Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

A really fun outing at Ansonia with Boris and Sam. For the first section of the training, I ran an old course backward and dictated to Boris (running behind) all the things that I was seeing and thinking and planning. This was pretty hard actually. It's hard enough to orienteer but then to add on an extra layer of needing to be coherent and verbalize (and also not wanting to make any mistakes when being watched) is tricky. I think it slowed me down a little and I did a pretty good job mostly. I had some rough patches. One downhill control was especially tricky and I ran it a few times before getting it right.

Also, got off on a control when I missed the trail that I was depending on seeing.

Spent some time doing distance estimation ("how far away is that rock") and learned that I think everything is much closer than it really is. Spent some time doing elevation estimation ("how many contours up is that rock") and did well at that.

Then followed Boris without looking at the map and periodically had to describe the route that we had been taking. That was an interesting memory exercise as well as highlighting what stuff is worth looking at in the woods. I did the relocation/route recall section quite well.

Love those woods.

Ooh early morning drive (well 7am is early if you stay up late the night before) to Osborndale. To run WCOC/Boris's Prologue Reverse Chase event.

First course had a few errors. I had a couple of minutes of mistakes maybe, but was running fast enough to just edge out Sergei for the win.

fastest time from the morning started last in the reverse chase. It was fun to watch everyone head out on the course, and then I was only 14 seconds behind Sergei, which gave me an incentive to run fast.

This course went much better for me. I had very little lost time and felt in control the whole time. Lost maybe 15 seconds on the same cliff from the morning. Caught almost everyone Ali and Balter beat me back, but Balter wouldn't have if Boris had started Sergei and I on time :)

reverse start order made the course feel a bit like a relay, with lots of company out there.

control pickup. Including a control that I didn't think I was supposed to get and quite a lot of trash ( as I had a backpack with me, so why not clear out the woods a bit). good thing that I nabbed the control after all, since it hadn't been on anyone's list.

Gruff - Splits

Billygoat - Splits

This week was meant to be a rest week, and I didn't do much training. So success there. But I didn't do much resting either. Looking forward to the Billygoat for sure, but more importantly, looking forward to the Gruff. A 2.4k sprint with a fork and a skip?! that's just going to be totally sweet.

Saturday training at the Notch, Sunday night I check into the Clinical Research Center for part 2 of the study I'm volunteering for. They will be checking me (a healthy control) for Brown Adipose Tissue activation after injection with ephedrine.

C • WADA 2

more of a rest day today than I meant. quick bike trip to the post office to collect a package and then took the shuttle to work with the intention of running home. By the end of the day I was hungry and wanted to "get stuff done" at home. Hah. Well, this is going to be an easy week, so I guess we're just starting off on the right foot :)

I generally love long races, and was looking forward to getting a good result on this race, clinching my spot and having a blast. Also racing against Mr. Pithers, since I don't always get a chance to compare myself to him.

Long map.

This was a long race, and I don't want to dwell on the bad parts. Suffice it to say that I was doing okay except for those few times when I wasn't.

Having a mistake early on in the race just makes you tired for the rest of the course. And I was pushing really hard so I was tired and angry and making mistakes.

started out quite well, found the corridor of white on the way up to 1, fought thru some green on the way to the rocky reentrant on 2. Saw Sam and Corinne on 3 and blazed down the hill to 4. Then here is where I really blew it, I discarded the rightmost route choice on 5 because the green looked awful, and instead thought that over the top or left would work better. Left had more white woods and I didn't have to find the beginning of the windy trail so I cruised left, and hopped off the trail at the veg edge. I was starting to worry that I had chosen the wrong route choice (too far from the line) and I was eager to regain the top of the ridge and the trail and then come down the spur directly to the control. I thought I was at one bend in the trail and cut into the woods, was reassured to catch Jordan and Brendan but then could not find the cliff or the flag or anything.

time passes

I finally do manage to reset my brain and come down the trial and off the proper cliff to find the flag.

