Training Log Archive: GlenT

Event: ROC - Rochester Map Adventure 2015
 

Wrote a bunch of stuff but lost it when I switched pages, so some of this stuff is copied from Janet's log and edited.

Rochester Map Adventure starting at the Fleet Feet Sports store near Cobbs Hill Park. Temps in the low to mid 80s and partly sunny, with a short rain shower around the 2 hour mark (3-hour adventure went from 11am-2pm), which was enough to cool me down for a bit. Not excessively humid, either. Format was a score-o using trivia questions to confirm visits to a location with Foot or Bike options and 3 or 5 hour time limits. We did 3-hour on foot.

Miscommunication between organizers and adventurers meant a lot of folks on both the three- and five-hour Foot courses took the combined question sheets for both map sides A and B, not realizing that by doing so we were declaring ourselves "non-competitive." The original intent was to "go on side A as long as you want, come back to S/F and do a map exchange for checkpoints on side B," but with both sets of questions you could visit more controls with less distance. Since more people did the option with the combined question sheet, the organizers created another category labeled "double" in the results listing.

There were a total of 97 checkpoints with questions spread over the two maps, plus three electronic checkpoints (they used epunch for start/finish, so why not have a few e-controls in the parks as well?). The epunch controls were located in parks along trails, so were essentially White/Yellow level control points.

I visited a total of 40 checkpoints, including two of the epunch controls. Navigation was generally straightforward (on streets with a very good map) and the only significant navigational error I made was on one of the epunch controls when I took an incorrect trail. I think I answered all the questions correctly, although a few were ambiguous (like the "purple" house which I saw as maroon with dark green trim, or shapes of various gardens). One question had a typo of "E" rather than "W" but credit was given to those who visited it.

I jogged/ran for probably about 2/3 of the time, but was very ready to be done at 3 hours. I hadn't run since the West Point A-meet 4 weeks ago, so this probably wasn't the best way to ease back into running. Knee is rather sore today, along with various other things.

1200 yds total. 2 x 200 on 4:30 (~3:23 avg) plus warm-up and cool-down.

Event: WCOC Pond Mountain
 

Vetting White and Yellow middle courses at Pineridge. Actual time out ~ 2 hrs.

Test run of Brown middle course at Pineridge.

Rerun of first few controls on Brown middle at Pineridge. Plus a hike back in.

1100 yds, +/-50. 300 warmup, 3 x 200 less easy (3:20ish) with breaks between, 200 easier miscellaneous stuff. Triceps sore to start (from Pilates) but loosened up.

Rings. Knee unhappy with a few things but mostly OK. Still bothersome walking until it gets well warmed up.

800 yds, mostly freestyle since I had to share a lane. 50s and 100s without much structure. Got some goggles - much improvement.

Event: NEOC: Mt. Tom
 

Green course at Mt. Tom. 4.8km SL, 250m of advertised climb. Warm (80ish) and buggy (mosquitos). Visibility generally good, even though the leaves have popped. Nice course set by Phil.

Knee still sore but was able to jog. Most bothersome going downhill. With lots of uneven footing (rocks and other junk underfoot) I tried to be cautious so I didn't do any additional tweaking. Actually feels better afterwards but I expect it to tighten upagain.

Navigation OK except on #8. Lost 30 sec on #2 checking out the cliff to the south with a permanent marker on it. Missed to the north on #4 but figured things out pretty quickly (1-2min). On #8 I drifted low going across the hill and lost contact. Spent way too much time trying to read the terrain and match it to the map. Finally bailed south to the road and took the trail north from the road. Lost > 20 min. Total time should've been ~75 min, with the gimpy knee.

Thanks to Phil, PG, and others who helped out.

Green - Splits

Event: NEOC / WCOC: Gay City State Park
 

Event: Spring has Sprung - Redux May 16, 2015
 

Bands.

1kiloyard total distance. 6 x 100 yards starting on 2:30 inteval (average ~1:35 swim, 0:55 recovery). Plus 400 yards of easier stuff to warm-up,cool-down, etc. Then some hot tub time after. Need goggles if I'm going to keep doing this. Knee OK except when I tried to do breaststroke.

Lots of stuff with weights. Knee was only limiting on a few of the things we did.

800 yds. Mix freestyle, backstroke and just kicking. Then some hot tub time.

Event: WCOC Mashamoquet State Park
 

Green course at WCOC event on Wolf's Den map (Mashamoquet Brook SP). 4.5km SL, 130m of climb. Lots of open woods, some mountain laurel. Sunny and quite warm (low-mid 80s).

Knee is still sore, so a combination of walking and jogging, trying not to make things any worse. Missed #2 to the right (bad compass work) by enough that I didn't see the flag in the very open woods. Relocated off the field corner beyond it. A couple of minutes lost. Bobbled the last control by misreading where the bag was relative to the streams. Cut down the hillside rather than taking the trail, which likely was better. AP doesn't indicate a time loss, but I should've been at least a minute faster. OK on the other controls although I bashed through bits of laurel a couple of times when going around would've been better. Knee survived, no worse for wear.

GREEN - Splits

Event: EMPO local -- Partridge Run WMA
 

Green course at EMPO local event at Partridge Run WMA. (5.0km SL, climb not advertised but counted ~110, most in the last 1.3km). Plan was to walk and bail if my knee wasn't happy. Walked through #4 then jogged off and on the rest of the course. Too complacent walking to #3 and missed it then misread where I hit the trail beyond it. Lost several minutes. Overshot #4 due to a parallel error on wall junctions. Stopped between 3 and 4 at the road crossing to chat with a local who was concerned by folks popping out of the woods (since usually such folks are lost). OK the rest of the way in. Woods were generally runnable, although I wasn't running much. Sunny and warm (upper 70s). Knee doesn't seem any worse but doing this didn't help it either.

Green - Splits

600yds (+/-, tough to keep count of laps) mix of freestyle, backstroke and just kicking on my back. Could've done more but it's been a long time since I've used this particular set of muscles. Knee still puffy anD stiffens up rather quickly when idle. Spent some time in the hot tub both before and after swimming massaging and stretching.

West Point Day 2. DNS. Left knee sore and needs time off. Hung around the assembly area chatting with various people trying to figure out how to fix the giant miss on course lengths and climb. Have a plan for next year - could be interesting.

C • Bummer 3

Event: West Point A-Meet
 

West Point A-meet, Day 1 on Black Rock Forest map. Green X (5.5km SL, advertised at 130m of climb, but that was wrong by a factor of 2 or so). Map is almost all more heavily vegetated than mapped, mostly with blueberry bushes. Courses were very physical with several instances of gratuitous climb. All of the advanced courses were much longer than their target winning times. W, Y and O seemed to be OK. Consultant fail?

Raced OK until I went brain dead after the viewpoint control (as Phil said, we're not doing this for the views). Blew the next (yellow level) control then bobbled around a while looking for 12. Had smaller mistakes earlier getting into too much mountain laurel on the way to 3 and then coming out of 4. AP has about 6 minutes of error. Still a top 10 finish on Green X (9th), 3rd on M60, 20 seconds behind Phil.

Physicality of the course aggravated my left knee which had been complaining off and on for the past week. I had banged it on a log while running trails last weekend in about the area where it now hurts but it hadn't really bothered me much. Tommorow is a possible DNS at this point (Sat evening).

Green X Day 1 - Splits