Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Front of house. With the J.Grant A-meet 3 weeks from today, and not having done much all week, figured I'd push it if I could, and I did. Each lap was faster than I thought it would be; for the last four laps, I had to fight the urge to ease off.

Tried to be conscious of where I put my left foot so as to protect my ankle, but it was no problem at all. Each knee had its creaky moments.

Lovely spring day.

601, 530, 512, 507, 506, 451, 450

Haven't had a run out front this fast in 5 years: 36:12, Mar 22, 2010. (The last several years, my hard runs have been at Lake Ranch Reservoir, and I've had some that were probably faster than this.)

C • Nice! 6

Cool down:

1 min walk
3:30 jog 0.2 mi
1:30 walk/stretch
6:40 jog 0.5 mi

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching and strength exercises. Not much of the latter until the last couple of days.

Theraband (2 sets each, full reps) interleaved with core, followed by weights (2 sets each, 80% of the reps).

Front of house. Cautiously try to get up to normal speed. Legs a little better, ankle not really a problem.

641, 553

Ready to take myself off the injured list.

Cool down

Ankle is still discolered and a bit swollen, but feeling much better. Do a number of excercises-for-sprained-ankles with no problem. Decide to try a little jogging later.

Do all the exercises, but only two sets and low reps - just to start getting back into it.

Jog cautiously on the short loop in front of the house, nearly 5 laps. Ankle not having a problem, but legs still mighty tired from the weekend, so don't overdo it.

Added a 2 min cool down, but not logging that.

Ankle looks really bad but is actually feeling much better. Stairs are a bit of a problem, but able to go about my business.

Long day yesterday: getting up in KY at 6am, not getting home in CA until after 2am (5am EDT) - and with a badly swollen ankle.

Tried to stay off it for most of the day, iced a few times, wore an ace bandage, kept it elevated.

Carter Caves, KY. U.S. Middle Champs. 3rd in M65 (missed 2nd by 31 seconds). Even colder than yesterday (17 degrees at breakfast time).

Turned my ankle rather severely coming in to #1. Took a couple of minutes of hobbling to shake it off. Was wary of it for a while, but pretty much ignored it for the second half of the course. By evening it was all swollen and black and blue.

At first navigated very cautiously, having little confidence in this terrain. Mostly accurate over the first half (though lost a minute at #5) but about 5 - 10% slower than the competition. After #7, felt more confident (plus a greater sense of urgency), picked up the pace and did quite well the rest of the way except for a brain cramp at #12 costing about 40 seconds. By the end, I was moving really well and with confidence, just in time for the weekend to be over.

17 degrees at sunrise, probably near 32 at my start. Wore my long sleeve smart wool top under an O-shirt, which was better than the turtle neck running top - I didn’t overhear. Once again wore smart wool leggings under O-pants, rubber booties instead of outer socks, and golf gloves. All worked fine.

Two copies of the course, one with my route and one without, are here.

1. Took a few second to realize I needed to take the trail to the left. Seemed to be at the bend adjacent to the reentrant before my pace count said I should be, and I could see the top of a reentrant in the woods to my right, so cut in. Didn’t see a control as I looked down the reentrant, checked the map, realized I was one reentrant short, so contoured and soon saw the bag. But just then I badly twisted my left ankle. I hobbled in great pain to the control, not sure I’d be able to continue. Lost about 30 seconds, :10 because of cutting in too early, :10 because of the ankle, :10 because I was being very cautious.

2. Had noted earlier that #2 was back across the jeep trail, so headed that way, hobbling in significant pain. By the time I crossed the road, figured I would try to continue. Got myself on the nose of the spur and headed down, soon saw the control slightly on the left. Lost about :20 due to the ankle (including needing to focus on my foot placement rather than on the map).

3. Across the road, across the bottom of the reentrant and then the ditch, then relied on compass and pace count. Spotted the bad ahead and to the left, downhill. Caution was good: D.Hunter and Natalia each had huge errors on this one. Lost about :25, mostly due to ankle, the rest to caution.

4. Leg looked a little scary to me, so really hung on the compass. In reality, things were quite clear once I neared the stream bed, including pits marked with tape. Also saw a couple of guys heading along the hillside opposite me towards to control. Lost maybe :15 because of the ankle and :15 for being over cautious.

5. At this point my ankle wasn’t bothering me much, so mostly forgot about it the rest of the way. Did not see a good way to approach, so tried careful compass and pace count. (In fact, once on the second trail, should have gone down the trail to the end of the fight and then cut in). Near the control, really slowed down because I couldn’t identify anything, though I clearly was in fight. Decided to cut left to the trail to relocate. On my way, realized I was out of the fight, looked left and saw the bag. Lost 1:20, by far the biggest error of the day.

6. Tried to go straight (and quickly, given the catching feature right behind the control) but suddenly found that the trail was 2m to my left, so veered right and nailed it. Only lost a few seconds.

