Training Archive: CristinaIn the 31 days ending 2008-07-31:
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| T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thursday Jul 31 | ||
| Note | |
| Flew to Westhampton, NY. It's a long flight in a c130 and especially long if the pressurization doesn't work and you have to fly low and slow. And it takes even longer if that means you won't have enough gas to make it the whole way and have to stop in MO. The reward was hearing the East coast accents on the radios, making me feel like I'm home. Got in way too late for a run. Sounds like I'm not going to have much time for local exploring. | ||
| C • You stopped in Missouri... 2 | ||
Wednesday Jul 30 | ||
| Cycling (trail) 1:00:00 [2] 6.6 mi (9:05 / mi) | |
| Didn't end up flying last night so I made it out to Fantasy Island, a sweet little desert riding area right in Tucson, for an early morning ride. While I was in Euroland I had the local bike shop do a complete resurrection of my mountain bike. Unfortunately, they didn't do anything to help my skills or nerves. I haven't mountain biked in a long time and haven't ridden here since at least 2003. This is pretty easy stuff, but I never really released my deathgrip on the handlebars this morning. I am a total chicken.
Did one Lone Cactus loop, which took me just about a whole hour - I'm pretty sure most guys who ride here can easily do two laps in that time. I used the brakes a lot. I slammed my left knee pretty hard, into my handlebar (tough to visualize, isn't it?) and it hurts. A lot. Not as much as the right knee did last week, but now I feel somewhat equalized. | ||
| C • video 4 | ||
| Other Cardio (ultimate) 1:00:00 [2] | |
| Didn't really have time to go play tonight but I a) missed the last three weeks, b) might miss the next two, and c) just wanted to play.
I was pretty gimpy - I must have really bashed the knee good. | ||
Tuesday Jul 29 | ||
| Running (road/dirt) 37:00 [2] 4.1 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: Gus | ||
| Morning loop around the golf course. This was early enough to be really pleasant, and that was easy enough to do thanks to the wonders of jet lag. Too bad I'm flying until late tonight. Boo hiss.
Didn't feel too peppy when I laced up my shoes but I felt pretty good running. A few days off combined with the traveling seems to balance out. Too bad I seem to have gained some mass on the trip. Double boo hiss. In the first two minutes of the run I almost got hit by a car (my fault) and almost bit by a dog (dog's fault). I guess everyone needs to look where they're going. News yesterday was that I've been selected to run the Air Force Half Marathon for Air Combat Command, which means I get a free trip to... Ohio! It will also force me to plan some more legit run training before the fall. | ||
| C • Ohio 3 | ||
Sunday Jul 27 | ||
| Note | |
| Travel day: Oslo-Frankfurt-O'Hare-Tucson, just in time to make sure I can make it to the US Champs! | ||
Saturday Jul 26 | ||
| Note | |
| Took the bus to Oslo last night and made it into the city for pizza. I tried to eat the whole thing but had to leave a bit of crust. Probably the most expensive scrap of pizza I've ever left behind.
Spent today playing tourist around the city with seabass, joined by Sandra and Siobhan in the afternoon. Lots of walking, lots of sun! | ||
Friday Jul 25 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:55:51 [2] ***** 7.3 km (15:52 / km) | |
| 10c shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| O-Ringen day 5, and round 2 of Cristina vs. Swedish woods.
This went much better than Tuesday, though very far from what I would call "good". I'm especially proud that I made it across the map on my long leg and the control was where I thought it would be. I would really like to talk to some Swedish-woods savvy people to see how they would approach such legs. I stared at it and couldn't figure out any good way to simplify - I just went straight and tried to keep track of where I was (like basically all of the legs), but that seems way too brain-intensive for almost 2 km. I was too tired to run much today (I barely managed more than a jog on the run-in), and this stuff was pretty physical, making for an extra-slow day. Plus, it was really warm. Really screwed up the penultimate control. There's something screwy going on there or something - I visited the same two wrong controls twice while trying to get mine. Both times I swear I crossed a marsh that, according to the locations of those controls, I couldn't have crossed. Twilight zone material. Swedish woods: 2, Cristina: 0 | ||
| Running warm up/down 12:00 [2] | |
| Run to the start. I was almost late, so I really did run. | ||
Thursday Jul 24 | ||
| Running warm up/down (dirt) 8:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| On the way to the lift for the ride to the start. | ||
| Orienteering race 55:36 [3] *** 5.7 km (9:45 / km) | |
| 15c shoes: Paul | ||
| O-Ringen Day 4.
