Training Log Archive: bishop22

Running around during the 4 races at the Seneca Park invitational. The girls varsity finished 4th which was good enough for a trophy - the first since Coach K has been coaching - so we are headed in the right direction.

Nate ran OK, especially considering he had hockey practice at 7am. Chelsea ran fine as well.

Easy run, mostly with Coach K while the boys blew off their run by sneaking off for some football. At least the girls did their 25 minutes...

Ran the intervals with the team on the course, but I was wearing a holter monitor which 1) made things a little uncomfortable and 2) made me a little anxious. The workout was the Webster Park XC course as follows: 1000m T, 3x1000m I, 800m I. The last 800m was quite long - not sure where measurements were off.
4:33
4:43
4:18
4:16
3:56

15 min w/up
15 min w/dn
Avg 2.5 min jogging between intervals (avg 3:10 total recovery)

Needed a day off after 4 races in 4 days and active spectating yesterday.

Ran most of the course backwards after the meet. This also includes the easy running during the races.

Hard running during the XC races at Mendon Ponds west - included some terrain running as Coach K and I cut thru wooded sections to get to different parts of the course (not a good course for spectators who like to stand in one place). The girls lost a heartbreaker 27-28 as we were missing our top 2 girls (1 on vacation, 1 ill). Our 3rd girl almost caught their 3rd, and our 4th girl took an elbow at the line to finish just behind their 4th and 5th. The boys won all 3 dual meets easily. Nate was clearly feeling the effects of racing for a 5th straight day and was back a bit. Most of the rest of the team skipped Monday's practice, didn't run Sunday and went easy Saturday, so they had a nice little taper for this race.

Wine-O at Mount Nemo Conservation Area. Told myself not to screw up the first control, so that I could ride the train for awhile, but I screwed it up badly. So I was immediately (well, after 10 minutes) on my own. I had the opportunity to run almost the whole west side of the map in my search for control 5 - I missed way right, almost to the fields, and then went too far west on my correction, back to the unmapped fence, so I tried north, but missed the small trail, and eventually went east to the N-S trail where I was finally able to relocate. Ended up with a 15-minute split - too much running and not enough thinking. Loop 2 went more smoothly, although I mispunched (2 cliffs were fairly close, and I revisited one from the first loop, I guess without checking the code - or not checking it closely. I thought it was too far to the next control). Loop 3 was trivial from a navigation perspective, but unfortunately I was out of gas from all the extra running I did, and getting quite dehydrated, so I was unable to run very hard.

Felt like at least 10 minutes of errors. Made a small mistake at C1, but that was OK. I missed C2 pretty badly, and when I recovered, I stood at the correct feature without seeing the control until someone else punched. I tried to make up time on the long C3 leg, and went quite hard on the trail to within 300m. Ross passed me in the woods, and I'm guessing that we had a shared control, but I let him go off to my left, even though I was right of my compass bearing, as I was trying to read the subtle contours. I spotted a control to my right, the right distance in, but I think it was the Elite women's control. I had trouble relocating until I saw a dry marsh bed, and knew I was 120m to the right. Not good when I knew exactly where I was 300m earlier. I had some mediocre technical controls, then a decent longish leg to C7. I wa OK for the next 3, then had another OK long leg. I had to walk some stretches in the middle near and thru a marsh because of the green, then I missed a small trail which cost me 100m of running. But the disappointing part was allowing myself to get distracted by people and a control that were off to my left within 50m of my control - and it was not a hard control, since there were trails on either side and a boulder shortly before it. I went all trail to the next control, and Spike popped out of the woods just behind me. He almost passed me with a better micro route choice to the top of the hill, but I led back out to the trail. I hadn't picked up the full route to the next control, so I had to pause at a trail junction and he went by. I caught back up, then had to pause again when we passed near a clearing that wasn't quite lined up with my imagination, but I was able to catch him again, but couldn't get by on the way to the last control.

Not a disaster, but I really want to make a breakthru that limits my errors. I'm guessing that means I need to be much less casual about my O-specific training.

The highlight of the day was that I was able to run hard for long stretches without my recent palpatations being noticeable (unlike during the sprint). I never felt like I couldn't run hard because of shortness of breath.

Nate picked up the silver. He made 1+ minute mistakes on C6 and C7, which cost him the gold.