Training Log Archive: PG

Whately and Hatfield, breeze out of the north, nice cool day. Mellow pace.

Thinking about plans for the corn maze tomorrow, just mulling ideas. The beauty about the event from an organizer's perspective is that you can try out different things each year, see what works and what doesn't. Almost feel obliged to change something each year just to keep things fresh. And all of that can be done without worrying about a set of rules.

Before I left I posted the handicaps for the Night event -- in a course of 29 controls, the handicap is the number of controls you can skip. The goal isn't to try to get everyone to finish at the same time, more just to add a little spice to the event.

In the short time between when I posted the handicaps and when I left, I'd gotten two "suggestions" for "improvements" (ie. requests for a higher handicap). Note that complaints are severely frowned upon at corn maze events but suggestions are always welcome.

As I was riding along, enjoying the fine afternoon, I was thinking about how the standard complaint in the rest of orienteering is usually some version of "it's not fair." And always, fair or not, nothing is ever done about it.

So I thought, why not have bonus handicap points given out for the "it's not fair" reason, so that everyone who suggests that either their own points or someone else's isn't fair, well, I make a change and they get satisfaction. And that struck me as a pretty good idea, and amused me for the rest of my ride.

It seemed only fitting, that on firing up AP again, what should I find but a suggestion from Ian, the king of the Night, that his penalty lap wasn't fair. So I will certainly change that.

Whether I change it to 0 or 2 remains to be seen, since it wasn't clear whether he was suggesting it was too many or too few...

C • Suggestion 3

Finished off the corn maze courses, excellent as usual. The Night is the best. Still have to assign the handicaps.

And get the maps printed, sync the controls, assign start times, get the balloons and refreshments, assemble the controls, produce the model map, hang the controls, and who knows what else. In other words, under control. :-)

River Road - Old Deerfield. Definitely had the wind with me more than against me today. :-)

Testting the Sprint Shuffle. Almost just right, just needs one tweek.

C • data 5

Lower Road - Upper Road in Deerfield, south breeze. Not so bad.

To Montague.

Tried a new saddle, took the one off my old bike. Might be better? Only when I was done did Gail notice that I had taken the saddle off her old bike.

It only gets worse...

Leverett loop counter-clockwise. Started out with no ambition but got into it after a while. Lots of wind, ostensibly from the NW, but seemed liable at any moment to be coming from any direction.

In the maze, trying out ideas. My navigating is fine and the maze is cool, but running is just barely possible, and painful at that.

I'd been planning on another go at Greylock this year, but waiting for a cool day and so expected it would be sometime in September. But I told Phil he could choose where we went today, and he opted for Greylock. Off we went. Sunny and warm, well into the 80s.

It seems I have never managed hot weather or hills especially well, and today was no exception. Took two bottles, polished both off easily, but I'm sure weight was down a good bit by the time we were done.

Up the south side this time, by the numbers it shouldn't be as hard as the north side, but it sure felt hard today. Made it up the first steep section (1,100' climb over a couple of miles) reasonably well, but that would have been a good time to turn around. There's a dip and some flattish miles before the last 1,100' up. This was maybe 7-8% vs. the 10% for the earlier section, but it felt as hard, or harder.

The legs, well, the image I had was of jello. That is not a positive image. Moving slower and slower. I thought about pulling out my phone and calling Phil to tell him to meet me at the junction a ways below the top. Occasionally it leveled out for a moment and I tried going up a gear and it felt like I'd just shifted up about 5 gears. Gave up on that.

Eventually I made it up. It was still Sunday. It was not yet dark. Phil looked well rested. Hey, there has to be some benefit.

Back the same way, contrary to original plans to go down the north side. Whatever, got it done.

Good company, always fine to go someplace different than usual, have a bit of an adventure. Just that some days are pretty depressing...

A day trip to Burlington, VT, to attend a memorial service for a running friend of long ago (she moved to Alaska but grew up in Burlington) who died way too early at the age of 59. Sad to have to have the event, as these things always are, but also good to see some friends not seen for a while, especially her husband. She was a wonderful person, he too.