Today's course started at the top of the ski slope, with a chair lift ride to the top. The terrain was mostly open and contour-detail specific, a lot like the Route 83 stuff in Tucson. In other words, should be something I can do. And it was, but I had a few boneheaded moves for about 6-7 minutes lost. Felt a lot better than yesterday, knee only bothered me a little bit, but clearly not recovered from my mysterious Czech cold-thing. Really nice up there, and quite a bit warmer than I expected for Sweden this time of year! I'm getting too much sun. First full night of sleep in a very long time last night. I think I actually slept 8 hours. It was fantastic. No alarm! I may actually get rid of this cold or whatever it is. Oh right, I tied for 115th today, 19 minutes behind the winner. I should definitely be able to do top 100 in this class, top half on a really good day. | ||
Wednesday Jul 23 | ||
| Orienteering 1:30:00 [3] *** | |
| 12c shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| World Cup Long
Yeah, this was not a good day. Last night Sam decided not to run in the World Cup race today because of her ankle. I figured "why the hell not?" and decided to run. All was fine for the first ~30 min, and then I bashed my knee quite forcefully against a rock. The knee itself isn't hurt very much (though it hurt more than anything in recent memory), but something else definitely happened to me. Immediately after finishing my stumble I felt a wave of nausea and wasn't able to think clearly. I limped/jogged to my 4th control and began the first butterfly loop. The few hundred meters of butterfly took me as long as the few km that came before it. I just wasn't there - couldn't find the pivot control that I'd just been to, started the second loop backwards, totally unable to read the map. It was awful. Since I could still move moderately well, I decided to try to finish the course. Mostly I decided this because I was so very far from the finish anyway. Hit the next control after the loop and headed out on the long leg to the next loop. I got close to the pivot control and just stared at the terrain and at my map and basically broke down - I didn't have the mental energy to keep going. I made my way to the first aid station and they (very eagerly) took me back to the arena. I think they're bored. I actually traveled a good portion of the course (2/3? maybe more) so it's huge bummer to me that I couldn't keep going and at least finish. | ||
| C • Sorry... 8 | ||
| Running warm up/down 15:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| Some running and walking on the 3k trip to the start. | ||
Tuesday Jul 22 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:09:56 [2] **** 4.1 km (17:03 / km) | |
| 16c shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| O-Ringen, day 2 (my first day).
Wow, this was awesome. I totally didn't know what I was doing - first time racing in Swedish marshes - but it was a lot of fun. There were times when I felt in control and knew what I was doing, and I can see that being able to do that consistently would be a lot of fun. Took me a while to get the first control even though it was only about 200m away - ended up going back to the start to figure it out. I finally got to it about thirteen minutes after starting! and then kept a good groove for the next two legs. Sort of on and off for the rest. Really atrocious pace/time, but I think finding all the controls on my first try isn't bad. And I wasn't last (140/150). | ||
Monday Jul 21 | ||
| Event: Oringen 2008 | ||
| Note | |
| Travel day. Looong travel day. To O-Ringen. Exhausted. | ||
Sunday Jul 20 | ||
| Note | |
| Relay day. Provided moral support all day as the women beat Canada. Cried (almost) when the men didn't. Well, not really, but we came close and losing sucks.
The WOC experience finished with the banquet, which was quite enjoyable. I came home with a bunch of autographs. | ||
| C • Autographs 1 | ||
Saturday Jul 19 | ||
| Running warm up/down (dirt) 10:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| To the start. | ||
| Orienteering race 58:01 [3] **** 5.5 km (10:33 / km) +150m 9:17 / km | |
| spiked:10/17c (sick) shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| Still sick, but I couldn't stay away from my last chance to run out here.
I actually felt okay running, though clearly not moving as fast as I might have felt like I was. Course started with a few controls in the green and I certainly managed that about 400% better than the last time. I can learn to handle it. Then there was a section of awesome running, followed by some very steep rocky stuff (including the area of the nasty tv control on the long final) and then more fun running. I bobbled some stuff and had some iffy routes, but overall it was good orienteering - not much in the way of notable mistakes. Too bad I can't keep trying for another week! In other news, I got too much sun and a bee stung me. I think he was trying to get into my bra. (The bee, not the sun.) Results. Looks like the best of the week, 16/21 finishers, winner in 40:02. | ||
| Note | |
| Watched the medal ceremonies for the middle and the long tonight. It was cool to watch for several reasons, but two in particular.
