Training Log Archive: CleverSky

At the behest of the very generous Valerie, my renowned SI6* is being retired to the shelf. It's seen some fine days in the woods.

C • So was that what was crashi... 2

11 ring pullups. Thought about another one, wasn't feeling it.

11 ring pullups.

Caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and noticed that I have a distinct bruise on my ribcage where I ran into the branch on the way to control #9.

Hudson Highlander. I suspected that my watch wouldn't have enough battery life, so I brought two watches. I was able to concatenate the two files into one run, but in doing so, the splits information was lost. So I'm putting the two raw files in at zero intensity so that I'll have the splits info. Note that there's significant overlap, as I started the second watch at the last map exchange, but let the first watch keep going until the battery died.

Navigationally, this went quite well. I spiked all but one control, and even that one was only about a minute and a half, and making the mistake allowed me to gain a place, so it's all good. Pretty chilly out there, I wore a synthetic LS shirt and a SS on top of that, thinking that I might ditch one at a map exchange, but I kept them both on. I wore gloves for the first 90 minutes or so. There was brief precipitation that a lot of people thought was snow, but it was really graupel.

The whole crowd took the right-hand route to the first control, so I had company. On #2, I think a lot of people probably took the AT, but I swung further to the left, on the trail through Surebridge Swamp, and had a very pleasing flat (somewhat downhill) run, with just a short climb at the end. Some other folks, including David Onkst, came in from above just after me, and as I turned and headed out, I saw Jordan coming up the hill behind me, and I thought to myself that he was having a bad day. I realized later that he was on his way to #5. David was close on my heels from there to #9. On #5, I swung wide to the right and went through Bottle Cap Gap, then approached the control contouring from the SW. I stayed low on #6, going through the saddle, and took the trail for just a short bit on #7, seeing people like Joe and Ernst going the other way. On the way into #9, I stepped on a branch down in the leaves that was connected to a limb with a bunch of branches, and it rotated and presented a branch pointed straight at my chest, and I got centerpunched. Fortunately, I wasn't moving too fast.

Declan was working the water stop, and he, David, and I are all colorblind, so we had an amusing conversation about where the trail run might go, since none of us could see the red markings on the map. (This looked like it might be shaping up as a classic Highlander trail run situation, with a useless map, and reports that somebody had pulled down the streamers overnight.) David made a mistake; he thought it was a navigational error at #13, but it was really a strategic error as he headed off on the trail run without me. I correctly guessed that I'd get past him at some point without seeing him. On the trail run (which was in fact adequately streamered), I got passed by Jeremy just after passing through the crowd of hikers at Times Square), and later by Tori. I also lost about three minutes on a Thon break.

At the map exchange, Tori noted that we had cadets to hold off as she hurried away, and they in fact came in while I was drinking, but they paused long enough that I never saw them again (I had a four minute lead by the next control). I kind of wondered why we had a road crossing instead of just going under the bridge. I spotted and got ahead of Tori looking for #12, which I spiked with a hesitation, because I saw gray up ahead that I thought was the cliff, but it turned out to be some fallen tree trunks, but the cliff was right behind it. #13 was a sweet spike, I went straight at it, bashed through the laurel, and about the time that I decided to figure out where I was, I looked left and saw the control. On #14 I found the bare rock slot through the first bunch of laurel, and went straight through the bit before the control, arriving at the same time as Jeremy as the graupel started. I found some good lines through the green to get to #15. I'm pretty sure I got out to the trail to #16 ahead of Jeremy, and I expected him to go zooming by, but that never happened. and I opened up a lead by the last map exchange.

Daniel was headed out on the last loop as I was coming in, and vice-versa for Jeremy and me. I kind of wondered how many people were already done when I got to the map exchange, and it looks like the answer was four, with two more coming in just after I left. I was feeling pretty confident, on the last map with four hours to get it done. I spotted Daniel up ahead on the dirt road, and slowly closed in on him over the course of several short legs, until we started #25 together. I noted that Jeremy was probably close behind, and we figured we were likely better off together in terms of staying ahead of him. Going up the hill, I ate a gel packet, without any water to wash it down. Smooth sailing until #30, where were off a bit to the right. Daniel said later that he was already looking ahead to #31 and almost forgot #30. I was trying to figure out exactly where I was, then I spotted the tollbooth down below and that was the reference I needed. I turned around and saw that I had just crossed the E-W part of the stone wall (hard to see from above), and had an easy attack from there. As I was leaving, Daniel was coming back uphill to the control, and I figured I might have enough lead to hold him off if I kept the pressure on. Across the dam and up through the cabins, and I made a last-minute decision to cut the corner and go up and over the shoulder of the hill. I'm undecided as to whether that was a smart move or not, but it was the one place where my legs started twingeing as if they were threatening to cramp. Peter Zakrevski was a bit ahead of me, but I jogged past him as he was slowly trudging along the trail. Jeremy came in from the power line toward the control I was leaving, and I also figured I had enough of a gap on him. The last control was almost elusive: I came into the reentrant expecting to see it, and there was nothing. Fortunately for me, Eric Bressler was there on the Lowlander, and revealed the control tied to the back of the trunk of a tree that was wider than the flag. And then adequate effort in the finish chute in case anyone was breathing down my neck (turns out Daniel was only about half the length of the run-in behind me).

Quite a fine course on a beautiful day. At one point David and I had a spectacular view overlooking Lake Tiorati and the Hudson. I came out mostly unscathed, with no major blisters, no toenail damage, and just the expected level of next-day soreness. Unlike years when I was staggering and trudging at the end, this time I was still moving along nicely. And I had fine company for the trip (Ernst, Charlie, and Jeff).

Not training, just a duplicate copy of part of the Highlander, with the control splits included.

Not training, just a duplicate copy of part of the Highlander, with the control splits included.

10 ring pullups, on Charlie's outdoor set. Only 10. Drat.

11 ring pullups. But the last one was kind of marginal, I should have just kipped it.