Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Event: BAOC: Morgan Territory
 

Morgan Territory. Green, 4.8km/290m climb (though the best route I could see gives 310m climb, and my climb was 335). Sunny, temp around 50, but a very chilly wind, so I wore a long sleeve shirt under my O-top.

Was feeling lethargic beforehand, and giving a beginners clinic left me feeling shaky. Never got focused during the run. Made a 5 or 6 min error on #4 (parallel error) and several small (< 1 min) errors, but even without all that my time was slow - just wasn't moving well. I was never very uncertain about where I was, and felt OK when I could run (though there was way too much climb for me), plus there were several places where the navigation was tricky that I handled well and moved through quickly, so while I was out there I thought I was doing OK. But looking at the results, it really wasn't a good day for me.

First time with my new GPS watch. Here's my route on QuickRoute. WinSplits here

1. Steep downhill, don’t want to miss it and have to climb back up, so try to be quick but careful. Nail it. Spend maybe 10 secs having to put my map in a case, on the clock - not easy with all the things I have in my hands.

2. Big route choice: High, with more distance and a bit less climb, or low with a lot of climb at the end. Gotta go for less climb. As I was getting ready to leave the road for the descent, saw some people just ahead who had been at my beginners clinic, so called out to them and asked how they were doing - and lost my place a little bit. Wanted to make sure to get over to the right side of the rightmost of the two big spurs, and that’s what I did - except when I got there there were rocks when there shouldn’t have been. Checked the map and saw that these rocks matched what the map showed one reentrant SE - and then realized that when I left the road, I hadn’t gone around the hillside as planned and, consequently, the two spurs I had been looking ahead at were the left and middle ones rather than the middle and right ones. No harm: I now knew exactly where I was and it only took 5 secs to figure out. The route from there to #2 required some careful navigation (good practice!) and I did it accurately with not much hesitation. Still, probably lost a minute compared to the simpler, originally planned route. But judging by the splits, I should’ve been another 2 minutes faster than that; can’t see where I lost that unless it was route choice.

3. Struggled climbing back up the hill, and really had to rock climb over that last rock wall (which is poorly represented on the map). Hit the reentrant 25m low, and it was a difficult climb up (:15 secs). Lost 1 - 1.5 mins on this leg. I spent that long climbing the rock wall. Was there a better route?

4. Straight up hill, my quads really feeling it. Take the small trail along the contour to the end of the big reentrant. (The GPS shows me going slightly down hill, off the trail; I remember that the trail went down some, so I think the map is wrong.) Then NE up the hill towards the road bend because that looked like the best footing. The climbing got to me, though, and had to rest some. Looked like the best choice would be to take the road all the way to the pond and cross on the dam, but I’d already down so much road running that I wanted to go through the terrain to get more practice, even if it might be a slower route. The next 500m was really fun (very runnable), to the saddle on the long spur. Angled to the right and down, then crossed the gully. Angled up and to the left; I must’ve been focused on the wrong saddle, the one NW of the one I intended to go to. Got to a saddle much faster than I expected (and, I should have noted, without crossing the mapped trail), but didn’t let that bother me. Started navigating as if I were in the higher saddle, but nothing really matched up very well. In the back of mind, I thought I should stop and see if I could figure out where else I might be (and I suspect I would have figured it out pretty quickly if I had), but somehow couldn’t focus on that and instead thought “maybe I’ll run into it, or if not I’ll hit the road or fence and bounce back.” Pretty disappointing to go cross-country rather than take the road for the express purpose of getting more practice and then not take the opportunity to practice when it presented itself. In any case, I eventually came to the fence, slogged up to the road and then W to the control. Saw Mark Petersen, who had started 3 mins behind me and who was only walking on the course, punch in about :30 ahead of me. Lost 5 or 6 mins on this leg: lost 4 to 5 mins on the overshoot (with extra climb), and I guess the rest on being slow from the saddle as this things didn’t match up.