First was seeing the "home town" enthusiasm for all of the Czech medal winners. Cool. Second was seeing Vroni win a silver medal at age 39. Very cool. | ||
Friday Jul 18 | ||
| Note | |
| (sick) | ||
| Yeah, still sick. I stayed home today from the public races and the model event. :-( | ||
| C • Get Better 2 | ||
Thursday Jul 17 | ||
| Note | |
| (sick) (rest day) | ||
| Day off. I had decided before we even left that I wouldn't run my own course, whether or not we had anyone in the final. I didn't get much sleep, again (not entirely due to the tomfoolery logged below, which took much longer than 6 minutes) and I woke up with a sore throat. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy the whole day which made for a hardly ideal disease-fighting setup.
Additionally, my calf cramped up painfully in the middle of the night. I've never had anything like that happen before. I don't exactly have a perfect diet at home, but I have to wonder if maybe all this brown and beige food (I haven't been going out of my way for more veggies) is part of the cause. | ||
| C • Veggies 3 | ||
| C • Sick :-( 1 | ||
Wednesday Jul 16 | ||
| Running warm up/down 10:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| Okay, so this was more walking than running, but it did get me warmer than most walks to the start. I was pretty dead today. | ||
| C • "I was pretty dead today" 6 | ||
| Orienteering race 50:07 [3] *** 5.3 km (9:27 / km) +120m 8:30 / km | |
| spiked:9/16c shoes: Integrators (silver) | ||
| Day 3. Shorter course was a good thing for my lack of zip. I was a little better today with good APs, though the navigation was easier. I was also a little more aggressive, successfully, but I need to be much more so. Especially as concerns running all the way to the feature, or knowing what to see near the feature so that I can quickly correct towards it if I'm a bit off. I think I lose a lot of time with that. | ||
| Strength/Core (tomfoolery) 6:00 | |
Click for larger versions.
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| C • Tomfoolery 15 | ||
Tuesday Jul 15 | ||
| Orienteering 1:36:50 [3] *** 8.4 km (11:32 / km) +135m 10:40 / km | |
| ahr:168 max:189 24c shoes: Paul | ||
| Day 2. Another 'long' course, though this one seemed like it would be two middle style courses back to back - 8.4km, 135m, 24 controls. I was excited, it sounded like fun. And it was, but not really as much as I thought it would be. I found it pretty tough to really read the map (same as used for the long qual) and navigate while running through this stuff - lots of information on the paper (at 1:15) and lots of things to keep your eyes on as you ran to make sure you didn't eat it. Not that that really helped - I still fell more times than I could count.
A slight goof on the first control, but after that I felt like I was doing better than yesterday on picking safe routes and executing. Then I blew the first of my control in the green stuff near the end... big time. I was only 20 or 30m from it on my initial approach, but since I had no idea where I was (I could have figured it out, I think), I quickly decided to bail to the gigantic field. Nailed it coming back in, but all told about 6 minutes lost. Bummer. Now, looking back at the course, I see that I didn't really do as well as I thought with APs and safe routes. OTOH, I think I need to get better at running faster straight-line routes and checking off as I go. On a lot of the shorter legs I was too hesitant to do that, and I was creamed in the splits. Days like today are the ones that make me like coming to these events. Running this course on the same map as the WOC runners makes me appreciate even more how much work it would take to be able to run this stuff at 7 min/km. Or even 8. | ||
Monday Jul 14 | ||
| Orienteering 1:25:34 [3] *** 7.8 km (10:58 / km) +270m 9:21 / km | |
| ahr:175 max:191 spiked:8/14c shoes: Paul | ||
| First day of the public races. This is a 6-day set of courses run as the WOC O-Festival, the first two days long-ish, the next 4 middle-ish. It should be fun.
My key word today was "attackpoint". If I were to have picked three key words, they would have been "attackpoint, attackpoint, attackpoint". The terrain we ran in earlier in the week had some vague hillsides that would be difficult to run straight to, plus there are plenty of rides and trails... I did think about an attackpoint for all the controls, with one notable exception (and I got lucky on that one), but sometimes I didn't pick a very good attackpoint, or it was tricky anyway, or I just muffed the approach. I made several (translation = too many) notable mistakes (~2 min range) and sometimes ran hard. But I really didn't have good transitions or flow. Lots of stopping. The map was 1:15, but that's not really the whole problem. I'd give myself a C today. I was 22/25 finishers, ~24 min behind Martina Dočkalová, ~22 behind Sara Gemperle. That's a long time, but they're pretty damn fine orienteers. It will be cool to compare against them over the week. Map and results. | ||
| Note | |
| There was some chatter in the woods, mostly people asking if I was looking for the same control. That didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was when people *didn't* talk to me, which was when I took a very dramatic and painful faceplant on to a paved road. I was running past a water stop and was foolishly looking at the water instead of the road ahead of me when my foot landed in a hidden ditch beside the road. It didn't quite make it out and I might have salvaged the fall into a stumble had my other foot not also been caught in the ditch. I had many, many points of contact, so nothing injured, but it was painful enough that I did have to lie there on the road for several seconds. Meanwhile, the two girls manning the water station and doing absolutely nothing, the dude running next to me, and a woman jogging along the road all failed to say a word to me, in any language, or offer any kind of assistance. Baffling.
