Training Log Archive: W

One more full day in Truckee deserves one more longer run. I wasn't intending this to be this long, but I got up in the hills, and then saw a really big hill and felt I needed to just run up this one hill. Which lead to another one, and another, and suddenly I was in some parking lot with a map and I realized I was.... fairly far away from where I started. Then it was a not quite as nice run down a road back. Hot, sunny, but a bit of a breeze made it quite a nice day, and I was slathered with sunscreen so no burning for me!

Thankfully, my week of racing is almost at an end, and I'm pretty roasted, though miraculously not sick. The last thing to do is the Trailcross event, a long-ish running/navigation race at Northstar. Generally its easy enough to take trails, unless you're feeling sassy, which, of course, I am.

Actually there were two guys with me for a while, which means I to try a bit. Fortunately the pack blew up a bit when I read 9 to mean 6 and started going there from 5. I corrected, any everyone else did at slightly different times, but it gave me the jump. I had to hustle after 7 to get out of sight of Jonis, otherwise I'm sure he would have easily hung on. Going to 5 was a minor miracle as I straightlined it up this somewhat vague hillside only to recognize the green bit right beside the control and discover I was going to dead on straight. Huzzah! Definitely fun to run from 8 to the rest of the course, as it was all progressively downhill and I could very comfortably carry a 3:30 pace.

A quick sprint around Northstar village. And.. by quick, I mean painful and slow, especially back up. Missed the mark on the leg in the field with the down trees, I think the scale totally whacked me out and I didn't adjust. The town bit of the course was really neat though, with stairs, cut throughs, and largely pedestrian only areas. I've often thought that downhill ski resort villages would make great sprint areas too.

Now time for the Little Truckee long. I'm starting to feel it now, in the legs and the lungs. My warm-up consisted of yawning a little bit of heavy breathing in place. Eh, I'll warm-up to the first three.

This was actually a good idea because the first one was up a relatively gradual climb and then I had a nice couple of minutes of flat until I climbed more in earnest. Nailed most of the course, the hooked a bit at 7, had a quick stop on my way to 5 because I didn't think I was where I thought I was.

The most egregious error was on the long leg, when I stupidly went way left (thinking I'd save a little bit of climbing while aiming for a certain plateau, but then really misplacing where I was and climbing 3-4 extra contours unnecessarily as I was spit out on the road. That really didn't need to happen and caused about a minute loss.

In many cases I pleasantly surprised myself because I would take a bearing and check things along my way until I got to the feature, all quite efficiently. Granted, the visibility was very high, but I think I was definitely doing all good things deliberately. Missed the water stop (19), by going to high, largely because I was looking for a "distinct tree" when none of them were, and especially not the one on the control.

Then I took the downhill right route on the way back, which I think was the best as it gave me an extra minute. The other route may have saved some climb, but only if you spend quite a bit of distance sidehilling in kind of rough white.

Anyway, pleased with how the race went. Was coaxed into saying hello to the Danes, which was an excellent idea because they were very nice. Jacob was at Junior Worlds this year and placed 7th in the long, and also has a silver medal from last year's champs. I spent most of the time telling them coming to Canada would be a way better idea next time!

Blue - Splits

Alright, time for some real racing. First up is the middle distance at Little Truckee Summit.

And wouldn't ya know it, the danes show up. Okay, not all the Danes, but does it really matter? You're wearing a Danish jersey, you're probably awesome. Unfortunately, turns out he was, and I got beat by a solid two minutes. Made a few too many hooks, and a dumb mistake at 13 when I went around a perfectly good saddle and then didn't have my direction right. I should have realized that the clearing wouldn't be as distinct as I expected, despite having a distinct veg. edge symbol (given that it was often impossible to see the clearings).

In other legs I went fairly solidly straight, which I was pleased about, and in many cases was able to see the features as broadly as possible, since the hills and valleys were usually quite wide and shallow.

Blue #2 - Splits

It would seem to be the case of the disappearing Garmin files, as my track from the sprint has also gone the way of the dodo. Its like, sometimes the computer doesn't delete the files off the watch when I upload, so it takes a super long time, and then I have to delete them manually, but I don't realize that not all the tracks have actually been uploaded.

The sprint was right down in Truckee at the lake whose name I don't remember. A relatively flat and soft area with a campground and whole bunch of rock. The map was not sprint standard, which I promptly filed a protest regarding. Its my new thing. Protests. All the time. As much as possible.

The sprint itself was, once again, exhausting. I think I was dying by 3. At 3, in fact, I kept taking a bearing from 5-4 instead of the 3-4, because they were on a very similar angle. That pulled me way, way left and I lost 30 seconds there. The rest was fairly simple. Again a reminder to look up and see in the distance, because, odds are, you'd just see the control. There were definitely a few tricky flat legs across featureless white forest which I was pleased to have done fairly well on, though ran with a bit of trepidation.

An afternoon Motala in the hot hot weather of North Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately, I got the easy loop first. This might seem like a good thing, but I actually would have liked to get the slightly harder leg first. Instead, I did it when other people were already there, and provided cues as to where I was going. For practice purposes I would have liked to do them first and get in the practice. On the one tricky leg I got lucky and found the long fallen tree first, but I'm not sure I had much of a plan beyond "stay on compass bearing" which could have ended badly. The long leg on the third loop pulled me way right, too, although I was aware of that the entire time, since I was pulled by the lure of better runnability. I don't think its necessarily a bad thing if you know its happening and when you hit the level of control you know you have to correct left.

