Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Lake Ranch Reservoir. 54, no wind, above the valley fog. Out early (8:15) so we can meet Jo and Philip at the Bear afterwards. Getting tired of the same old run, so thought I would do some long intervals with some slower sections in between. Legs were surprisingly tired at the outset. Ran with L (instead of getting ahead and looping back per usual) to the end of the lake, then ran hard up the hill (PR). Took it easier than usual on the way down, then ran the next mile at a good clip. Tried to recover while going slowly up the hill past fern creek, surprised that that split was still under 6:00, so picked it up for the last half mile and had a pretty quick split. Overall, a good run, though not nearly as good as 12-27-14.

504(534)1038(502)1541(455)2037 - end of lake
(603)2639 - up to three trees
(447)3127 - back down
(350)3517(331)3849(558)4447(414)4902

Usual 4.0: 3812
Extra mile: 1050

The fast "third mile" was 25 seconds faster than in 9-7-14's excellent run and only 31 secs slower than the last time I did threshold intervals there, 7-10-13.

Cool down

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

Shots just wouldn't fall today.

Keep pushing a little harder. Still only two sets, but adding weight. 1 - 1- 7 for the bar exercises. Core as well as upper body.

Lake Ranch Reservoir. Legs felt better than I thought they would. 54 degrees, no wind, but it somehow felt chillier, which got me running at a faster tempo. Pushed it up the big hill past the lake. Quads were feeling it a bit on the uphills in the last mile, but a good run.

458(521)1019(449)1509(429)1938
(638)2616 - up the hill to the set of three trees*
(423)3039 - back down
(433)3512(419)3932(541)4513(430)4943

Loop backs: 624

Usual 4.0 in 3842
Extra mile: 1101

*Hmm, did I go to the correct set last time? Should go to the one just before the trail turns again - at least, that's what I did today. Note: 1/17: Yeah, having had another, good look, I'm pretty sure I've gone to the same spot each time.

Cool down

In the morning went to Los Altos to pick up my glasses and have lunch with my brother; then home to dial in to a long work meeting; and then a really good dinner at the Village Pub in Woodside with Mike Keihl and Marcel.

Still working on the possibility of going to the Flying Pig (Nationals).

Tilden Park, Berkeley, BAOC B-meet. Green 4.7 km, 205m climb. Pretty good run, but three errors of about 1 min each. In each case, I wasn't far off from where i intended to be, and recognized the error quickly and realized what needed to be done, but in each case getting there was physically difficult and so made the error more costly.

Jogged to the other side of the lake an then walked up to the start for a warmup. Thought I’d jog for another 6 - 8 mins, but after 2 mins felt quite loose, so started then.

Advertised as 4.7, 205, but I get 245 for the climb.

1. Used the shape of the parking lot to get to the N edge. Could see the flag from there.

2. Thought about going directly up to the road, but figured for practice should stay in the terrain. But the terrain was cluttered with vegetation and deadfall, so after 100m cut up to the road anyway. After cutting down the connector to the next parking lot, contoured through the clearing until I saw a clearing heading downhill, looked over the edge and there was the bag. Not a well-designed leg as it was a dog leg, the flag was too visible, and had to go down a steep hill only to go right back up.

3. Struggled up the hill back to the road. Jogged through the open area, onto the trail, up to the junction. Took the left fork and pace counted until I was on the contour of the rocky ground and then contoured. The small rocks were partly obscured by high grass, so at first I came to what I thought was the NE end without seeing a control, then saw someone 30m further looking like they were heading for a bag and realized there were more but harder to see rocks ahead and that the bag was just beyond them.

4. Contoured to the lower trail, then up the trail 200m to beyond the patch of fight on the right. Had planned to contour to the lower part of the big patch of fight were the control was, but from the trail I saw a couple of people in that vicinity seemingly standing still, so decided maybe that was not the best route; instead, stayed on the trail until the small trail directly N of #4, took that trail around the top end of the fight, turned right and went along the E edge of the fight to the flag.

5. Contoured to the trail just N of #14, making sure I saw the flag for #14 on the knoll to verify my location. Continued to contour, across the small trail, staying under the patch of fight before the reentrant and then across the reentrant in the patch of white. At the far edge of the forest, peeked into the top edge of a patch of fight, but noting that there was no reentrant there, realized I was at the top edge of the big patch and needed to go up a contour-and-a-half to the top edge of the next patch, and there was the flag. Lost maybe :15.