5. Contoured to road. After about 5 mins, caught up with Mark by cutting off a bend. We chatted for a minute as we walked up the hill. At the crest, left the road on a bearing, realized the big gully was in my way; back to the road for a little more, then on my way. Fun segment, nice running all the way, reading features as I ran, until I got past the ruined fence. Spotted a clearing ahead and to the right on the hillside, but no control when I got there. Quick check of the map, realized control should be higher on the hill, looked up and spotted it. Noticed afterwards that the first clearing I came to was obscured by the control circle. Lost :15.

6. Right or left? Knew I was heading into the Bermuda Triangle of Morgan Territory, so wanted to be careful. Couldn’t fully make out the little trail on the right, so went left even though it was a bit longer. Navigated nicely to the hillside with the control, moving pretty steadily. (Saw Steve Haas, who’d started 6 mins ahead of me, headed for #7.) But that hillside needs re-mapping: the purported solid green is really quite splotchy. Having lost faith in the that portion of the map, wandered around for a minute (with Vicki behind me) before I found it. Lost 1 min.

7. Aimed to stay high, shooting for the long (and familiar) bare rock patch. Got to the upper end of that patch with no problem. Go around to the top and come down the reentrant or bash straight through? Figured if the control is in the middle of the green, the green must not be too bad, so tried to bash straight through. Wrong. After much bashing, could see the reentrant coming up ahead, but couldn’t get there. Wound up near the top of the reentrant and from there I could see the bag 30m below. Lost about a minute. Wonder what other people did. (Now that I see a bunch of routes on RouteGadget: I hit a medium green patch in the middle of the light green (I didn’t notice it on the map) and other people avoided it (intentionally or not).)

8. Walked up to the ridge and ran the rest of the leg at a moderately decent pace. Managed to keep running on the road up the last hill. Could see where I could cut across the spur towards the top of the reentrant, but it looked rocky and unpleasant so instead stayed on the road almost to the main road and curled around to the top of the reentrant.

9. Trivial leg. Started running up the hill, but my quads were aching and I didn’t see the point of pushing them any further.

Note added Wednesday: my quads, especially my right one, were extremely sore for a couple of days, and still not normal on Wednesday.

C • Quickroute 2

C • Your weather looks awesome today 2

Warm up by jogging to the start and then up and back while waiting. With my GPS watch set to get the signal, I couldn't see the time on my watch. What's the solution to that?

Rest day. Went out to Huddart Park for the Coastal Trail Runs race/run, to support our run club: Philip and Todd in the half marathon, Jo and Louise in the 5 mile. Ran into Vlad who was running the marathon. Later, at brunch at the Woodside Bakery, ran into Cornelia and her family.

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

Front of house. Testing out new orienteering glasses, reading a map from the WMOC 2011 Sprint Final (M55A) in Goslar. Glasses seemed good; reading that detailed map definitely slowed me down.

619, 555, 533

C • Glasses 2

Cool down

Theraband, pilates mat, hips, adductors, bosu, weights. About 40 sets.

Modest paced, hilly walk.

Lake Ranch Reservoir. 47 degrees, a lot of moisture in the air, so it feels kind of raw. I've had an ear ache for a couple of days, and my legs aren't feeling very fresh, so decided to keep this fairly slow and somewhat short - just to the near end of the lake and back. Felt pretty easy, but glad I didn't attempt more.

---------------456(528)1024(458)1522
3016(440)2536(546)1950(428)

Cool down

JCC. Weight machines (simulating therabands), core, hips, adductors, weights. Furious pace: 30 sets in 30 minutes.

Careful not to make legs sore: no drives to the basket, no jumping. Standing layups, standing short jumpers. Made only 2 of my first 10 free throws, but then 4 of 5 (smokin'!).

Front of house. A balmy-feeling 63 degrees. Legs struggled in the beginning, but loosened up and felt good laps 3 thru 6, and even had to hold myself back a bit on lap 7.

615, 556, 541, 536, 525, 516, 507