Blue/Red Sprint - Splits

Event: Sierra Summerfest
 

First event of the Sierra Summerfest 5-day, the Spooner Scramble. I swore I was going to take this easy, and... I mostly did, but sometimes I get carried away.

Spooner lake is an easy place to get carried away too. The ground is a little soft so the climbs are very difficult and exhausting. However, then you get up to the top, which is really nice, and then eventually have to come down, which is super nice because you just bound down this soft stuff all the way which is forgiving on the legs and also super fast. Really, really nice.

The race was also very pleasant, just a simple score-O. Made a bit of a mistake on a side-hilling leg when trying to save climb. Saved so much climb I ended up too high but actually thought I was too low. Also was dumb and didn't get the one control on the lake first like Greg did, which would have saved me 5 minutes or so.

So a certain amount of paranoia about getting sick before my trip/ races lead me to take two days off before flying to Reno. I think 3/5 WOC trips I've gotten sick immediately afterwards, and this year I did a super hard workout the day after I got back. That was just asking for it!

But.... then I flew to Reno to hang out with Carol and race the lake Tahoe races! First up was the TOC Wednesday training at Tahoe Donner. I don't quite know where my GPS track for this event went, it seems to have flat out disappeared. But, it was a nice jog over to the ski trails and then a short sprint around there followed by another jog picking up controls. A nice evening, and reminder that at altitude it only takes about 5 minutes of easy jogging to feel totally gassed.

Before what can only described as my least favorite day ever at the shop, I went and ran an old Wednesday night course I missed around McNally and Riverdale. There's a neat little new-ish condo area that has tiny little cut throughs which was a fun new little bit. Everything was decidely Wednesday night standard, and classic summer Edmonton thick. Not so great.

So I did some math, and tragically, my reign of terror as number #1 orienteer in North America is going to end on September 21, 2013. That's the day my last vaguely decent score, a middle in China, will drop off, and I'll tank below 4000 for the first time since July 17, 2011. This is what happens with a remarkably painful string of both poor races and mis-punches (3 in WREs so far this year).

There may be some positives from this - 1) I'm fitter, so I'm running faster, but my brain can't keep up. 2) I'm a better navigator, so I'm doing everything faster. I'm going further out on that razor's edge because I can, but its a high risk place. 3) I'm having a real, real concentration problem lately. Not just in orienteering, but in everything. (That one's not so positive).

Nevertheless, I will have been #1 for 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days. That's going straight on my resume! Amusingly, I only won one national championship, and nothing at North Americans. Perhaps there ARE problems with the WRE system!

Also, I will be taking #1 back exactly three weeks later.

So, here was the plan. Show up to the shop with my bike, work for a few hours, then head out on a bike ride.

5 hours later, I get out at three, and discover my rear tire is low. So I gingerly ride home, pump up my tire, and continue on. It was surprisingly muddy out there. I also discovered another trail that has now fallen in the river.

Infuriatingly, cyclists are already cutting a new trail above it. I think this is highly inappropriate, unless it was approved by the city, which, judging by this trail, it was definitely not. There's a bunch of new trails with terribly made jump just to the south of this area too, which really tick me off. Everyone and their dog seems to have some sort of long travel "all-mountain" bike now, and they cruise around looking for jumps in their jeans and t-shirts and no helmets. Some of these poorly made a really, really huge too. Idiots.

Wow, my first few steps of this run felt terrible. Ankle pain, knee pain, I had to try pretty hard not to just turn around and pack it in right then and there. But, as most my routes have bailout points, I felt it was best to tough it out and maybe it would get better.

Turns out it did! Also turns out that there was quite a bit of new things from the flooding that happened a few weeks ago while I was away. The weird one was this board walk that goes over a bit of marsh-y area in Whitemud creek. Ordinarily the end of the boardwalk is flush with the level of the ground. Yet, now either the boardwalk or the ground has raised/sunk a solid foot or foot and a half. I would have thought the ground sunk, but there's really not a lot of evidence of that. Very weird.

I expect if I had approached from the other direction, I would have not noticed as just fallen off the end.

So, I was trying to think about what would be the best cathartic experience post whatever that was in Finland. Do I take a bunch of time off? Maybe blog about it? Come up with the world's greatest 140-character tweet? Find some scapegoat to blame? (way to let me down, [You]).

No, in reality there's only one valid way, re-group and start training again. So, I headed out to the "Trailcross" special FT workout, one partly to promote the Trailcross race which is the weekend after the Death Race. It looks like fun, and I'm primarily entering to disabuse crossfitters of the knowledge that they can run.

Anyway, it was one of the biggest ever FT workouts, thanks to a shoe draw afterwards and race entry discount. (3 x 3 minutes + 3 x 30 seconds) x 2. I tried to push strongly up the first hill and then continue the throttle over the top, which the aim of recovering on the long gradual downhill. It....mostly worked. Had several new folks out, one of whom had the strange tendency of lying on his back with his legs in the air during the rest period. That, was weird. And probably unproductive. He'd also recovery back down the hill backwards. Also a little weird. But, I feel confident he won't be back. You can just tell these things.

C • high altitude training camp? 2

Well, another WOC has come and gone. I have no desire to document it ad nauseum.

So, here is a template that you are welcome to adapt.

"The [race/training] was going pretty well until [control 1/2/3/4/5/6 etc.] where I totally [missed/botched/****ed up/mis-punched] and everything went to hell. I think it may have had something to do with me [sucking/being dumb/lazy/distracted/unable to count/Turks]. "

That'll pretty much do it.

C • Template 7