Training Log Archive: bl

BB Middle from the other day. Chilly but bright & pleasant Steady pace - only confusion of note was #7. Fairly open - most of leaves are down. Had dogs along. Saw 2 MTBers, a woman with horse & dog and Marcello's car. Dinner at Marcello's tonight, tomorrow is his last day of work!

BB training - Splits

DP, Z barking at what-could-it-be? No vehicles that I'd noticed - but spotted red pickup in large reentrant that was the finish for the '07 A meet. Eben was unloading hundreds of wooden pallets for the continuous (?) fire for the 400 Scouts expected this weekend. Hundreds is not an exaggeration. The jamboree was news to me.

Went back to see in the pm:

Hopkinton: Rollins, Patch cw. Windy, chilly, October pm. Nice lighting. 50/50s uphill on Patch for about 12'. Had a DWG map for company, 1/15 for perspective.

Bought a Garmin car gps prior at Best Buy. About time, I suppose. Typed in Briar Hill Rd instead of desired Beech Hill Rd. Good thing I'd put it on mute as the conversation would have been heated...

Feet on the sore side - need to be shuffling shoes.

DP, Z&M, had no goal but heard, then saw, a 'geezer' pickup headed toward
the slough, so went that way wondering what trouble it might represent.
Contained 2 young men, guess they just drove down for the view, over-sized
tires and all. 3 DPW trucks and a backhoe in departing as well - a busy
intersection this particular am.

Bear Brook after work. Started a middle course I'd made up but stopped when it became apparent I had a problem with scale as well as fact that mag N was 14 deg to left & not marked as such. Makes accuracy difficult. Thot scale was ok as I'd opened a 1/10 CS file in OCAD with the jpg as basemap & believe I exported it as 1/10 (could not print direct fm ocd). Assumed 1/10 would be preserved - it looked it but on second thought was more like 1/8 or so.

Encountered Marcello who was just finishing a far corner. We got MN straight & I spent some time in getting back to the car on a map walk, saving the course for another day. Nice day for a change.

Nottingcook, dreary, dark, raining w/ M. Had too much on so plenty warm in <10'. Covered our adopt-a-trail section. Met a young woman walking her dog. She'd walked across forest on WH road, about an hour RT on this rainy day. That interested in the forest, she was an obvious candidate for BOS membership as well as some Nottingcook maps (mentioned getting lost on SS one midday last winter).

Slough & back with M. Gray & somber, more rain to come. Stark October colors - haven't looked around locally til now. Had NAOC '00 & '06 maps in hand as well as a ROC grn X Ultra-Long (10.4k) from a few years ago - a review of the good, bad and even one ugly. What's with the pursuit of "perfection", error-freeness... endless and often imperfect. Couldn't imagine going any faster thru some of the detail at Rocky Ridge or Shepherd Lake.

Burlington wander from Leddy. First 2.4 with Mocha. Crisp, sunny morning - gorgeous along the lakeshore. Just the right amount of chill after dropping M & warmups off. Located the high school track (with its fancy all-weather surface with spanking new Astroturf football field) and made the visit good for a mile. The visit recalled the last visit more than 10 years ago: the 200m race with Nate. Wandered thru North Beach park and campground and by Gil & Jenn's old place three times...now for sale. 160 mi & we're done.

Ontario Champs, long O course @ Hilton Falls Conservation Area. Did M55-64 which was only 4.4k - would have expected say 6.4k or more. Maybe being escarpment terrain explained shorter distance but actually footing was reasonably good. Perfect temp around 48F. Might give this an "A", close anyway. No misses, a lot of "pedantism", some luck (one makes some of that though) & more than once an orienteer near or leaving the CP. Never noted the 2.5m contour interval (just expected 5) although I questioned what it was.... Open some places, leafy with not much vis in others. Didn't do any running in circles tho there was a "where is it" oncoming mentality on 2,3 & 5. Was in first when I left, Tom Straat having made one c. 4' error. Visited with Tom, Rick Worner & Linda Kohn, Mike Minium as well as a few familiar Ontario runners.

Map, course & route

Review:
1. made a trail run out of most of this - needed an intermediate point
2. did not see rt-hand RF and arrived in area w/o a lot of confidence but saw a runner & flag about same time
3. expected more terrain relief but was not aware of 2.5m interval - what reentrant...?
4. trail around to right, low point as pt of departure
5. could/did not see reentrant in circle center
6. found little path; control description blank but obviously a boulder
7. out same little path
8. lots of care - an elite came bursting thru as though the woods were completely open, which they weren't
9. straight, hard to see distinct veg boundaries in near full leaf
10. found indistinct tr-ride jct which was necessary at that point in time
11. SE to tr to right (considered swamp but was wary of surprises), noted all the bldrs except last on left, the AP. Went a bit too far, saw flag on jct & went back maybe 20m & in - never saw AP bldr but flag obediently appeared.
12. st to what map shows as a reentrant. In vicinity, see a flag in approx right place. Look at descriptions, see "rootstock" - there is an unmapped RS 15m away and a flag nearly 10m beyond that. Had the correct # so no time lost.
13. st & nicely open woods
14. had walked by #249 on way to start thinking it was likely a W/Y flag.

Walk/jog/run to start & back from finish.

Long 5 - Splits