Training Log Archive: Gswede

TBV Challenge. Can't say too much about this as it's a bit of guerilla orienteering. Absolutely beautiful terrain and a great map. Also, Connecticut=Norwegian-esque terrain in America

Video of leg 8-9


Red at the HVO Winter Series. Really great course in excellent terrain. The visibility was too good, but I can have fun for once, right? Not satisfied with the route to six, it was ultimately too slow getting through the marshes and not worth the climb I saved. Confusion at 11 as I reverted back to Spanish knolls, i.e. piles of rocks. Different mapping styles. Gotta remember that.

The Challenge - Splits

Event: HVO/WCOC winter Course #1
 

Part of the 2011 Billygoat at Huntington. Trails and stone walls removed to force me to focus on the other features. Absolutely beautiful terrain, very physical, and loads of features. Very good visibility, too good. It'll be better training when the leaves have come out again. Still, reading features at this pace for this long is good training. Tired at the end. Snow just ankle deep. Many thanks to Niels for coming out with me. He was able to stick with me for a good part of the course. It helped my motivation tremendously to have him out there.

#12-13 I took a trail that I thought was the long clearing. It wasn't and I took it too far. I took a minute to relocate after that.

MP on #25. The orientation of the reentrant seemed off and the cliff didn't seem large enough. I accepted it and moved on. Darn

Red - Splits

A night-O to start off the new year right with Erik and Nate. Circle map with north lines removed... so no compass. Really difficult in a few spots. I'm excited to go back to Hay Creek for more night-Os

So, I had to do a long run and wanted to explore the French Creek East map to see what state the vegetation was in. I'm ecstatic; it was beautiful out there. The area of the 2012 fire, outlined in pink thanks to Ed Scott's fieldwork, is mostly unusable (80-90% of the area). Some parts are crossable, not fun, but crossable. Based on this long run, I'd say 80-90% of FCE outside of the burn is beautiful forest, as nice as French Creek North if not better. The problem is the invasive wineberry that has taken hold in the burn area.

#2 was the wake-up call to how difficult that north slope would be. I crossed the trail and power line, entered the forest, and quickly entered into what my friend Luis calls the "fourth-dimension of orienteering." I was on a rocky, snow-covered hillside with no reliable features for relocation. This is where French Creek is technical, not in extremely detailed areas with micro-contours, but on sweeping hillsides which appear to be almost exactly the same everywhere. #2 reminded me how much respect I would need for # 8, 9, 10, 11.

I wasn't able to run fast today, too much snow. But with what I saw of the forest, it's calling for a long, hard effort in warmer months.

Kswede offered to come out with me. That helped a lot actually. It's tough to get out for a run like this by yourself at 16F/-9C.

Functional Strength

Short hill workout in the Wiss. I didn't want to do too much because I've got quite a long run tomorrow and the goal is to feel strong for that.

Really difficult to get moving quickly in the snow. Feet slipped every step. It was like running in sand. On the positive side, I had to breath pretty hard, but my legs never hurt. It looks like they've gotten pretty strong for hills. But that also means I'll have to do harder workouts.

A variation on core o-clock. An hour of yoga at the Art Museum.

Orienteering on French Creek East and West. Exploring to see where the veg is good, bad, and unusable. Lots of areas that were spectacular...and others that were whatever the opposite of spectacular is.

100 pushups, 20 pedestal, 5 minute calf raise, 10 minute plank, 20 pullups

Functional strength routine

It's getting awfully lonely training at an elite level here.