and a few minutes in front of Sergey G. today. So good. All my AP-quantified error on the silliest of mistakes, running too high on the shortest leg out there. Bah. Still some rust to shake off of the o-skills!

In general, it was a runner's course and I ran well. We didn't have as dramatic route choices as the men (they had 3 quite big puzzles!) and my solutions were fine, but it's possible going around on the bigger trails would have been faster for some.

I need to start really analyzing what I'm doing out there to improve, so here goes!
1 - Easy, contoured from around the trail junction. But realized my e-punch was in my ski-o hand (right), not my foot-o hand (left), so lost a few seconds to switching that up, jeez!
2 - A longish leg, with a small choice of which way to tumble down the hill. I took the one with a few less contours climb, but not as good of a diagnol. There was a great trail in my reentrant though, which helpfully sped up the route choice. Into the circle fine, could see the control from lower.
3 - Looked to climb on the other side of the valley after the reentrant heading to NNE, diagnoled right to it.
4 - Fought and probably lost time to the rough open. But actually, I think more of a time sink may have not been staying on the trail long enough. I cut, but then had an extra reentrant to go through and ended up too high above the control, staying low at least you don't climb extra!
5 - Uphill slog on trails into the big saddle and then pick your poison to approach the control. I went directly and it looks time-wise like that was good.
6 - Straight. Used boulders along trail to guide in.
7 - Straight. Could see control from lower.
8 - Straight. Hesitated one cliff too early from the little goat-path on the E side of the river.
9 - Long leg. I wasn't truly decisive to start, but went with a route that went down the same reentrant as I took to 2, now that I knew there was a nice path in it. I did have one problem with executing my plan, taking the lower big trail E instead of the upper one, which is what I meant to do.
10 - Eep! My mistake. I was even pace counting! And reports say you could practically see the cliff from 9. So major fail. I didn't really read that it was two contours down, so on approximately the right bearing, I passed right by it.
11 - Long leg, with some small route choice at the beginning and end. I stayed low, passed the unmarked seasonal pond and then went up the second reentrant on the left to make a nice diagnol. Towards the end, I contoured instead of climbing extra on the trail.
12 - To 11 I saw the German girl I'd also seen at #8 and was worried that she was destroying me, because she had started after I had. Eep! But ok, stay calm, the best thing is just to try to get as much time back as possible! So reeled her in on the way to 12, bending left around the hill.
13 - Tumble down, racing Teresa, and then that kicked me into caring enough to run fully up the hill to tumble down to 13.
14 - People are cheering, eep! What am I doing? Ok, bend around and stop. Where is my cliff? I want to find it and finish. Ok, another map look shows it's very close to the trail, so went on, found it and went on to finish.

C • Sergey 2

Long red - Splits

Event: Run Black Diamond
 

Middle Red - Splits

Day off for evening travel to SF!! Holy-moly team trials tomorrow. In packing for orienteering, I realized that *every* single one of my pairs of tights or o-pants has a significant hole in the knee. Yay for new uniforms soon!

C • Ski O memory game? 4

Have tickets to Tio Mila to race for CSU! Super psyched. Also heading to Italy for some pre-WOC training afterwards. If anyone is even remotely interested in this let me know, more company would be awesome!!! Plan is to focus on the woods, because sprint terrain is sprint terrain. May 5-7.

C • Great 1

Morning run with Tom! Once around Ottawa Park, doubled the construction hill. Tom had two falls on evil black ice, I was luckier...

Zumba!! Woo! Great to get back to it. Joanna's class along with Lesley and a few other gals. Love dancing to Timber. I mean, pretty sure that's what it's meant for!!

Uphill hiking on the treadmill at 15%. Trying to make the muscles just that little bit more ready for Team Trials!

2 laps of normal running drills.

400s with Kevin, mostly around 80, with just a 1/12 of a mile recovery. Felt pretty good, but those are pretty sharp corners at 400 pace!! Last one at 76 for fun, it hurt more... =)

Last indoor track workout?

C • Sick 2

Run around Ottawa Park with Tom. Did the construction hill 3x and the golf course hill 3x. Still some ice around the trail, but mostly it's clear. Lots of snow in the woods, but not on the open golf course anymore. Still, did not feel like spring by a long shot, but the rest of the week should be warmer!

Cold, cold, cold! Sooo happy Brendan lent me an extra pair of tights, I looked at the weather for Munich and packed accordingly, not so ok for today's 7 degrees... I was kinda whining on the start line because of cold fingers, apologies to those around!

Long Distance Ski-o Championships

And then off! Did not do well to #1 though, was up one trail too high from the meadow and ping-ponged confusedly down to finally intercept my first control. Then things were ok, although I became worried when I saw Alex decidedly ahead of me heading towards the stadium the first time. I wasn't sure if I were ahead or behind her until I saw an Alex-like shape headed up at me after the network at the beginning of the Telemark trail.