6 I was careful on my line, and 7 I read very carefully across the plateaus. on 8 I thought I was on a good line but missed to the right, saw the boulder in the clearing, just past the reentrant, then did a loop back to try to find the top of the reentrant. Down the hill to 9, drifting right. See Sergei hiding behind a tree, but don't lose too much time finding the boulder. Never looked far enough off the line on this route choice. Saw a corridor of white that I wanted to follow, didn't think the hill at the end would be too bad. Missed the corridor of white which did not improve my mood and came up over the hill. Running really hard as I come down the other side. Read the two massive boulders and as I near the circle the two parallel cliffs. Still get mixed up and drop too far to the boulder at the stream, this is where Patrick catches me. I push ahead to 11, reading things just fine, slow up the hill to 12, but not pulled off my plan when Patrick goes right of the green on the way to the bare rock. Feeling exhausted pushing against Patrick at this point, decide that he is too far left on 13, but really I am too far right. See Joe leaving the flag. I stop to tie my shoe and let Patrick leave so that I can run on my own, worried about what will happen if I thrown myself at each control like that last one... sloppy sloppy.

I drifted way high on 14 according to the Garmin. Which would explain my slow time. Not aware during the race how bad it was. (I'd already been out for 70 minutes and was showing signs of being tired) I had a good plan and good route to 15, though there was a wobble at the end in the circle. My butterfly puts me out in a dogleg north and then over to a hilltop, I catch and pass Nikolai here, I liked that big reentrant so I follow it to 17 too, go to a reentrant just past the flag because I had oversimplified so that I was only looking for the farthest reentrant and this little guy wasn't really mapped. 18 and back to the butterfly. then on 20 I drift too far left but realize it, and on the way to 21 I stop and retie the shoe again (my tape was ripped off several times over as I played in the green). 22 i'm feeling slow and back to the butterfly. I stand there quite a while, drinking and finishing off my Gu as I gather strength to climb back up the hill. spike 24, but then get very messed up on 25. I cross the main trail at a stream crossing which should have saved me but instead I thought I was too far to the left and so I cut right up the hill until I hit the trail past 14. Figure it out quickly (depressed enough to believe I'd made such a big mistake this time) and climb up the cliffs to the flag. Road to 26 is the only thing that makes sense, and then carefully up to 27, and down through the campground to 28 and the finish.

Many lessons to be learned. I should learn to avoid the hard route choices (to 5 and to 10 I took routes that only would reward strong legs and fast running with quite a lot of risk) and instead work on really killing an easy route. Plenty more not to be said about the debacle around 5 too. I am happy to believe that it was a fluke ( a horrendous fluke, but that's it) and move on to the next workout, the next training, the next race.

C • Hard race. 4

Blue B Long - Splits

M-21+ TT Only Long - Splits

Event: 2010 US Team Trials for WOC
 

So, I had high expectations for myself going into this race. I raced hard, but this course and this terrain were hard for me. This type of low visibility low runnability racing really tests my skills.

Middle map. Garmin had discharged fully somehow so route is just drawn in.

I started off quite well moving very quickly and with great confidence. Sailed through to 4. Getting very huffy about how the green was impeding progress the entire way but not quite losing my cool or focus. On the way to 5 I broke out through the green on to the trail and ran with the intention of taking a left onto the indistinct trail and from there into the control. As I pounded up the trail I lost faith that I would be able to see the indistinct trail, then I started to worry that maybe I'd already passed it. At quick as blinking I decided to cut into the woods and run along the reentrant thus hedging by bets... If I was still too early I'd be able to run up the reentrant and head to the small hilltop... if just past then I would need to relocate off the swamp. I was too early, but happily heading towards the feature when I saw a big swamp that I didn't expect (I guess it's actually on the map, just obscured by the circle). I hesitated quite a bit, not wanting to approach the swamp (thinking it the swamp farther on) but not knowing how to procede. after several seconds I notice the indistinct trail and finally pressed on the rest of the way. Shaken but not too perturbed actually.

