Training Log Archive: Nielsen

Erin and I headed over to Pawtuckaway State Park (they suck because they don't allow dogs, but they do allow snow mobiles). Great weekend with great peeps, food, and running in the woods. Brendan and Ross did a fantastic job with this trainging event. I look forward to the next edition.

We arrived early afternoon on Saturday and got right on this course. Let me just say that I did very well on the first 9 (short) controls, but then I got onto 'big island' and spent 46 munites on c10!!! That's all I have to say about that.

Erin, asked me why I didn't just give up. Ha!

woohoo. Best O day for me yet on this map. Erin set the course today. 5.7k mostly in the complex/technical center of the map. 3 butterfly loops which made things interesting. Ended with a startling moose encounter on the first of the 4 remaining long legs.

Started off really sluggish and dumb, loosing 2+ minutes on a really dumb, out of the way route choice to c1. C1 had the wrong code so I lost 20+sec checking to make sure I was in the right place. Lost maybe 20sec looking for control 'A' on the first loop because the wrong boulder was circled and the desc sheet didn't specify which of three large boulders I was looking for. Was really slow tripping over myself on the way to the second loop. Once I got to the second loop though the woods were a little cleaner and I started to get warmed up. I starting feeling really strong and was pushing it to every control. Bobbled 'c' which was on a vague knoll amidst lot's of hardwood trees which were hiding the little flagging we're using to mark the controls. I lost maybe 2min there. Same issue on a similar control on the next loop but lost really only 20sec at most. c14 gave me a bit of trouble trying to find a boulder on a hillside without a lot to go by on the map. Basically just skipped boulder to boulder on a bearing until I found the right one. I should have used the better attackpoint that would have involved more distance but a cleaner leg. Lost maybe a few minutes out of really hesitant running. Then I flew to the next control and back to the finish. Despite small bobbles here in there it was a great run for me.

letting my leg rest.

Ken, Erin and I. Ken printed out a real nice course, with a mix of short easy, long technical, and a series or short technical in the middle. A great mix. The south eastern part of the map is really interesting. Very technical with varied features; boulders, knolls, cliffs, water pits, all within a pretty small area. Would make an interesting area for a technical sprint race.

Anyway, I started of slow, legs not very willing to move well. But I decided to take it slow with a goal of total map contact throughout, which is pretty darn tough on this map. Practicing reading the map while staying moving, something I have difficulty with but have been improving on as of late.

Things were going well until Loki, who was lagging a bit behind me at the time, decided to fall in a hole while climbing up a LARGE pile of granite blocks. Wile locating a control up ahead I heard him yelping and while running back to find and assist hi I ended up slipping on one of the pine needle covered blocks myself. Landed pretty hard on my elbow and mostly my right thigh. That was the end of that training run, although manged to get 8c's and had a solid session.

Have a pretty deep and sore bruise, making moving around a bit labored. Might take today off from running.

C • what about the dog? 2

need to recharge from this weekend. And, I've got a pretty nasty blister on my left foot. First in a long time. A bear came to visit us while we ere grilling on the porch !! So cool !

more warming up. Turns out warming up or not warming up has little to do with my retardedness on the third controls of races, but does improve my running in the races overall. So warm up I did and I will continue to from now on.

c1 great, c2 overran but recovered rather quickly. c3 NAILED IT! But actually before I found c2 I found c2 for the red(canada 7) course first, not because I thought it was mine but just because it was on the way. So, in a way my c2 was the 3rd control I went to. So am I still stuck with the c3 curse? I'll have to see during the next race.

The rest of the race was clean but slow. I've got a good amount of conditioning to work on before I can run three races in two days with full power. The control legs in the long were, well long and used almost no trails. Lot's navigation all the way through the course because of poor visibility in the woods. There was four legs in particular that were really difficult and slow travel. I was clean on them but running very hesitant the whole time. Had good map contact but even still second guessing myself a lot because of the level of poor visibility and lack of mapped features.

Overall a fun weekend in the woods!