Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

At home. Complete session, pushing everything. Theraband interleaved with core; adductors; 16 bar dips. Weights, 2 sets each: curls, 18 reps, presses, 12 reps, both with 25 pounds, each arm.

Later: neck and left elbow ache.

[Strength exercises]

The usual weekly accumulation of morning exercises. No strength exercises last Sunday due to the Berkeley meet. This morning, did most of the strength exercises at the Competitive Edge.

De Anza Park, San Jose. While L was getting treatment at The Competitive Edge (Kevin's) from Matt for (what turned out to be) a bulging disk in her neck. Wasn't sure what I was going to do while she was getting treated, and going for a run was a bit spontaneous. A hot day was in the offing, and it was still a bit cool when I started at 7:15.

Legs seemed tired at first, but got going pretty well. Had to push pretty hard over the last 3 laps.

440, 416, 409,
213 ---- run over to Kevin's to check on Louise
401, 357, 353, 349

Distance (0.4 mi/lap) is an educated guess, based somewhat on my sense of my pace but also on measurements I made of the perimeter of this park when I started to make an OCAD map of it a couple of years ago. Of course, it's unlikely that the distance per lap is exactly 0.4 miles.

[Distance]

Cool down

At home. Short on time, made the rests even shorter than usual. Theraband interleaved with core (everything but only one set of "punches"), adductors (one set instead of two), 16 bar dips. Curls: two sets, 16 and 20 (!) reps; presses: two sets of 12 (usually do 3 sets of 8).

[Strength exercises]

Front of house loop (because it was shadier than the jeep trail and also to avoid thorns and stickers). Legs still pretty sore from Berkeley on Sunday, so taking it pretty easy. In fact, probably should have held back more on the last lap.

646, 620, 604, 536

[Easy distance]

Cool down

At home. 3 sets each of curls and presses. 15 bar dips. 3 sets of core exercises (i.e., half of the usual).

[Strength exercises]

Oracle. Pull downs, triceps and lats. Pyramid. Pushed hard.

[Strength exercises]

Legs quite sore from yesterday.

UC Berkeley. Summer Series, so one advanced course for everyone (well, there was a "short advanced" but that didn't count for the Summer Series). Nice course set by Lori Huberman. Advertised as having 41 one controls, but yesterday changed to 30.

Really fun, very challenging. Wore out about 2/3 of the way through, but concentrated and hung on.

Started at 12:17, a minute behind Michael Ertmann. 19th of 49; don't think anyone ahead of me is over 50 (maybe Deron). Chuck S was the next old guy, 5:18 behind (but he just came back from O-Ringen yesterday, so he undoubtedly was a bit out of whack). Interestingly, only 5 of the 18 people ahead of me started their orienteering careers in the US; of those 5, one was visiting from Michigan and another came to the US after college.

Weather was cool when I arrived so wore O-pants. However, by the time I started it had warmed up quite a bit; I would have been much better off in shorts.

With one event to go, I am surprisingly leading the Summer Series in points.

Lost about 45 secs on #13 (I would have guessed 15-20, so I'm surprised that it was 45) and 30-35 on #23 (though WinSplits didn't flag the latter as an error). A couple of times (#16, #22) I'd picked the optimal route but wound up on a different route, losing maybe 10-15 secs. Minor route choice error (5-10 secs) at the beginning of #21 and small bobble (7 to 10 secs) early in the leg to #17. Everything else was pretty right on.

Best split ranks were:

8th on #1 (45 secs)
10th on #28 (40)
11th on #25 (53)
11th on #29 (37)

As usual, my split ranks on the shorter legs are significantly better than on the longer legs; for the latter, running speed matters more, while for the former, pre-planning, efficiency and accuracy matter more.

Worse split ranks:

43 on #23 (141), where I lost 45
29 on #17 (355), where I lost 7-10 (uphill was an additional factor)
28 on #13 (225), where I lost 30-35

All the other split ranks were between 14 and 26.

#1. Arrived at the building entrance at the same time as Michael, who'd started a minute ahead of me, arrived from the opposite direction. No control flag in sight, details on the map too small to make sense of, was starting to think maybe it's upstairs when Michael darted up, so I followed and there it was. Turned out to be my highest split rank of the day, 8th.

#2, #3: Straightforward.

#4. Straightforward getting there, but there were a lot of little details in the circle I couldn't really make out, so had to hunt just a little. There was a vegetated little area that looked crossable, and I would've crossed it coming out after punching, but it looked red on the map, didn't know what that would mean, so went around it. Later, I saw that it was a piece of contour line running through there.

#5, #6: Careful map reading required, but reasonably straightforward.

#7. Took the covered walkway around the right side of the round building. At the end, went through the tunnel to the split stairway. Probably helped that I remembered that tunnel from previous events. Tunnel should have been emphasized with the purple passageway symbol. Note: I now see that both ends of the tunnel are indeed marked with the purple passageway symbol, but they're awfully hard to see.