I see that 6 is the kind of control that I love to make mistakes on, so I intentionally aim high, so that I can read stuff along the top of the hill and make my way down. come basically right through control 12, but still miss the cliff to the left. Drop a few contours too low, but correct quickly. Now I'm definitely flustered and I go and compound my troubles by not climbing high enough on 7 and hitting a lower boulder near the stream and having to bounce back. 8 went okay but then on 9, I again read the swamps wrong and was checking the west side of a swamp that wasn't mapped. All the controls were so well hidden that I spend a really long time combing the side of the swamp to make sure that I wasn't just overlooking it. 10 I stayed low (to me it looked just like the control on the West Point Middle distance race that I bombed and I wasn't going to do that again). On 11 I was really picking up speed in the nice runnable woods and cornered the swamp with my eyes searching for the closest boulder cluster. The boulders I was looking for were behind a little hill though so I instead ran to the set farther on. Did a poor job of anticipating the contours on that one.

12 I did well, having been there already, on 13 I was perhaps too cautious swinging way right to stay in the reentrant. The control was at the very end of the cliff and I was starting to get worried when I didn't see a flag as I ran the entire length. For 14 I climbed early (going right) because I wanted a chance to recover after doing the hard climb. I figured that I would be stupid with oxygen deprivation when I got to the top but that I could figure things out as I approached the contol if I went from the right. This worked out okay, though I did overshoot just a tiny bit. I was running faster in the white woods again, and 15 - 18 seemed to go okay. I was blazing down the stony ground towards 19 but then hadn't been reading enough on the way in to be confident about which boulder the flag was behind. I thought I was at the one closest to the swamp, but didn't see a flag. Just then I saw Angelica way off to my right appear from behind a boulder. I sprint over thinking that it must be my control, only to discover that there wasn't anything there. I relocate then quite easily and finished the rest of the course.

Too many mistakes to be truly satisfied, but I think I had plenty of company in that regard. Impressed that Eric was able to stay cool and run a mostly clean race. Nate also ran really well. It was a really tough course and even with other people out there in the woods at the same time, racing at that speed is a good indication of what he's going to accomplish this summer at JWOC and in the years to come.

C • Crazy routes! 2

Second race of the day, and I had a late start so I had lots of time to scope out the venue. Ended up giving me some trouble, actually, makes me wish that I hadn't bothered with the spectating.

Sprint map.

Felt great out of the gate, spiked 1, quite good to 2, clean to 3... now I had seen all the rest of the runners punch 4 and I kind of expected to recognize the bare rock cliff as I ran at it from the top. I didn't recognize it though, and then I was momentarily lost trying to figure out where in the field I was. I knew I had to drop down to parking lot level so I plunged over the edge and then had to hack through green to get to the flag. oops, should have been an easy control, but I didn't navigate....

5 you could see from the parking lot. on 6 I lost a few seconds when I came around the boulder and didn't immediately see the flag. I started to cast around looking for another huge rock, but then finally saw the flag just sitting there. trail to 7 and I finally calmed down again. a little shaky to 8, getting too far right. Then overly cautious to 9 (you could see it from a long ways away). I stayed high on 10 which I was pleased with, and then came down past the green to 11. 12 I was a little to the right on, but corrected when I realized that I was too far from the building. I caught Andrew at 13 and he was going straight to 14 which made it seem like a good idea. I cruised along behind him (momentarily worried by the missing stone wall) and crossed the road then the line of vegetation and then down to the tree. Lost a few seconds on some wonkily mapped green in the circle at 15. Saw a control down by the lake but assumed it was the women's flag. Didn't see mine though so I went to investigate and it turned out to be mine. up to the trail to 16, around the hill to 17 (Andrew still ahead, moving really well) I went a bit straighter to 18 just following the fence. Then was moving too fast so I shot right past the opening in the fence down to the beach. This was another place where I had thought I knew where the course was going to go. I had seen Sam finishing by cutting left around the fence. By the time I saw the proper route I was well past, which cost me another 15 seconds or so.

