Training Log Archive: jtorranc

Event: QOC Fountainhead
 

QOC Fountainhead Blue - a pleasure to run on the east side of Fountainhead after at least a few years of events on the west (well, one I course set took the blue runners into the east side for their last four or 5 controls but no one had been to the east end of the map in some time). The woods have really opened up in most of the areas where they were thicker when the map was new. Will be even more fun in future after we update the map with a new contour base.

Blue - Splits

Slightly more than half the time I spent field checking at Occoquan this afternoon (morning was devoted to getting up early to renew my license at the DMV then coming home for a nap to make up for that before dropping Dan off at her German class) - I was moving much more of the time than yesterday since I spent this visit mostly getting the outlines of areas of thicker vegetation (the woods are mostly very runnable but there are a lot of areas where mountain laurel or similar occur and drop the runnability and visibility down a bit). Also visited a few areas I didn't see at all the day before so collected some new point features - rootstocks, of course, but also a small concrete cylinder protruding from the ground (like a geodetic marker, one of which I found the day before, but with no markings to indicate it was something like that) and, surprisingly, a hunter's stand in the middle of a section of very open woods that Sid simply must not have looked up enough to notice.

In to the office, not to work but to get near where I picked up the weekend's rental car and will be able to conveniently return it on Monday morning.

About half the time I spent field checking at Occoquan - meet coming up on February 10th and in addition to replacing the ridiculously vague contours on the map we ran on last year, the terrain deserves the attention of a better field checker than Sid. Priorities this visit were to get a sense for how good the new contours are (pretty good though some of the reentrants come out a bit shallower than they look in real life), sweep as much of the map as possible for point features, mostly rootstocks, and just generally get a better sense of what kind of courses will be possible and how much work it will be to field check the terrain adequately than I gleaned from running in it last March.

To work. Home by way of the aquatic center.

Work commute.

Cycling to work. Home by way of the aquatic center.