6. Intended to contour to the telephone pole with the black X just beyond and below it. Saw a wooden post in that relation to one of the poles, with a corner of fight beyond it, which all looked right, but hesitated because it was downhill. Went there nevertheless, but when I turned the corner, it clearly was not the narrow passage I was expecting, and realized I was at the fight directly N of #12. The 20m climb back up was very tiring. Through the narrow passage, turned left when I got to the second reentrant, nailed it. Lost 1:30 (and still not sure whether that post I saw was unmapped and whether I missed some other man-made object, or what).

7. Fought my way up to the road, then run down the road. Had thought about climbing up through the reentrant but it way too gnarly, so continued on the road up past the green, then turned uphill into the forest. Realized I had done the exact same thing last year. Read the vegetation pretty well, nailed it.

8. This leg was almost identical to the one from last year. Along the vegetation to the nose of the spur, down a short ways and turn left, keeping the fight on my left, and could see the flag from there. Then it was only a matter of getting down the very steep hillside without killing myself. Once near the big reentrant, could no longer see the flag, but it was easy to read the rocks and go right to it.

9. Swung left to avoid the steep side of the reentrant. Again saw the bag from a long way off.

10. Across the reentrant, contour out to the road just below the two little patches of green. Couldn’t definitively identify which boulder was which, and same for the vegetation, so proceeded on a bearing, then realized that the green patch I was looking for was still ahead and slightly higher, so lost maybe :20.

11. Thought about dropping to the road, but wanted to avoid extra climb, so contoured. The vegetation was a little gnarly, so my route was pretty slow, but navigated it well (had to climb a little to get a good path across the reentrant) and got right to the control.

12. Though some people went straight, this was a no brainer for me: drop to the road, run to the second reentrant, straight up. Wasn’t even much climb at the end.

13. Back to the road. Ran almost to the trail crossing, then cut towards the indistinct path below #14. Had planned to go below 14, over the fight, then approach 13 from the N. But I saw the pipeline and an opening in the fight, so went down there and approached 13 from the SE. I expected to see a small thicket I could easily get to the N side of, but instead there was a wall of thick bushes. Tried to get through to the N side but couldn’t went a little E, found a way through, then went along the N edge until I found the bag. Had I gone W instead of E, wouldn’t have lost much time at all. Lost 1:00.

14. Straight up to #14. Climbed the knoll before 14 because I hadn’t looked at the map carefully enough to see that there was another knoll, but that was still on the straight line so didn’t lose much time.

15. My best leg. Rough bearing, contouring with a little dropping, staying between the big patches of vegetation, see the reentrant ahead with fight on either side, nailed it - and ran at a decent clip, too.

16. Energized, ran pretty well on the straight line and then down the reentrant to the road, E on the road past the fight, then angle down into the reentrant to the flag, passing Janet just before she punched. Splits show that this and #8 were actually my best legs (3rd place), though 17 (4th) was closer to the top.

17. Had worked this leg out while on the road to 13, so left SW without hesitation, picked up the dirt road, ran nearly to the end of the forest then cut towards the end of the trees in the reentrant ahead, right to the flag. Three good legs in a row - would’ve been nice to run the whole race like that :-)

18. Thought about running straight down the reentrant, but the vegetation looked thick, so headed SW intending to hit the road. But strangely, never got to it, which threw me off a bit. Finally, from the edge of the forest, could see the road bend at the bottom of the reentrant, so cut directly down to that. Took the little trail, soon could see rocks on my left, cut through the thick veg to the S side - oops, I’m at the lake - I overshot and had to scramble back up to the correct location. Lost :45.

19. Which way around the lake? Realized that scrutiny would cost too much time, so just bolted to the right. The first part of the trail was very rocky, but I heard from others that going the other way was rocky, too, so no harm done.

Erin Schirm ran 39. Three young guys ran in the 50’s. Cornelia (F45) ran 1:03:10 and Greg Ehrensing (M55) beat me by :02. Behind me: MJ 6607. Eric Rosenzw 6643, Mark P 7224, Gavin WM 8209, Holly 8306, Gary C 8625.

Warm up: 10 min uphill walk to start, and a little jogging in the start area.

Cool down: 5 min jog