Training Log Archive: Wyatt

A very unsatisfying win at Hibernia. Clem could've taken 10 minutes on me were he there...

Terrain was really rugged - lots of medium green, slippery & mossy stony ground, plus so much mud that by halfway I was running straight across streams & marshes as I couldn't get any wetter. I was balancing care & aggression to get through the terrain, but also not break anything. Angelica banged an ankle pretty good and Hunter managed to get broken glass through his O' shoe into his foot in one of the junk piles, so care was definitely warranted out there. Even with that though, I didn't shift gears cleanly which would have helped, e.g. twice, on trails, I was behind women I couldn't catch - gain no distance on Alison on a 1 minute uphill run, and minutes later running uphill on trail ~350m in ~2 minutes, I only gained 20 m on Angelica. Messing with dead elastic on my O'pants at times didn't help either.

Technically, I had an awfully sloppy day. At one point I made a 3+ minute error, cutting into the forest too late and then thinking a trail was a ride. Biggest error this year, I think. Certainly one of the most 'lost' & my-fault errors. Sloppy on many other controls too - lost 40 seconds on 1, hesitant 20 or so on 2, overshot 20 on 6, too high 1 minute on 7.

8 minute warmup. Pretty warm out, but the forest wasn't too bad.

Cooldown was jogging with AJ on parts of his White course. He did pretty well today. Lots of mud that he was initially careful on, but once it was clear we'd have to wash his shoes he just ran through some really muddy spots...

I was much less strict on my shadowing today and it was a lot more fun. I still didn't look at the map at all, but we talked about stuff - mostly not navigation - e.g. the mud, bow-an-arrow sticks, etc... I also helped with a few things to avoid frustration. E.g. at one point in a fairly open muddy area, the trail had split repeatedly and when it rejoined up, he thought it was a mapped trail. Without looking at the map, we talked about the phenomena of a split trail, and how it might all be one trail on the map, and he kept going based on that talk.

C • Happy AJ 2

Greg Ahlswede's graduation party, which featured two O' courses... Ran the Advanced course - 1st me (24), 2nd Vadim (25), 3rd Greg (26). I was 2 minutes ahead of Greg, and he said he had a 1 minute error. Yet he runs a 16-something 5k, and I run ~20 or slightly under, and he's no stranger to the forest.

I suggested he re-run the course someday - I think he could hit 20-something, but he was quite skeptical of that. Which is why it would be such a good exercise - most intermediate-advanced orienteers don't realize how much time they spend navigating even on a 'clean' run.

On an unrelated note, Alison beat Angelica again... Which inspired Angelica to run the 'white' as a tempo run with Vadim afterwards. As Alison's dad pointed out, this end of Angelica's monopoly on DVOA wins is here and that's forcing her to work hard to stave it off for a little while longer.

Wilder Ranch, early AM. Nice run in the fog - was hoping to get high enough to clear the fog for a view but the fog was deep. Quiet, pretty run. Passed only one person, a cowboy, at about 7:15am on my way back. We said 'hi' in passing in the way that means "wow, someone else is out here".

Poison oak was thick on the sides of the fields. As dense as a bad briar patch in places. I so prefer poison ivy, and nettles, and even briar, to poison oak.

Was on a mix of Excedrin (for an AM migraine) and Advil + Tums for the remains of a stomach that brought me 'home' from work yesterday afternoon. The cocktail worked well.

Early AM, Campbell creek trail. Tore a bunch of balling-up material out of the backs of both shoes, which helped somewhat with the blister it was creating on the heel. The inside heel of these Saucony's failed at very low mileage AND it failed by balling up the failing material to create blisters. Probably my last Saucony's.

Planning to do BAOC intervals in the evening, but stomach ailment prevented that (apparently caused by bad or too-much food on Wed. lunch & dinner).

AM Run

Hill speedplay with Tapio & Kent in Cupertino/Fremont-Older-OSP. Great views, fun trails. Tapio's fast these days. Apparently Sergei Velichko normally joins this BAOC Tuesday night training, but for some reason wasn't there. Apparently he works in Silicon Valley, but commutes from Idaho...

AM Run