Speaking of water, some APers will just love what they were doing at the water stations. I didn't stop to drink, but I did notice that there weren't any trash receptacles and wondered where the cups went. Well, it turns out that the cups are hard plastic, i.e. reusable, and there is a bucket of water for rinsing. So, it appears that each cup is rinsed in the same bucket of water before being filled for the next runner. How's that for sanitary? | ||
| C • iPhone 3 | ||
Saturday Jul 12 | ||
| Orienteering 12:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| Running around the sprint model. | ||
Friday Jul 11 | ||
| Orienteering warm up/down 25:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| Short "warm up" course set by Sandra to take us from the parking to the start of the relay training. | ||
| Orienteering 40:00 [3] *** | |
| ahr:176 max:198 11c shoes: Paul | ||
| Relay training on a map whose name I can't read right now because the lights are off because Hillary is trying to sleep. (Shhhh!) Sandra set a few loops, mini mass start, etc, read the USA team blog for more info.
I started with Pavlina and Viktoria and did fine with the whole "you don't know who's going to your control" thing. Muffed the tiny terrace control, Viktoria and I both spent a long time within about 10m of it. Didn't seem very distinct to me and we couldn't see the streamers until we were right there. Meanwhile Pavlina got away. Bummer. Second loop much better, no problems and beat the other two in. I'm planning some info segments about team members starting tomorrow. What questions would people like to see them answer? (And I think they all like long walks on the beach, so that one's already out.) | ||
| C • Questions for the team 3 | ||
Thursday Jul 10 | ||
| Event: WOC 2008 | ||
| Running warm up/down (road) 12:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| Warming up for the sprint training in Brno with Sam, Sandra, and Hill. I could tell that my legs are a little less than 100% topped off with go juice. | ||
| Orienteering 24:05 [3] *** 3.2 km (7:32 / km) | |
| 13c shoes: Paul | ||
| Sprint training in Brno. Unlike most of the other trainings, I ran this pretty hard. That is, I wasn't at race effort but I wasn't loafing about either. I think I had good map contact, I can definitely tell that I have improved in sprint techniques. I also used my Silva 66 OMC compass (the one that sits on your hand/thumb joint), which I've only used a few times. I really like the fact that I can grab the map with all my fingers and actually thumb with my thumb. You don't need too much compass for these things, so it works well.
This was a of fun - the center of Brno is a bustling place at lunch time on a weekday! We ran by lots of pedestrians, through shopping markets, across tram tracks, etc. I did get some locals yelling at me, but only because they wanted to help - I never actually visited the location for control 6, because it was a dogleg into a little courtyard and, well, why not (it was the only one I didn't touch). As I ran past the turn I heard yells from a group of men sitting at a cafe and pointing towards the courtyard. I just waved my hand, trying to say, "it's okay, I know". I kept going and was greeted at the corner by an old lady with a shopping bag who also pointed and tried to tell me to go back to the courtyard! At least, I think that's what she was trying to say, my Czech is a little nonexistent. That's it for me today, want to give my foot a break. | ||
Wednesday Jul 9 | ||
| Note | |
| Better learn to log out more religiously or I might yield to the temptation to retaliate for the "Patrick wants to defect" incident in Denmark.
Is someone else Snarks now, BTW (consider question mark implied - I can see it on the keyboard but have yet to guess how to make it appear on screen) Jon | ||
| C • pwned! 4 | ||
| Orienteering 1:30:00 | |
| We drove (a long way) to get on some middle-relevant terrain. This time I hung streamers for the first part while Leif took the last part. This meant that I had motivation to do the rest of the course after hanging my streamers, since I was already far from the finish. I did skip a pair because it looked like a lot more fun to do that. Sounds like I made a good choice! Plus, that meant that I finished just before the sky opened up so God could pee on us. And my foot was hurting again, no need to push it.