Very impressed with Mr. Pithers on this one, he was very clean and quite fast. about 2 seconds faster per split. I'd like to get to that level in my sprints.

Blue Middle - Splits

Blue Sprint - Splits

No running today. Instead I took the shuttle to work.

My friends at work had a planned/surprise pot luck lunch for me today. We all brought food, but the surprise was that they had asked Sam what my favorite foods were, and so they all brought things that were specifically designed for me. Chocolate Soy Milk, avocado salad, chicken coconut green curry, pistachios, curried lamb, buffalo wings and maple bacon cupcakes. Also Liz got me some Pain de Yuca, which reminded me very strongly of traveling in Galapagos and HuiJuan got me some truly decadent chocolate.

Feeling very loved right now :) Good vibes prepping for the weekend.

C • Happy Birthday Ross 4

C • I thought I saw you on the ... 2

I had designed the park-o already when I got home on Wednesday night, but then I needed to wrestle with OCAD still a bit in the morning to get the maps sorted. stopped at Kinko's on the way in and today they were able to print them for me right away. Score :) Kinko's has nice prints that are pretty cheap and, unlike my own printer, they give me a receipt so that I can be reimbursed.

Biking down to Franklin Park. I always get lost going there. Luckily I remembered getting lost last time, and so I was able to reorient myself quickly.

Split the flags with Sam and I set the west side, bulky enough that I took two trips for my nine controls. Then Sam and I went out to double check a couple of spots where the map was really shaky (and we did our best, but the area has changed since it was mapped).

Then I went out on the beginner course with Vadim's daughter, Marina. Marina is in 11th grade and a ballroom dancer turned track sprinter. She wasn't used to running for 2.3 k all at once, but she was pretty positive the whole time considering the fact that I bet Vadim twisted her arm to get her to try it at all!

Since it was her first course and I was picking up vibes that she wasn't all that into it ( at least at first) I made sure that we didn't have any mistakes and I made all of the navigation choices very simple. I'm not sure this is the best strategy for getting someone to learn the sport, but empirically I think that she got more and more into it as we proceeded and I don't think she would have been as happy if I'd waited and watched as she made a lot of mistakes.

Afterward, I eyed the pretty new Inov8 shoes (demos only of the oRocs, the left foot of the 280s look sweet though) and think that I'm going to buy a pair of F lites as my everyday running shoe.

Finally, went and picked up the east section of flags and then the center section.

Sigh, best laid plans of mice and men. I biked over to Sam's school to drop off a missing shoe and then in to work. Running very late by the time I got to the lab.

C • because you rock. 3

biking from work over to Dan and Anna's new apartment. Stayed late at work so arrived unfashionably ages past when I should have. Very grown up looking house though :)

Then they fed me and we played a card game called Flinch that Dan had salvaged from his Grandmother's house. Sam says it's basically the same as Skip-bo.

Biking home. Anna decided it was bedtime. I stopped on one further errand on the way home and returned a scarf that had been left at our house.

heading over to the track after a long day at work. stopped by a bike shop to get some more patches and a spare tube.

Track workout was a "modified death spiral" which is to say 1600 @8k, 1200 @8k, 800 @5k, 1200@5k, 1600@5k. with 400 recovery after the first mile and 200 after the other pieces.

felt really tired going in.... need to sleep more. Hit my 8k pace for the mile and 1200 easily this week when running with other people, and was close to my 5k pace for the 800 too. It was getting windy and I was fading pretty hard so my 5k pace never really showed up.

nice workout, great group of runners.

5:19
3:58
2:36
3:57
5:25

heading home. Stopped to chat with a friend from work, then to get quarters as I passed a laundromat, then finally at the grocery store to buy 6 boxes of cereal and a gallon of skim milk. mmmm. :) ironic considering Mindsweeper's thread about me skipping breakfast in the morning. nope, for me cereal is an anytime food, but I don't like running after just eating. I also don't like waking up early enough to eat and then wait before running. I have thus developed a habit of not eating in the morning, and so I'm usually not really hungry until about noon.

