Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Dental surgery to remove what remained of a tooth and insert a post for an implant.

Tried to keep the anesthesia to a minimum during the procedure. That led to a few moments of pain a few times, but no real problems. Afterwards, didn't need any heavy pain killers, just took some ibuprofen.

Not supposed to exercise for several days, but I'm sure I will do stretching and some light exercises, hopefully run a little by Thursday.

Event: BAOC: Lake Herman
 

Lake Herman, Benicia, CA. Brown 3.3 km, 160m climb. Several days later, the consensus is that the contour interval was not 5m, as indicated on the map. It was either 2.5m or 10 ft (3m). I'll go with 90m as the correct amount of climb. Sunny, cool, ground is soft, some wetness and slickness in spots, but generally excellent conditions for running. Start at 11:44 after driving over from San Francisco.

Terrific run for me. Hope I can have runs like this at the US Champs in a month! Rex W ran Brown because he wanted to run something fast, and he had a good run, so for me to finish only 1:32 behind him - and way ahead of everyone else - certainly confirmed my feeling that it was a terrific run.

From the stats, figured this would be a good tune up for the upcoming U.S. Middle Champs at Morgan Territory. That race for me is supposed to be 3.1/140, 13c, very similar to the announced data for today. Of course, Morgan Territory is way more technical than this nearly completely open venue. As it turned out, this was more like practice for a sprint, and I'm just fine with that. In fact, I intentionally treated it very much like a sprint, and worked on the thing I need to work on for sprints, namely, running faster earlier. Throughout I had a heightened sense of urgency as I always do in a sprint but rarely do in the woods. #5 was the only leg in which I had some hesitation; otherwise, charged through every leg (though I chose to walk a little on a few of the very steep sections - maybe I didn't need to). For a change, actually was getting into oxygen debt towards the end, more like a 5K run than an orienteering race. Didn't make any navigational mistakes, though many people certainly did. I think the Vancouver Sprint Camp really helped me here, especially the discussions I had with coaches Brent and Erin.

1. Went out much faster than I do even in a sprint. Cut the corner of the path a bit. Couldn't see a second path on the map in the circle, so a little puzzled about which path junction the clue sheet meant, but used the ball field to locate where the control should be and saw the flags from a distance.

2. Ran on the little path (which I still couldn't see on the map) because it was going where I wanted to go anyway, namely, along the base of the hill to the paved path. Took the paved path to the bend and took a good compass bearing while still on the run. After crossing the next dirt path, there was a bit of an elephant trail dead ahead on my bearing, which made the rest of the leg a bit easier than it might have been. Several people made significant errors here (this leg was on most of the advanced courses), including people who went out even later than I did.

3. Sharp turn left, followed my bearing downhill, nailed it. Ran reasonably fast, thinking that the drop off (rather than the thicker stand of bushes) would be a good catching feature if I needed it. Rex lost half a minute here.

4. Realized immediately that contouring around the overgrown creek would be the best route, and executed it at a good speed. Rex went through the marsh at the bottom of the creek; I was 6 seconds faster.

5. Longest leg on the course, and the only one I wasn't really satisfied with. Clearly going through the marsh at the creek junction would be the shortest route, but that would be more climb plus getting wet, which I never like ;-). So, went left, mostly contouring but climbing a little, figuring I'd go all the up to #12 if I needed to get around the hatched green. But then I spotted a gap in the green down in the reentrant, so changed course and went through that. Climbing NW up the next big spur, identified the little bush and also the hilltop at the end of the spur, but for some reason I was still a little wary that I might actually be at the next saddle to the SW. As I crossed down into the next big reentrant, I saw a control on the opposite side. When I initially planned the leg, I hadn't been too concerned about the exact location of the control, but had the impression that it was in fact on the other side of this reentrant - but now I looked more closely and saw that it wasn't. Hmm, so what I was seeing must be my #8. All of this was the cause for going more slowly on this portion of the leg, but once I sorted things out, picked up speed and nailed the control.