7. Crossed the big ditch by going NW first, to avoid elevation loss in Bay Area style. Contour above the rocks, plainly see the W end of the light green right in front of me, go along the upper side, see a bag in the ditch, know it’s not mine but take a few seconds to check the code anyway. Keep following the veg boundary, soon see the bag at the upper end of the ditch dead ahead. Felt good about this leg as I saw all the features, but lost :30 anyway, presumably because I was too cautious.

8. Down along the right side of the ditch. Ankle made it a little difficult to get down to the road. Had thought I’d run the road to the second bend, but instead went straight to that spot. Then compass and pace along the contour, nailed it. (PG did pretty much the same route.)

9. Got turned around for a few seconds, but then headed NE, thinking I’d take the trail up. But after a few steps on the trail, headed NE again to the road, trying to push the pace. Easy to spot all the man-made features in the clearing. Around to the back of the pool, to the corner of the clearing, slow down a little to stay on bearing, see a streamered pit dead ahead and before checking the map, see the bag a little to the right.

10. Feeling much more confident now, and also realizing there’s not much left, want to push the pace. My ankle made it a little difficult to get over all the deadfall, but did keep a decent pace. Stay just left of the steep dropoff. Wait until I was a little past the stream junction below, then cut diagonally down and across the ditch, then contour. Soon see the bag on the boulder to my right (so I’d waited a bit too long to cut across).

11. With the stream on the right and boulders and trail on the left, felt confident in going on a rough compass and moving quickly. Nailed it.

12. This one cost me the Silver. Was on a roll now, moving with confidence. Straight down to the stream bed, then contoured the broad spur (though I should have gone straighter) and across the trail, figuring then when I saw the ditch in the reentrant I’d turn left and run along the second ditch into the fight. But when I came to the ditch and took a few steps across looking for the second ditch and saw nothing, I was puzzled. Didn’t see the green to my left, so suddenly worried that I was too far left, but couldn’t see anything to the right either. Stood there doing nothing for far too long, somehow not believing in the plan was to go left. But finally I did that; I was further to the right than I’d planned, but that was not a good reason for just executing the plan. Finally saw the fight ahead, then the ditch and then the bag. But lost :40 (and missed the Silver by :31).

13. Got off to a bit of a slow start, probably stewing about the error, also considering taking the jeep trail around. Decided to go fairly straight, bending a little right to save some climb. Saw Platt coming in as I was going out. Around the big spur, saw a clearing on my left with a parking lot beyond - but the clearing had a building in it, not shown on the map. Might’ve cost me a couple of seconds, but had to assume the map was just wrong. (Later learned that the building was shown in gray - is that even part of ISOM? - since it was actually a leant-to, open on one end.) Down towards the reentrant I could now see, landed on the intermittent trail, could see the boulder and the bag from there. A little tentative going down because of my ankle. Third fastest split, 2 secs behind Natalia, but still :24 behind Walter (10%) who cleared had a great day.

14. With the big building on the left (which I didn’t recognize as the lodge I was staying in), figured to go straight and push it. Saw a control in a depression 2/3 of the way there, foolish wasted a few seconds checking the map (it seemed I was beyond the halfway point of the building, which is not what the map shows). Continued on, soon saw the boulders dead ahead. Rather than check the clue sheet to see which one I was looking for, just looked behind the first, then the second, and there was the bag. Oddly, I hadn’t noticed the trail right behind the boulders on the map, which should have emboldened me even more. Nevertheless, had the fastest split.

15. Lots of detail down near the GO control, wanted to make sure there wasn’t a trap (had no idea until many days later that we were about to run over a natural bridge), was about to step out on the paved trail when I saw three young women flying down the path from my left. Let the first two go by then jumped ahead of the third and joined the sprint, not so easy on the pavement with my spikes. The third one passed me and I noticed she had a BAOC shirt on. She slowed right before the control, I passed and realized it was Katie P.

F. Thinking it might be close for medals, gave it my all on the hill up to the Finish. Katie caught up and then edged past. On my course, only (young) Karen Strat and (speedy) Sue Kuestner (:01) were faster - unusual for me to be so fast in the chute.

C • 13 and 14 2

Though I took the shuttle and thought I arrived near the start in good time, the call ups seemed to be 5 mins ahead of what I expected, so there really wasn't time for much warm up (and, I didn't seem to miss it).

Cool down: walking back from the Finish to the lodge.

Near-nightmare scenario: Zipped into the bathroom just before my call up, but in the way out, the doorknob on the door to the outside came off in my hand. At first I couldn't get it back on, but after some struggle finally did. Was a minute late for my call up, but no harm done.

For the third straight day, didn't think to try to start my Garmin until less than 2 mins before the start, and it never got the signal.

Middle - 5 Brown -69 - Splits