A busy day in the lab, which meant that I got out the door for my hills just before 7pm. Feeling a bit tired and hungry, but as I was running over to the bottom of the hill my legs felt great. I thought that I would have speedy splits today for sure. However, on the climb, things were much harder... didn't have a quick turn-over and the intervals just felt like a chug chug chug up the hill. Didn't let it get me down, as it is likely a result of a tough run on Sunday.

Only did six because it was late and I was tired and cold and I didn't want to trash myself completely before tomorrow's track workout. Came home and Sam had already made dinner. Excellent.

2:01
2:06
2:10
2:11
2:10
2:12

Happy Mother's Day Mom! No results up yet from the Dakota Rogaine so no way to know how well your mother's day went :)

C • Rogaine results 2

A very satisfying day 2 of the WCOC meet. Beautiful woods, fun course, happy with my fitness and my result. A few small and a couple medium errors.

A hard enough course that by the time I got home and showered I was adamant that I needed a nap. Will write more later, but the nap has worn off and I'm sleepy again.

Blue2 Day 2: Long - Splits

M-21+ Day 2: Long: Blue combined - Splits

First day of the WCOC A-meet. What a class act the WCOC crowd is. Lots of little details that really made the weekend so wonderful. Whoever had the idea for warmup maps on the way to the start should get a cookie, actually... send me an address and I'll mail some, or just bring them next weekend.

I had an decently good race, some parts were a bit sloppy, some parts were spot on. Much better than last week. Running well right from the start but not in 100% control, overran 1 by not really reading the form-line hilltop, and checked an extra flag on the way down to 2 (silly). 3 and 4 I was right on. 5 I was very nicely on my line, crossed the two trails exactly as I expected which gave me confidence coming down the hillside towards the trail and then finally the boulder with the control. Started to lose confidence when I couldn't see any trail (quite indistinct) and then saw another runner heading over to a boulder on my left. So I checked that boulder and a couple more off to the left before I realized that I was being foolish and I needed to run north and relocate from the stream. Saw the flag as I did this. Shook me up enough to make me want a safe route to 6, so I dropped to the trail and came up the stone wall. Getting through the rocks on the way out of five was torture and I added too much climb for this to be a good route, even though I executed just fine. along the hillside to 7, got too high but saw the boulder on the spur so knew I was on the right contour at the end. Still lost a lot of time to Boris (straighter is better is the take home lesson here). down to 8, very fast. almost tripped on the slope which proffered a scary few moments of trying to regain my balance. In the circle I thought the flag was on the boulder cluster, didn't read my descriptions until I got past the rocks and didn't see the flag. on 9 it was easy to see the boulders as we climbed the slope. I stayed low on the way to 10 because I was feeling tired and didn't want to climb any extra.... the running wasn't as good and I lost a bunch of time to others here even though I executed well (Straight still equals good). to 11 I came past the stone wall and climbed a bit on the trail, coming a bit farther right of the line than I had initially planned... but the running was better so I drifted. Came over the top of the vague hillside and had a moment of disorientation where I felt like I was drifting even further right on the line. But snapped back into focus when I saw a hilltop and cliff combo that I was looking for and then into the control, the flag was wrapped way around the back of the cliff (met up with Ken here too). 12 just follow the re-entrant. 13 I was going well, counting little ridges and got pulled off by a control one ridge too early. I punched and saw the code was off and knew that I needed to go one further. Stayed quite low on the way to 14, only climbing when I saw the bare rock patch above me. 15 I picked up speed sensing the finish ahead. crossed the swamp then up down up and then a quick look at the descriptions to see it was a reentrant and a quick look behind me to get my bearing off a distinctive cliff. Came blazing down to the trail at 16, and saw Corinne going into the control. Legs felt good in the chute.

good enough for the win, and more importantly good enough to beat Boris by just a few seconds :) his race was better than mine, but I was running faster at the very end. (he was waking up controls too, which ought to teach him a lesson about being helpful and volunteering)

Then quickly off to help at start (all running smoothly with the Bundschuhs, Worner/Kohns, and Gagarins in charge) and eventually some control retrieval.

