Training Log Archive: bishop22

Event: National Capital Orienteering Festival
 

Time might be right, but this is just a preliminary posting for Chris, since we just got back to the hotel.

Nate had a disaster of a run, over 50 minutes; 2 huge errors (perhaps 6-8 minutes). It was very limited visibility and challenging navigation.

Luke had a decent run, but the hills took a lot out of him, so he finished at the back of the pack (not by much).

I was very close to many bags, but couldn't see them with the limited visibility and the "strategic" placement. I eventually figured out that there was a big advantage to knowing which side of the feature the control would be on, and missing that way made it simple to recover.

I only got in a halfway decent workout (perhaps intensity was as low as "2" overall). Between the limited visibility and the difficulty of fighting through the light green, I spent too much time going slow. More later...

I did manage to edge out the Kempster, but Eugene made up 4 minutes on me, and then outnavigated me in the last few controls. I think I was 3rd in my age group (running "down"!). Nate did manage 2nd, but that's with an asterisk, since Andrew got injured just after the first control and had to take it easy.

The rain came in shortly before the sprint started, so it was quite different than the beautiful weather for the noontime Middle starts.

My race ended up being a disaster. I was sloppy to the first control and gave up a bit of time, then I just had a "duh" moment at C2, which was surrounded by buildings, but I stopped short when I couldn't see a flag. C3-5 were fine, but I missed C6 too far right and it was a decent climb (and I was in no position to climb), so I lost time 2 ways. I had another OK stretch (except I could tell I was slow on the uphills), until C12, which I blew by 90 seconds - running to the main road, instead of the dirt road, and had to come back uphill. And C13 was a 1 minute error, trying to go straight through green, instead of the very friendly route past the tennis courts. I avoided that because I didn't want to run so close to the finish - how stupid is that.

Nate had a much better race. I don't think he beat the Kempster (who won the elite women's race), but he was 15:41 with only a couple of minor navigation errors. He didn't run as hard as he could have, so that's what cost him some time. I think the winning M21E was under 13, and Nate could have been in the 14s easily.

After I got back, I followed Luke around. He had just a couple of starts in the wrong direction, but recovered himself. He was not last in M12 this time, but the rain chased us away from waiting to see results. Luke can stand to improve his map usage. He doesn't thumb, so every time he has to look at the whole map and figure out where he is.

OK, so we added another attackpointer this evening. I didn't have time to pull all the info from him about today's races.

A low-ball estimate of w/up before the Middle, w/dn afterwards (quite short), w/up for the sprint (fairly short) and w/dn afterwards (the sproadic running after Luke).

I deserve a day off, so I don't fee guilty about not bringing anything for a noon workout, especially since I have to leave at 3, to start the trip to Ottawa.

Had the varsity boys do the 4x400m workout that Marc did in 3:50 last year. They did pretty well - I think AB was about 4:06 and Nico was just behind. Nate was about 4:26 and Kenny just behind him. JP was under 5 minutes. I was right on 5 minutes, despite doing them alone. I timed the kids, then ran one, allowed for recovery and repeated. I went 75, 76, 76, 74. I don't think I've run 4 quarters that fast in several years.

We did 7 strides afterwards. And I had just over a mile w/up. Plus some jogging between reps.

Had less than 15 minutes on the range. I guess they officially close it at 6 on Thursdays (I though it was 7).

We were out for just about 2 hours, so this is just the time spent moving - we had two stops, and I stopped the watch for a couple of stretches where we had to walk.

Very nice trail in honor of Frequent Faller's visit from Hotlanta, where he has been for over a year. After a giant circle at the start, it included some serious tours of the ER/Penfield/Pittsford (depending on who you are talking to) trailer parks and some nice running around the Corbett's Glen area and Irondequoit Creek.

Highlight of the trail was probably the culvert crawl under a railroad bed on a serious hill - probably saved about 5 or 6 contours of climb. It might have been here.

Ran with Scott - E-Colby-Park and in via the alley past Muther's, etc.

