Training Log Archive: iansmith

Event: NEOC: Harold Parker State Forest
 

Easy warmup run after working registration. My left leg has felt a bit odd lately. I am hoping that the pain is due to the sorry state of my running shoes rather than overuse. My left heel - and what feels like the medial band of my left plantar fascia - have been hurting over the past week in subtle reminders of my state from early April 2012 before my right PF injury. I usually am diligent about stretching my calves, but I have fallen off that lately.

My legs felt ok, so I decided to finish warming up by running the yellow course, as running around the parking lot was boring.

Yellow course by Tobias Karlsson. Earlier in the day, I saw a group of boy scout leaders teaching boy scout O-technique (i.e. wrong technique) to some scouts. I considered intervening with the "oriented point on the map" view of the world rather than the "rotate your bezel" view of the world, but the leaders seemed very confident.

I ran into the same scouts while cruising through the course and later encountered them during control pickup. It seems they got their money's worth out of the expedition.

After working registration, warmup, yellow course, and socializing, I didn't get out on the course until 1 PM. Courses close at 2 PM, so I did my best to hurry.

Today's lesson: don't read about the current winning times before going out on a course. I misread the current leader's 113 minutes as 1:13 = 73 minutes, so I was perplexed when I was only at control 12 one hour into the race. Even had I known that my race wasn't a total disaster, dnfing to get back to the finish when courses closed was the correct decision.

Tobias put together a great advanced course, with very few trail legs. Harold Parker has many interesting areas, but the vegetation is just too dense. I pride myself on my ability to punch through crap, but this was unceasing. There are some parts of the woods that are very nice - e.g. around 7-10, but between the outdated map and the nasty green, the experience was unpleasant. With all the trails mapped correctly, the map could offer some interesting route choice possibilities.

Major kudos to everyone who fought through the course today, and thanks to Tobias for a challenging day.

C • Harold Parker 16

Control pickup. My left achilles flared up near the end. I'm not sure the boy scouts knew that the event is technically a race, as they were having a little lecture series by the last yellow control.

I went out for a second control pickup session; Pete Lane, Scott Turner, and Richard Powers all helped out. Achilles was upset, so I walked almost the entire thing.

Yellow - Splits

Red - Splits