Back to Boris and Kat's place where I did my best to imitate a swarm of locusts. Fun times!

C • A swarm of locusts 3

Blue Day 1: Middle - Splits

Not so much with the running (took the shuttle to and from work today), but a very good day none-the-less. A good and productive day a work, an adequate amount of traffic on the road (except for the 30 minutes of stopped for an accident nonsense about 5 minutes from our very patient and probably hungry destination) and then take out Chinese with Becky and Sam. Yep, life is good.

I like Ian, but that may be because my legs are just used to it :)

Woof, just one of those days where all the plans get thrown out the window. Wanted to running terrain loops in the AM, but didn't get up and going in time. Then wanted to leave work at a reasonable time to get to the park o at a reasonable time... instead I took tail biopsies from 130 mice pups for DNA extraction and eventual genotyping.

Anywho, got to the park-o very late, rushed as quickly as I could through registration to start. It was recommended that I wear leg covering, but I had only brought shorts. I have a reputation to maintain, regardless.

Cleanish run, was trying to cut through the woods to 2, but then changed my mind (woods really do suck on Pine Hill south) when I got out to the trail and then I went around. Everything else seemed pretty good, though I didn't see the flag in the re-entrant at 6 so I went on to the wall and back in. After it was all over, Eric and I went back out to clear out the second half of the course... it got pretty dark.

I forgot that I was supposed to be visualizing what I was going to see next ( a training goal that comes from the analysis of my West Point races) until I was on the way to control 6. Even after I remembered it was hard to force myself to really plan ahead well. Closing my eyes sort of helped, but it is untenable to treat the park-o as both a race and a training session. Should have been more of a training.

I brought my headlamp and finally got out to Prospect to rescue a night-o flag that has been sitting up on a cliff since Feb 23rd. Now I can check that off the list. It's so weird that something small like that can really weigh on my conscience, when all the other random stuff is water off a duck's back.

Running to work. Feeling great.

Running down to the track. Making up the skipped track workout from last night. pretty day to be outside. feeling quite hungry and my core was a little tight from doing crunches in the morning. Already questioning my chosen paces... not a great sign.

So 2x1600 at 8k pace and 4x800 at 5k pace (400 rest after each mile, 200 after each half). So I decided that my 5k pace was 2:34 which I've been okay doing on previous weeks and then I thought well maybe 5:20 miles for my 8k pace.

I set out and just felt like it was really hard. There was a bit of wind, and it seemed to chase me all the way around the track, but I think most of it was trying to run these alone and on slightly tired legs. Overall disappointed in my 800s, wish that I could have pushed a little harder there. Glad that I got out to do the work though.

5:26
5:31

2:39
2:43
2:42
2:43

Then a nice cooldown back to the lab.

Biking to work. not quite as muggy as yesterday.

Alex invited people to join her for a Hill workout and I hadn't done my Monday hills, so I skipped out on the CSU running section tonight and biked out to join Alex and Sam in Newton.

Bit of a warmup around newton before the hills. Alex had maps of pawtuckaway to use for training, modifying a training that Sandra had written about. We were to memorize a short course of 4 controls as we ran up the hill, then draw the 4 controls on the blank map at the top. Pretty fun. After those 4 mini courses we were to plan our route on the short courses and then flip the map over and draw what we'd use to navigate said route on just a skeleton of the course lines and circles.

This hill was more gradual than Summit Ave and it gave a different feeling to running uphill. It didn't hurt as much, but that may be a sign that I was running a little slower because I was reading the map too.