Easy run, since Scott was at the track yesterday, except picked it up gradually on Park between Culver and Goodman - averaged 7:16 pace, but it was probably 7:45 picked up to 6:45 at the end.

OK, perhaps I can still play this game. After 44 putts on 18 holes last weekend, I managed to get out with just 15 putts in 9 holes tonight. And my score showed - put up a 40 on the front 9, which included a ball in the water on #3.

I had 3 drives of 260+ yards, including one into the wind on #6. Too bad I'm out of town the next two weekends.

I ran 20 minutes before the track meet at Fairport - around the school grounds to Ayrault to the next neighborhood west and just into the Center Park field for a brief loop, before returning to the school via the shortcut from that neighborhood. Center Park plus the high school, with the shortcut as a bottleneck would be a good Wyoming training map with all of the hills and some rough open land.

I ran several 50-100m strides across the infield during the meet to catch races at different spots. I'm taking credit for 5 minutes, though it was certainly more than that.

Started driving home and decided I had to cowboy-up, so I pulled in to Center Park and ran 20 minutes, covering most of the XC course, while looking back at all of the splits I had captured from the meet (not running with a map, but probably helpful training as I calculated splits on the fly).

The boys and girls both got smoked by Fairport, but we had some good performances. Nate went 2:12 in his first 800 done fresh in a long time. But he was clearly overshadowed by Vanzo's 2:03 (with no distance training - he does the 400 hurdles). Chelsea also PR'd, going 2:27 to finish a solid second, passing 2 Fairport girls in the last 300m. Then Kenny won the 3200m (OK, so Pat DuPont was not in the race, still any win against Fairport is a big win).

Easy run during Z's soccer practice at Schlegel - ran over to Kent Park and did a loop, including exploring the woods north of all of the trails, and back for a loop around the school.

Event: Stars Spring WRE
 

ROC Meet at Mendon Ponds Park - Red Course.

It looks like I eeked out a 16 second win over Rob. I was running very hard and didn't make many mistakes, so I'm looking forward to seeing the splits and finding out where he made up time - there was a lot of trail running, so I thought I could pick up a fair amount of time, since I tend to have an advantage on trails.

I went way left to C1 to avoid some climbing and thinking. 2-5 were pretty straightforward - more Y/O than advanced. I went right to C6, attacking from the small building in the field. I aimed just a bit left for C7, using the second trail to lead me in. C8 had an indistinct trail leading almost right to the bag. C9 was fun. I angled out to the driveway to the trail. When the trail started way right, I went straight and joined back up with it and cut in when the woods got white.

C10 was a problem, not in navigating, but in choosing the worst time to catch my foot on a log and fall forward - it was just as I was crossing the swamp and my right arm went in up to the elbow. Guess that SID rental is going to need a washing. Took a few seconds to clean my map and compass and cut to the left side of the pines, which basically led to a control (although it was blocked from my side by a nasty downed tree).

I almost panicked when I hit the rough open field near C11, because the vegetation did not match the map. Luckily the control feature was the only clump of pines, so that was a big relief when I realized that. I angled right of the line leaving C11 and hit the trail before I hit the swamp. I lost some time leaving the road - almost tried to go too far, but came back quickly. Probably the highlight of the day was seeing a control up at the top of a reentrant and being very tempted to go there, but knowing that I hadn't gone far enough, and that C12 was closer to the swamp, I resisted the temptation to check it out.

I made two mistakes on the next leg. I left C12 way too far left, and had to recover. Then I didn't see the trail that was the left fork in the woods leading to the field and ran around to the right. From the field there was a convenient swath of grass that was on line to the control, and I could see the flag from 150m. C14 was not good. I lost contact with the map after going near C4, and just used the compass to head in the right direction, sometimes on trails, sometimes off.

I hadn't started my watch at the beginning, so I wasn't sure of the precise time, but I knew it was close, so I gave everything I had running up to the finish control. Good thing, as it turns out.

C • picture of perseverence 2

Picked up 11 controls and tried for 5 others, but they were gone.

Red - Splits