#8. Decided not to climb the remaining stairway even though that route looked like it might be a drop shorter (going up stairs wears me out). As I started back down, Francois punched and headed up the stairs. He beat me to the SW corner of the building, but he's so much faster, hard to know from that which was the better route. Also, as I was going back through the tunnel, Michael was coming in. He'd pulled away after #2, and I was surprised to see him. Turned out he'd been to the bottom of the stairs, earlier, didn't see the bag, went all the way to #8 to relocate before coming back.

#9, #10, #11. More careful map reading required, but reasonably straightforward.

#12. Recognized immediately upon leaving #11 (though I should have seen this on the way to #11), that heading back towards #10 was the best route. Started to go across the little strip of white just E of #12 because I'd ascertain that the wall on the far side was mapped as crossable, but when I could actually see the wall, it looked like too big a jump, so backed out and went around the S end. By this time, Michael had nearly caught up.

#13. Perhaps in too much of a hurry, trying to stay ahead of Michael. Went around the N side of the building (didn't notice that Michael, correctly, had gone around the S side) and was almost at the NW corner before realizing there was no way up from there. Stopped, started heading back, thinking I'd have to climb the hill at the extreme NE corner of the map before noticing there was a stairway near the SW corner of the building, so reversed direction again and went that way. Slow climbing all the stairs, but no further navigational difficulty. Lost 30 - 35 secs (could have believed more), and a bit surprised that my split ranking was still as high as 28.

#14. Determined in plenty of time that I needed to get on the S side of the uncrossable wall, but couldn't really see the details of exactly which wall the bag would be on. Fortunately, the bag was plenty visible one I got close.

#15. Almost ran past the first stairway down, but fortunately realized that that was the best route right as I was at the top of those stairs, so only lost a second. Otherwise, took what I think was the best route, and had a good split rank (16) to show for it. Update: looking at the map carefully now with a magnifier, there appears to be a small path through the southernmost piece of dark green. Taking that would have been a very slightly better route both going in and coming out of #15.

#16. Did a good job for the first two-thirds of the route, but then I missed the turn that would take me through the grassy area with the flag pole. Slowed a little, but within a few seconds realized what had happened, and continued with the "legs" of the right triangle instead of the planned hypotenuse. Probably cost me 10 - 15 secs.

#17. Headed W in order to get around the building. Took a few steps onto the bridge across the stream before the building before realizing that the best route was to turn right immediately before the building, so went back and did that. (That's the 7-10 secs I lost, though I suppose it could have been a little more than that.) The hill (10m climb) halfway through kind of finished off my already-tired legs, and for the rest of the race I ran noticeably more slowly. As I went diagonally across the grassy square 2/3 of the way through, Anastasiya came up to my shoulder, but then she inexpicably peeled off to the right. At the end, the string through the hole in the epunch unit kept my stick from registering, and I had to fiddle for a couple of seconds to record my punch, and then held it for a couple more seconds so Anastasiya, who had caught back up and come down the stairs right behind me, could punch. So, all together, lost about 15 secs (not counting the climb), which had the effect of lowering my split rank from 21 (what I might expect from an uphill leg) to 29.

#18, #19, #20. Well done with good map reading while on the run.

#21. Saw two routes, one to the left, one to the right. The latter looked a bit shorter, so headed for that. But on the way through the courtyard, saw there was a middle route, across the bridge, that was shorter, so once out of the courtyard, cut left across the grass to the bridge. Looks like it would have been shorter to get to the bridge by going around to the left in the first place, so I probably lost 5 - 10 secs here.

#22. Went W across the terrace, turned left at the bottom of the long stairway, and quickly realized that I'd made the exact same mistake as I had on #16! Cost me a little less this time because I recognized it quickly and didn't have to slow down. Good job at the end of the leg keeping focused and getting to the correct spot without hesitation.

#23. Worst leg of the day, as I was getting really tired and didn't focus enough. Started up the correct stairway to the plaza, but then suddenly thought that that was going to take me a level higher than I wanted. (The purple line from #22 to #23 might have had something to do with that, as it was perfectly parallel to the wall actually defining the upper level.) As I'd approached the bottom of the stairs, I'd noticed that there appeared to be a passageway under the stairs, so (stupidly, because no such passageway is indicated on the map), I went around to investigate that, and it turned out to be an entranceway (blocked by an iron gate) to an underground garage. So, back to the stairs, and by then I'd figured out that that was indeed the correct way to go. Splits show clearly that I lost about 45, though I would've guessed it was no more than 20).

#24. Straightforward but detailed. Did it well.

#25. Didn't want to go up the stairs, so thought I'd go back out the way I came in, but at the last second noticed the path to the right and then the little bridge, so went that way. One of my better legs of the day.

#26. N and up the stairs, then over and down. Definitely the best route.

#27. Another detailed but straightforward leg. Helped at the end by familiarity: knew I had to go up the ramp and get into the courtyard.

#28. Seemed straightforward, but I guess not for everyone as I had the 10th best time, my second highest rank of the day.

#29. Another very good leg; seemed straightforward to me.

#30. Chose left (before punching #29) because it looked a little shorter than right, but they're probably about the same.


WinSplits

[Orienteering race]

C • points 4

Warm up

Cool down. Leg, especially hamstrings, pretty shot.