Sandra set a middle course to do as race training. Even though she'd never seen the terrain before she managed to put the first control in the middle of a swamp covered in downed trees. It was almost like she did it on purpose, that's how perfect the placement was. Fantastic. I took the effort to actually put the streamer in the right place, climbing over logs and getting sucked into muck, and I'm pretty sure everyone practiced "visual orienteering" on that one. Thanks, guys! For the second half, when I was actually running, I felt a lot better than I had the last couple days. Getting into the groove, plus this was 1:10 and fun to run through - very rocky ground with some moss. No pizza tonight, but boy did we eat a lot of potatoes. Internet problem is solved. | ||
Tuesday Jul 8 | ||
| Orienteering 1:15:00 | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| Out again on some long-relevant terrain. Better map than yesterday. I set out streamers for controls 5-10, while Leif did 1-4. I had a lot more fun than yesterday, felt like I could read the map. It was a better map (not as old) and it was printed better, and it wasn't raining.... so those all helped. But I could actually run well between the controls and think about what I was doing. Had to stop near each control to make sure I was hitting the right place, so it was like getting little O intervals in.
Top of right foot hurts. We had pizza for dinner. | ||
Monday Jul 7 | ||
| Running (road) 1:05:00 | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| Got up early-ish to get in a run in Vienna during our extremely short stay. We ran from the hostel into the old center of town, got a little lost, then ran back. Eric had the map, and I'd call it good sprint training if I were him. Wish I could have spent a week here! | ||
| Orienteering 50:00 | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| Made it to Olomouc by afternoon and we all headed out for some training on long-relevant terrain. I had a lot of trouble with this, something like "new terrain syndrome". There's plenty of nice, white, runnable woods, but the map is covered with green, faint trails, rides, and an unbelievable number of brown dots. After the first two controls I realized that the map was out of date and there was no guarantee that the control features we were looking for would actually be there. Decided I was moving too slowly to do the whole loop and cut to the last few at the end. These went okay, but I didn't feel very good about my map reading. I think I was tired, plus I don't think it's ever that easy to read 1:15 when it's dark and rainy. Nice to get out and run on a map, though. | ||
Sunday Jul 6 | ||
| Note | |
| Everyone in the WOC party who was supposed to make it to Vienna today arrived safely. The four losers with the car (Sam, Hillary, Sandra and Leif) ran off to Olomouc. Eric and I are in Vienna, departing by train tomorrow. Expect the unveiling of the blog tomorrow! | ||
| C • Blog is good 8 | ||
Saturday Jul 5 | ||
| Orienteering 1:15:00 | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| Got out for some early morning training at Arthur Pack. We had a good crowd, 7 total (that includes jingo + 3).
I drew up a few loops from the southern part of the map and we split up to put out streamers, each ran a loop or two, and then I think everyone picked up streamers. By that time I was on my way back home to catch my flight. When I set up the training I was thinking that my flight was at 5, but it's actually at 1. Whoops! "Map hike" to the start for a warmup. Then I set out streamers with Jaxon, who definitely gets it. Went out on Ludwig + Jayson's loop, then back out again to the parking lot. This place is about keeping your head up to snap up those collecting features on a straight line, and I can use all the practice I can get. So it was good. | ||
| C • Getting it 2 | ||
| Note | |
| Travel Day: TUS - DFW - LHR - VIE... That's a lot of place for someone to lose my luggage. | ||
Friday Jul 4 | ||
| Note | |
| Very interesting news at work yesterday. Hardly good news, just more proof that nothing is ever certain with military assignments. Turns out that for some of us our "four year" stint in Tucson is only going to be two. And I'm in a group for which "some" is actually "most". Not sure what's going to be available to us nor how much say we'll have in the matter. I am, of course, prepared to sell my soul if necessary.
| ||
| C • what's up? 17 | ||
Wednesday Jul 2 | ||
| Note | |
| Gotta give a guy props for trying.
Back is now a-okay. Furry alternative alarm worked this morning, unfortunately well before I had intended to wake up. Sleep seems to be optional these days. | ||
| C • trying 7 | ||
| Other Cardio (ultimate) 1:30:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Paul | ||
| League. Played a most of the time since we were a little short on subs. I like playing a lot, but I have to admit it's not as much fun when we're not crushing the opposition. We broke our super awesome winning streak by losing both games. Pooh.
Team name this week was the Pimp Shitz. And here they are: 
Not a bad setting for a playing field. | ||
| C • Which field? 4 | ||