6. Expected a much bigger hill ahead of me, but unbeknownst to me at the moment, that was due to the misinformation about the contour interval. Nevertheless, stayed on my bearing, past to the left of the patch of fight so I knew I was right on, then went over some unmapped broken ground right to the control. Feeling a little tired as I went up the hill, so didn't push the speed, even walked a little.

7. Had already worked out that I need to contour to the nose of the second spur, dropping a little, so left 6 immediately and hardly looked at the map. Did too good a job of holding the contour, and as I came around the second spur, spotted the bushes further down hill (so I should have gone more directly), veered and ran hard right to the flag.

8. Again, had this one all figured out in advance, ran hard all the way, but did a face-first sprawl on the wet grass as I neared the flag - and still wound up tied with Rex and Johanna K for first on the leg.

9. Zig-zagged right then left across the big reentrant, then climbed the hill angling to the left, walking a good part of it. Crested it right where I wanted, at the W edge of the saddle. Ran towards the streambed then went right, along with the contour. Meanwhile, looked ahead to the left to see if I could spot #10, and I did. Had to go further up alongside the stream bed than I'd imagined; guess I should have cut the corner some.

10. Having seen #10 already, and knowing that the flag would be visible from direction of approach, was emboldened to just blast in that direction, and nailed it. Had the fastest split.

11. Running pretty fast now, planned to just stay along the left edge of the flatish ground. But there was a good deal of vegetation ahead, and I could see the dirt road close by on my right, so angled over to that, ran until the corner of the fence. Still moving, took a bearing from there, looked up and saw the top of the rocks, straight in from there. Again had the fastest split.

12. Contoured to the N side of the hill, soon spotted the bag.

13. Around the left side of the hill, though climbed a little to save some distance. Surprised how steep it was down the far side, proceeded with some caution. Rex went straight over the top, and also said he was a bit cautious on the downhill; I was only 1 sec behind him. Johanna must've thrown caution to the wind, as she had a 7 sec faster split.

F. Long run to the finish. Glanced at my watch and could see I wasn't going to get under 25, so didn't go all out.


Winsplits

[Orienteering race]

Head for SF after lunch. Stay at the Laurel Inn.

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching and strength exercises. No strength exercises during last weekend's Sprint Camp.

Front of house. Chilly, misty. Ran a little more than I usually would a couple of days before a race, but wanted to get at least a little training in. Legs had felt pretty tired walking upstairs, but after half a lap, felt fairly decent. Good pick up for last half a lap.

Read a map while I was running, the Self-Relay Sprint from the Team Trials at Mills several years ago.

630, 604, 544, 228

[Easy distance w/map]

Cool down.

JCCLG. Two-sets-instead-of-three workout. Didn't do bar dips because right shoulder was hurting, and only one set of presses because they seemed to be hurting my neck. Did some bosu hopping.

[Strength exercises]

Los Gatos Creek Trail. Very casual pace until the last 3/4 mile, when I got pack to a more normal pace. Fine, light run as part of recovering from last weekend's Sprint Camp.

We were going to run at the lake, but around 10am (as predicted), winds started howling and L didn't like the idea of running under all the trees up here. So, since we had to go into Los Gatos anyway for several errands, drove down there and ran on the creek trail.

Start and finish at the overpass behind California Cafe

S/F ---------- 4418
-----------------(105)
2.0-----110 - 4313
--------(528) - (442)
2.5-----639 - 3831
--------(526) - (511)
3.0----1205 - 3320
--------(523) - (515)
3.5---1728 - 2805
------ (513) - (524)
4.0 ----- 2241

[Easy distance]

Warm up: jog over from the lost behind Pharmaca. 2 mins, 0.1 mi.

Cool down: jog back to car then around the lot a little. 4 mins, 0.2 mi.

Oracle Gym. Machines, core, weights, bosu balancing. Two sets instead of three for the first three.

[Strength exercises]