I did 7 reps, which covered all of the exercises that Alex had planned. I didn't quite sweat enough to disintegrate the whole map.... it was in a plastic case fortunately.... but I came close.

Felt great in the morning for my commute to work. Legs happy and peppy. Felt very lazy and unmotivated in the evening, just took the shuttle home and went grocery shopping with Sam instead.

So I probably shouldn't have mentioned besting 70 minutes for this course :) Hubris makes for some very painful lessons as the Greeks have shown us. So map 1 and map 2 from the race with QR.

I was just plain not careful enough. The beginning of my race was going swimmingly so I was kinda lulled into a sense of well-being. Then I got caught by the uncrossable fences at 4 and then again at 6 ( I just don't read those black lines with double ticks very well). Then a really serious error as I came across the hillside to 8. Looking at the QR it is now, finally, obvious what happened. I was contouring along and saw a spring/mine shaft opening. It was very nicely built and must be on the map. I scanned the slope as I was running and saw what looked like a mine shaft-y kind of cliff just before the control. So I altered my route and used this new feature as an attackpoint. On the QR it is clear that the mine shaft spring thing is really marked as a black X and that's why I was so far off coming down to the cliff. I relocated on the marsh just east of 9 and was able to move on... but it derailed the sub 70 train for sure :)

For 13 I wanted to stay high which I don't think was a great idea here anyway, and then I did a poor job of reading the cliffs in the circle and very confidently ran too low thinking my flag would be at the base of a different cliff.

On 15, I hadn't even flipped my map over yet to read ahead (just forgetful I guess) and was greeted with a beautiful long leg. I looked left and it seemed pretty far off the line and I looked right and it seemed even farther off the line. Straight was a joke because of all the sidehilling.... or was it. I'd been along that slope a lot already and it wasn't so bad... so I chose to go along the righthand slope. I executed my plan as best I could but the green near the end of the contouring was murder and truly destroyed the route. In retrospect dropping down at the end to run along the fence at the base there would have been nice. In quick routes i can check and see that it took me 8:30 to get to where the green begins... and I bet I could have done the rest in about 4 minutes... puts me even with some of the other guys that went left.

The last set of controls was really fun, I left 21 too low and had to climb up the road a fair bit to cut over to the finish control... but otherwise the last loop went very nicely.

Awesome course by Hannah.

C • wp maps 24

Blue Long Distance - Splits

My quickroute for the middle shows both my drawn and my quickroute track for the race. Not the clean race I had been hoping for. I had a cleanish start, got off line on 3 as I had simplified to think that I was just following along the top of a line of cliffs after I cross the stream.... I followed the wrong "cliffs" and had to correct. But then really fell apart on the way to 6. climbing hills makes me stupid I guess. I really had thought that I had gone farther than I had and I was not good about relocating. Could have been much worse, already pretty bad as about a 3-4 minute error. Could have gone around, would have been safer. I didn't want to be afraid of the climb though... I felt strong and it looked faster to go straight.

back in the saddle for the middle section, but then chose to contour around the hill on the way to 12... again thought I had gone farther than I really had and dropped down into the barberry bushes and had to climb again back to the control when I had figured out, finally which of the various walls I had come across. Contouring would have been okay if I had executed better. Going over the top worked for Boris, and I probably should have done the same but it seemed like a lot of climb and I was feeling tired.

A bit sloppy on 13, and, comparing splits from when Jordan vetted the course, it looks like I lost time on 14 too. I wasn't super focused at the end just tired.

3rd, 1 min behind a broken Boris and 15 seconds behind a wily Wyatt.

Rough start to the season, but plenty of things in the race that I did well.

C • Good and Bad 3

Quickroute from the sprint.

This race went pretty well. Managed to just stay in control the entire time apart from control 6. Lost maybe 25 seconds by running to the wrong rootstock. Possibly thrown off by another runner in the woods at that point. Especially like my route to 13, but think that it would have been faster to go right on the way to 12.

Blue Middle Distance - Splits

Red/Blue Sprint - Splits