Training Log Archive: PG

Much too close to the eye for comfort, but not nearly as bad this time as when I did the full Cyclops treatment seven years ago.

Routes and a few comments from last weekend's courses (click on maps for larger version) --

Night-O (Brown course)

#2. Took a short trail detour because I was worried that going straight would be hard to know if I was right or left if I missed.
#4. Thought about going around to the left, might well have been better.
#5. Seems like a lot of extra distance, but I was moving a lot faster on the roads and fields so I think it was better.
#7. Quite confused when I got to the last field, just uncertain, probably an extra 30 seconds trying to be sure.
#10. Scary point, felt like I was too low and I was.
#11. Thought I was being careful with the direction, but I wasn't.

But overall, for night-O, good for me, ran quite a bit and no big errors.



Relay (Yellow course)

#6. Route shown is a little off. Ran road along fence, then along yellow and last bit through thicker woods. Never saw that the trail went right to it, should have hopped on it up top.
#10. Through the tunnel and along the trail would have been much quicker.

Overall OK, main thing was not to do anything stupid, like mispunch or skip a control or take them in the wrong order, all easy to do. I was quite careful to be sure I was getting them all in the correct order.



Ultralong (Green course)

#1. Shaky start. Didn't really know where I was. Route shown is a little off, got to the trail before the bends, saw the reentrant to my right and finally knew where I was. And then ran right past my reentrant, following a couple others to the red control further along.
#3. Not sure about route, I crossed reentrant partway and another before the control, maybe around to the right was better both times?
#4. Way off. But there is no good way to attack, so plan was to just head over and if I didn't happen to see it, then relocate on the various detail near or beyond the point. Way to the right, so when I hit a nice reentrent misidentified it and went east, very lucky to hit the trail. Control was then easy, in the back door.
#6. Scary control. Trying to go due south and see if I could identify anything. Thought I saw the patch of yellow, never saw the blue, but did see a fence post along a line of trees heading SE and figured that was the fence just before the control. Looked like a little thicker vegetation NE of the "fence." Lucky, but also good at picking up what clues there were.
#7. Another scary one. Had the feeling I was too far left at the end, so trying to correct to the right, did it just enough to see the control ahead of me.
#8. Sloppy on compass again leaving 7. And then the last bit, I think it was better to go around the whole reentrant, though it never occurred to me at the time.
#10. Not bad, missed all but one reentrant. It looks minimal, but it was nasty.
#11. Should have gone around to the left. Lots of greenbrier in the vertical green area, got my face there.
#12. Better compass, both leaving 11 to the trail, and approaching 12.
#13. Just trying to get to the road, nasty at the end.

Overall, better after #4. Some questionable routes and bearing, but reading the terrain well and avoiding any big misses. Very glad to be done.

Stopped in Holyoke on the way home for a loop around the Mountain Street reservoir. Felt like a struggle, but legs were at least able to do it without any pain.

Ultralong at East Fork on the north side, Green Course (M60), 9.5 km beeline.

Pouring rain at the start, felt cold so I wore a long-sleeve shirt, seemed to work out just about right. Mass start, took me a while to get with the program, overshot the first, a couple minutes gone, missed the fourth, another three minutes gone, so was very surprised to have someone say I was third at #5.

Together with Rick Breseman approaching #6, 500 meters through flat amorphous terrain to a rootstock, I nailed it, he didn't. Meanwhile Bill Pullman, in the lead at #5, had gone on a walkabout east of #6, so I was in the lead. Not that I knew it.... :-)

Didn't last long, Dave Kostansek came cruising by just before 7, never to be seen again. He is way faster, had been in for 7 minutes when I finished, but I got second, just ahead of Bill, not so bad.

Fell down twice, the first snagged a strand of wire ankle high while going down a steepish hill, hard landing but not painful, the second also a hard landing but not painful. But I got lucky on the third incident, a healthy strand of greenbrier that raked me in the face, just missing my right eye by maybe a quarter inch. Have a nice laceration on the eyelid and will probably be black and blue for a few days. But very lucky it wasn't worse.

Legs a bit weary towards the end, glad no one was there to contest the finish.

And then a meet-up with the CSU crowd at Panera and a ride to the airport from Ken about three hours before our flight.

And WiFi for the first time in a couple of days. How have I managed without it? Just fine -- spent more time socializing with a fine bunch of people. :-)

US_Ultralong_2012_6 Green - Splits

How nice it would be if the WiFi at the Holiday Inn actually worked, or even if they seemed a little more concerned. I think getting a smart phone may be in my future, although typing this on Bill Pullman's iPad is an exercise in patience/frustration.

C • smartphone 14

C • Holiday Inn WiFi 8

Getting the heart going before the relay.

Relay Champs, leg 2 for CSU 8-point team, so yellow course.... :-)

Team won, excellent.

Another nice day, 50s, some sun, some clouds, very benign weather.

We had a challenge putting together the CSU teams as we had 14 people, 24 points, could have done a 4-8-12 and gone for the trifecta, but it didn't really mesh with who wanted to run which legs. I think we ended up with the best possible solution, I think everyone happy with the team they were on, plus hooking Bill Pullman and Dave Yee up with Balter and Jon Marsden (a Brit friend of Ali's) under the team name of "Water Dragon" -- name suggested by Balter so of course it was immediately accepted.

Anyway, the vibes were good, we ran well. Probably pissed off some others, I heard a couple of anti-CSU comments along the lines of stuff I might say or think about the Yankees. But there was still a good effort made by the club to get people there, and that is worth something. Similar efforts by a bunch of other clubs too -- Minnesota and Chicago among others -- which was cool, got more teams there than I was expecting.

My yellow course seemed just fine, certainly not trivial, and I certainly got a workout. And didn't get beat by Izzy, though if she had been on Yellow instead of Orange that might not have been the case.

Then hanging out will Bill the rest of the afternoon, very very pleasant. Then the team social, also a lot of fun, met several new people. And hopefully also helped a few more people feel connected to the team.

Yellow - Splits

Event: OCIN A-meet (Night, Relay, Ultra-long)
 

Warm-up for the night-O.

Night O Champs. First in M65, a couple of minutes ahead of Bob Lux, but a couple of minutes behind Izzy Bryant. Good for her!

Surprisingly good fun. Beautiful evening certainly helped, plus everything was dry, no water in the streams, no mud on the trails. Ran the Brown course (M65), 3.4 km, 220m supposedly. Decent run, several little bobbles but not much, would have taken a very good run to beat Izzy, as she was certainly leaving me in her dust on all the uphills.

Pleasant surprise was that the woods were less green than mapped. Could go most anywhere, the greens were a little slower but no a reason to detour too much. Whereas lessening the hills and making the navigation easier were good reasons to detour.

US_Night_2012_Brown - Splits

Twice up South Sugarloaf, hiking up the trail, running down the road. After dark to remember what wearing a headlamp entails. Nice evening, what looks like a pretty full moon just rising.

C • Jupiter 3

Roads in town on on a gloomy day, bits of rain and snow. Got the clown pants out for the first time this winter and they felt just right.

Conditioning seems to slowly be getting a little better.

C • just in time! 3