Training Log Archive: CleverSky

US Champs, Day 2. A twist in the morning -- Kevin somehow became a DNF overnight, so instead of 3rd place, I was in 2nd. Tim had seen him and asked about it, and got a vague response, but we assumed that he would get reinstated. I tried to drill into my head that I really needed to look at the map as much as I could force myself to, since my issues on Day 1 were the opposite of PG's -- lack of attention, and too much blind running and hoping for luck. My start was near the end of the window, and it was getting pretty warm.

Opposite route to PG's for #1, down the trail a little then cut in to go diagonally down the slope. Spotted the first rootstock, and overshot the second by a tiny bit, thinking there would be a stone wall to catch me. I looked closer and saw that it was just a park boundary, but when I turned around I saw the painted blazes, and the rootstock. Ran back up to it, but no control. I was just about to leave when I glanced on the trunk side and saw it. Who ever puts controls on the trunk side? #2 was hard. I tried to be careful, but it was too hard, and I couldn't get the contours to correlate with the terrain. I used the indistinct trail to get me partway there, but should have used the walls. Once I got up on top and could see what looked like a marsh up ahead, I tried to get things to match, and either succeeded or got lucky, because I found it. #3 looked like another tough one, and I made an effort to take it slowly and check things off, but the spaghetti all looked the same, and I couldn't be sure what was a mapped marsh and what wasn't. I spotted a control when I had gone the right distance, but it was not mine (turned out to be on a knoll 70 meters or so to the right), and I failed to figure out what feature it was really on, and decided to bail to the steep slope ahead. I wasn't sure if I was too far left or right, but I made a guess and turned left. My first glance up to where the control was, I didn't spot it, but I looked at things again, and found it on my second try.

Not off to a good start. Four minutes lost on that control, and a bit on the first couple as well. But then I guess I got things into gear.

Nailed 4 and 5 cleanly without hesitation. Similar route to PG on 6, except that at the end I went around the right end of the marsh instead of crossing it, to avoid the delay and have a solid attack. Caught Istvan at #7 (8 minutes made up), and on #8 I went a little higher than PG in order to see the wall and have a good attack. Also similar to PG on #9, a little further left, and instead of using the second wall at the end, I navigated by marshes and ended up at the two-line marsh to the SE, but the crowd coming in made it easy to correct. Same on #10 except for at the end where I went up the stone wall all the way to the junction before heading in diagonally (and I approached the flag from the NE to avoid the green). Pretty much dead straight on #11, didn't run on the road at all. I got confused on the way to #12 because I could see fences up ahead that I couldn't see on the map, thinking that they were around the ball fields, when I was actually already in the ball fields. When I saw the control on the fence, I had the presence of mind to realize that I still had one more left to punch.

Tired at the end, and I saw that Tom Svobodny was already done -- he had started 4 minutes ahead of me, and I had a 5 minute lead from Saturday, so he hadn't necessarily caught me, but I hadn't done as well in a relative sense as the previous day. After getting a drink of water, I saw that Tim was there as well. He had started 12 minutes before me, and I would have had to have finished within 5 minutes of him to catch him, but he looked well-rested, and I figured he had been in for a while. That turned out not to be true, I think he actually finished after me, and it turned out that I had indeed gotten ahead of him for the weekend. Tom had a great run, and was only 2 minutes slower than me. When I checked the results, Kevin's time was up, and I saw that it didn't matter whether he was reinstated, I was faster then him anyway. Looks like despite the hiccups at the beginning, I had the second-fastest time on the course for the day, and moved into the Gold medal slot for M50. Never give up! National Champion, how about that? Nice to have snagged one -- if people like Vlad have their way, this event won't exist for much longer.

As a postscript, I think the training that I've done recently, though limited, was fairly applicable in terms of running style. The kind of forest that we were running through this weekend was not that different from what I have handy on the Mystery Blazes loop in particular. Serendipity.

C • congratulations 7

US Champs, Day 1, Happy Valley WMA (CNYO). Since I'll be turning 50 this year, I decided to take one shot at running my age group at the first opportunity, and signed up for Green. I've never won at the Two-Day Champs, though that can be attributed in large part to the fact that up through 2007 I always ran Blue. Then in '08 and '10 I ran M45 and finished 7th and 3rd (and for some reason I didn't go out to WI in '09 when the event was a one-day).

Started out the course quite fine when I hit the start box and nothing happened. Hmm, I guess I was supposed to clear first, huh? No matter, trot back, find a clear box, and start 30 seconds or so late. Great for concentration. And then I started out on a pretty appalling run. Around the north side of the pond on #1 (no big deal), lost contact approaching #2 then overshot and relocated on a cairn and recovered, got lucky on the next couple, then on #5 I crossed the marsh at a great spot, and I was probably within 150 m of the control, but I thought I was much further to the right, so I turned left and headed off into oblivion, off the map completely. Utterly inexcusable, and I'm fortunate to have lost only 7 minutes or so on that boondoggle (I wound up coming in from the south along the valley bottom). I had my act more or less together for the next three, but on #9, due to inattention I drifted waaaaay too far to the right, and only noticed that things were weird when I encountered some ponds, which were the ones adjacent to the start field, which I then ran through. Despite this ludicrous route, I think I had a faster split on the leg than Jeff did. And for dessert, I left #9 thinking I was going from #10 to the finish, but I was also way off on direction, so I was baffled by the lack of open area but going the right way (when I hit the stone wall halfway there, I came to my senses).

I knew that this wasn't a very good run, and then when I sat down, the first person I was chatting with was Jeff, who had the best time on the course, and that really confirmed my feelings, seeing how far back I was. Looked like almost all of the deficit was due to my being blunderstruck on #5. I think it was still something like the 6th best time on the course, but it left me in third place on M50, 6 minutes or so back, which was clearly too much to make up. Although I had signed up for the event with optimism, I had realized when I saw that Nadim, Tim, and Kevin were in there as well that even hopes for a medal were slim. Fortunately, Nadim really blew up, so if I could hold it together on Sunday, I could still get Bronze.