Some uphill slogs, but mostly tried to use them to plan or just ski. I felt like my technique was pretty lousy going up Owl's Howl, so focused on that a smidge. Then, eep! I passed my #15 while trying to read ahead going downhill, whoopsie. Realized maybe 20m fast, but still, lost time, boo.

In Russel Knoll, looks like Alex's choice to go on little trails up to #17 was a bit faster, ah well. Was happy to have Brendan's cheering on that alone section of the course. Then around to #18, encountering an Ari on the way, and scampered up the little trail before following signs back to the lodge to finish. =) Some advantages from speaking the language where the ski-o is held!

Cool down, literally. Happy to have had cheering from NanC and LarryC throughout the race, and they were happy I finished quickly and could scamper yurt-wards after not long. Blowy winds in that meadow make it tough spectator times!

Long Course 3AYXB - Splits

Middle Course 3 - Splits

Event: US Ski-O Championships
 

Mini warmup on the across-the-road trails, getting back used to the mapholder, noting where the non-existant trails should be. A few pickups too, trying to get the legs going, but they still have a lot of the downhill run in them from Tuesday afternoon!

US Ski-o Champs and WRE, Sprint

Wahoo, this sport is fun! Ping-ping-pinged around the Trapps trails, totally felt unfamiliar despite having skied there a whole bunch. The new race course makes for good trail density for ski-o. And some good route choices to make. It looks like I lost maybe ~10s on the leg to 9 by going up and around on big trails to the right. I was scared of the narrow trail that I thought would be uphill and thus slow. Guess there weren't so many contours crossing it after all...

Warm down in loops with Alex and Anna, a-chattin'!

Sprint Course 3 - Splits

Lunchtime conference run! Found some walking/biking paths to explore. Such a nice warm day!

And 2nd skiing adventure! This time stayed within Germany, in the direction of biathalon-famous Ruhpolding, except there's no snow there, because it's been warm... so we went to Winklemoosalm, a high meadow that still had snow. Had to gondola up and then upon return, run down because the gondola was closed. Fun times getting some more ski k in!

Running down the mountain after the snow disappeared. With skis and poles in hand, wheee! Only car left in the parking lot, which is probably a good sign.

Gave my talk at the conference. My first invited talk, so happy it went ok!

Arrive in Germany. Do not pass go, go straight to Seefeld, Austria and ski for 2h. Jet lag what?

Was actually totally pleasant, although there isn't much snow in Seefeld. Slushy turning to frozen with ruts (we kinda skied until dark). But great to be back in the Alps, such amazing mountains!!! Skiing with Frederic, who seemed to either want to go faster or had faster skis. But I was braver/more skilled when it got all rutted...

C • Toto 2

C • Germany 4

Little pre-flight run around the neighborhood as it sleeted at me!

Hammies! Have been neglecting these for too long... 10s.

Woo! Spring skiing in Toledo! Just around Ottawa Park golf course. Most of the slope has bare spots, but there are still a few ways up it, which I did multiple times... Not bad yet, plenty of snow in most places although it was quickly melting. Kinda nice to not have to be dressed for polar conditions...

Indoor track times with Kevin. Not the most motivated morning, as slightly on West coast time. But anyways, we did 4 x 1200, with no watches, because my Garmin got stuck on the start screen and he forgot. But there's a clock at the beginning of the lap, so we could get 1/6 of a mile lap times, at least.

Good workout! Go legs go!

Running around Portland, a bit around the Reed 'canyon' then checking out some of the houses that I might have an option to rent next year (Reed houses for first-year faculty).

Then into the the neighborhood where one of the students told me there was a good bakery. Not disappointed! =)

Running in Portland! Woke up early due to the time shift, waited until it got light to go for a run. Scampered around the Sellwood neighborhood for a bit, then went down to the Oak Bottoms preserve and enjoyed the hills up the embankment and the trail that waved a bit in the bottom. Finished up stopping for breakfast at Renee's Place. Mmmm scrambled eggs!

C • Have u watched the series @... 2

Woke up and was planning on just an early morning jog to start a busy travel day off, but found about 4 inches of new snow, so strapped on some skis instead! Just went straight from my garage, skied on the roads over to the bike paths and skied to campus and back. Lots of double pole and more fun upon return, skiing in my own tracks.

Then the Detroit Art Museum, going straight to the Rivera murals which are excellently explained by iPads that interactively let you explore the murals. So cool. Then we visited some of the American rooms, a few Modern and the Classical Atrium. So, so much more to see, gotta get back there!

Now enroute to Portland for a quick visit to find out more about what life has in store for me...

Toledo Hill Workout

1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 minutes hard at 10%
Rest at 2.5%.
At 6.8 to 6.4 mph, dropping one point as times went up, adding as times went down.

Hard workout, especially given overheating in the gym. Need more fans! Or an ice pack...

C • Toledo Hill Workout 5