Training Log Archive: FoxShadow

Trail run at the River Bottoms. Felt good, almost always does when I'm on those trails. Good terrain.

Upper body and core exercise at the gym.

I posted this to MNOC group, but I'm not sure anyone checks that so I'll try there as well -- We need to get the Friday night runs at Hyland resurrected. I am willing to do the work. Ideally I'd like to do two and if someone were willing to take a third I'd love to run one too. They are the reason I started Orienteering and I think I could get a good size group to come. I'd hope MNOC'ers/OTNT'ers would come as well, even though I plan on setting Orangish courses.

Did Bullard get permission from Hyland Park to do those or were they more OTNT style? That parking lot we used to use was unconventional, was there a reason we used that one? Were those courses about 4k? Can someone send me the purple pen file please? I'd consider even getting it ready for this Friday.

C • Hyland 18

Upper body and core exercises at the gym.

Run on the treadmill. Felt pretty good. Need to do more running if I'm to survive Possum Trot.

Blue course. Went pretty well, made a few typical Puzak mistakes but corrected them before blowing up. One of my favorite mistakes to make is to frenzy myself into hypoxia and get so tri-dumb I lose all contact with the map. ("Tri-dumb" is the hypoxic stupor some of us know from going so hard during a triathlon you cruise off course or do something otherwise inexplicably stupid.)

Not that I do stupid things only when I frenzy myself into hypoxia, it's merely one of my favorite ways I do stupid things.

I did this a bit at CP 5-6. As I approached CP 6 I was looking for the small depression 3/4th of the way there as it was virtually the only attackpoint on the route. I never found it. There appeared to me to be little depressions all around me! Wel;, the only other attackpoints on this route were two little marshes with a small hill to the SW of them. There they were! How I I north of them I thought? I flew down there and did not find the CP. I then realized I was in light green, so the CP must be north. I went north out of the light green veg found a second set of two small marshes with a small hill SW of them, curse you Brigadier General Eleazar W. Ripley!

Then on my way into 10 I was feeling pretty good again, and certainly enjoying myself. The stress of the difficult nav. coupled with the moderate success I was having (especially after a difficult prior day) was so fun. That and not getting cut up trying to fight through buckthorn. I recognized the terrian and knew where I was with confidence most of the way there. I arrived in a large depression with some undergrowth in it. The CP was in a small CP just north of there. Except I can't find it! I'm cruising around checking the small depressions north of the huge sprawling one south of me, feeling the noose of confusion and self-doubt restricting my breathing and perhaps my ability to think straight as well. I'm hating it. Instead of checking my map, I'm scanning the real world too much. After three minutes of acting like as idiot, I stop and check my map and see that there is a similar set of features on the map, just of north of where I thought I was. Of course, I already had been thinking I ran too far north when I glanced at my compass a few times going into there! Why did I not out the two together? I don't know, this is hard, even if it seems easy. This sport is like golf. You start by cherishing the few times you do well, and eventually you start wondering how you could ever makes a mistake, but you keep doing it all the time. No hypoxia here, just tough nav. I was entering the hardest area in all all of Ripley.

The next 4 CPs I mowed down like Brigadier Ripley mowed down the British. But while I slightly over-ran CP 13 I saw speedster Marcel pass me, I tried to catch him. Could not do it before CP 14, so I tried on my way into CP 15. I am crashing through the woods like a blood-lusting predator feinding for a tasty meal of speed and victory. Where is that guy? I can't feel the left side of my body. He's the fastest kid alive. I can't see him anymore. Where am I? If were not hypoxic, I would have realized that I knew where I was about 30 second ago, because I knew I ran a ridge almost straight west out of CP 14. But instead I started following Plamen. What a stupid thing to do. Of course, he was heading to a different CP, and when I saw the wall of dark green I reoriented and got back on course.

The rest of the run went pretty damn well as my legs were too tired to carry me faster than my brain could process the terrain. What a great time out there in the gorgeous woods of Camp Ripley. Looking forward to next year.

Warm ups mostly, and a little cool down for all the weekends events.