Training Log Archive: CleverSky

3 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 20 pushups

Newcomb Hollow to White Crest to fetch the car. Smartened up after a few minutes and ran on the soft shoulder where available rather than continuing to beat myself up on the asphalt.

Landed when it started to sprinkle, and got hit with some pretty serious weather on the drive home. Very amusing.

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

I had been thinking that the right foot was probably all better, but then I kind of beat on it, with the pavement of Skinner with too-small spiked shoes in particular not being helpful. It's nowhere near as painful as it was a week ago, just a touch of discomfort, and Nancy had me ice it last night, so I'll rest it for a bit more and I think it will be fine.

I had a dream that went on and on last night in which I posted something on Attackpoint with screwed-up HTML tags that resulted in a graphic of a sawhorse with an "under construction" note appearing on the screen. Unfortunately, people had quoted my message further down in the thread, so my fixing the problem didn't make it go away.

2 x 20 pushups, 50 situps, 2 x 20 pushups

Handicap race (this format needs a better name) at Ansonia, on the "70Hannah" course (presumably named for Hannah Burgess). I'm using a pretty strict definition of a spike here, as I didn't lose significant time anywhere. As I was getting ready, I put on my shoes and realized that I had grabbed the wrong pair, these were the VJ Integrators that are a bit too small and jam my toes, causing me to get blisters and sometimes lose toenails. Fortunately, I had brought another pair of shoes in case I wanted to do something else later on, and they worked out fine. Temp in the mid 30s when we started, and I wore a LS T-shirt over a SS one, and was quite comfortable.
1) #44 -- on a beeline to control 14 until just before I got there, but it was still a decent route. Slight parallel error looking at the wrong rock thing, but lost only a few seconds.
2) #80 -- straight at it, with Hannah running alongside.
3) #54 -- pushing pretty hard, happened upon a recognizable feature halfway that steered me to it.
4) #55 -- long leg across the flats, some of the hotshots going the same way, kept good track of where I was.
5) #57 -- rocky, then an uphill slog, pretty easy. Hannah was still with me as I was leaving, but that's the last I saw of her, and I don't know if she wound up ahead or behind.
6) #81 -- long leg, straight at it because the woods were so nice and open. Lost contact partway along because I couldn't read the map well enough as I was moving at speed, but I just kept going and figured I'd recognize things when I got close. That's pretty much what happened, I was a bit high and to the right when I had gone the right distance, and I could tell from the contours what I needed to do. Sloppy, but not much time lost at the end, and maybe a net gain because I made good time en route.
7) #83 -- easy contouring through rocks.
8) #82 -- dropped down to the flats because of all the rocks, and went to a bigger reentrant on the edge of the circle. No control, but then I looked uphill and saw Lyn's fluorescent jacket.
9) #86 -- fine route until the very end, when I misread the rocks and got myself a bit too far right, which wouldn't have been too bad except that there was a bunch of slash between me and the control.
10) #87 -- could see this from a long way off.
11) #88 -- gained a little on PG, who was just leaving the control as I arrived.
12) #69 -- had trouble with my compass on the early part of this leg, it was telling me one thing, but the contours were telling me something else. I went with the map. I had seen Charlie a few times during the course, and I got ahead of him at the control, but didn't see him again (his course was different, and he finished a couple of minutes before me).
13) #45 -- went way too far right, right of my #1 control, and came into this one from the SW, so it was a dogleg for me. PG just ahead.
14) #72 -- closing in on PG, took my one real fall when I caught a branch with one foot and dragged it up against the other calf.
15) #71 -- still closing in slightly on PG.
16) #76 -- different fork from PG, he was higher on the hillside, while I went down along the marsh
17) #42 -- PG was ahead, but I could see him going way right to get around the water. Figured I had a chance to catch him and went straight tthrough the marsh, arriving just a couple of steps behind.
F) -- PG went out to the road, so I ran along the outfield fence on the chance that it was faster. Seems to have been about even, as he arrived just a couple of steps ahead of me.

Very fun time, I love this map, and I'm glad that Boris and company put on the meet.

A jaunt up Mt Holyoke (Skinner SP) to launch and back (17:25 up, 11:35 down). I couldn't face putting on the swampy wet GoLites again, so I went for the too-small VJs. A questionable move, since the first part of this is on pavement, but maybe just as well since the Halfway Trail had a lot of ice on it and the spikes came in handy. I did this out of curiosity, because I wanted to see just how outrageous the wind was up there, and it turned out to be not so bad, probably would have been flyable after all. Ah well.

On my way down, I encountered a number of people who were walking up. One foursome was on the Halfway Trail, looking pretty done in by either the steepness or the ice. Another couple on the road included a stylish looking gal who was wearing what appeared to be clogs with about 4-inch heels (not wedges, but slender heels). That road is pretty steep, and I was thinking that although those shoes might not seem so bad on the way up, she was probably going to find herself in a pretty uncomfortable position when it came time to turn around and walk back down.