Training Log Archive: mintore

It was hot and I apparently didn't drink hardly anything during the day. Consequently, this was pretty rough by the end. Next time, I will try using a bit of forethought. Did see a goldfinch which brightened my spirits.

hobble home

11

warm down

Explored a shorter stride/higher cadence run (85-87 doubles/min). A gem of an evening.

11

cool down

A moderate run on a nice evening through Williams Creek. Started with Brenda's group and then peeled off. Was shown a stealthy neighborhood pathway.

A line in the sand. The semester starts tomorrow and the past two weeks of exercise have been very inconsistent. Time for it to change...

cool down

to Aragorn's XC meet and watching the races.

Eagle Creek Canoe-O
Meet 18, course 28

The pICO Bunnies regroup to take on the murky pond. Good weather, good navigation, comfortable pace, and fun once the canoes got spread out a bit. Probably should have taken more to drink because it got pretty warm but we passed through the finish before the final run and got a swig then.
Clockwise starting to the south, got all but 2 controls and returned a minute late.

A nice feature of this meet was venturing under the highway and N up Eagle Creek

The running sections of the canoe-O; other record only included paddling distance and time.

Aerobic with a touch more pop.

easy aerobic?

walk'n strech

My calf cramped wickedly last night and it is still sore today since I couldn't will it to relax quickly enough. Managed to get in this long run with a good measure of grass and trail running. There was a pleasant warm light rain the entire time.

Also, managed to get the final strap section onto my Garmin 405. What an annoyance. The plastic prongs on the latch side of the strap were too long, so the holes would not align. After several hours and a recollection that someone else online had this problem, it took a minute of whittling and the job was done. I now have a backup strap because I thought the first repair kit was irreparably defective. It was defective but both will work.

Felt ok at the end but the beginning, ugh!

Event: Green Corn Moon Rogaine
 

Meet 17, course 27 - Green Corn Moon Rogaine
6 pm - midnight, 32 controls to clear; straight-line distance to clear 20.5 km

2 km overlap in distance on the tracks: total distance 26.07 km; climb from map; 1036 m climb (est)
well hydrated at the beginning -- 2.2L of water + 300 mL Gatorade used; 800 ml remain (80 F to 65 F temperature range across race, clear skies and low humidity)
3 GU + 1 egg consumed; food use was poorly regulated (carried half back out)

Green Corn Moon Rogaine with Aragorn; track in 2 parts.
Commentary over the next day or so.

One mistake early on (3rd control) as we were too cavalier about our attackpoint on the first hard control. We veered S coming down a spur and ended up 2 spurs over. As it was not clear where we were, it was a big climb to reattack and this used 14 min. It was worth it for 60 pts and to get locked into the map.

We did the S loop first, getting most of the middle strip and all but 3 of the S controls by the time lights were essential. Navigation was solid and fast (probably 65% of the time we were at least jogging); we even did a 81 to 60 fully off trail to avoid the big climb and to improve our attackpoint. This leg in particular went really well and made us both happy (and a bit surprised).

There were some weak route choices such as avoiding trails with switchbacks (we cut many off but still...) and we felt three controls seemed just slightly misplaced (74 unless the trails are off, and 55 and 52 were each a line low). Collectively, better routes and the time dealing with 74 would have saved 8-10 min that would have been valuable later in the race).

The northern trails were good but there was control 82 at the park entrance that necessitated a bushwack. Jim Benton had noted that crawling was probably in the cards in this area. A VERY sucky experiences for 18 min.

With 24 min left, we chose badly.
There were 5 controls left; a 44 and 56 closer to the finish, a 34 and a 43 near the campground on the hill and 80 on the mountain. We knew an hour earlier the mountain was out. We though we could get 3 more.

Attacking 34 was clearly not going to be good as the vegetation was like that near 82. This used 17 min in the climb and search only to come up empty (the control was 15-30 m lower than we went).
We then headed down the road and debated whether to take the trail through to the 40 pt control closer to the finish or the less direct road. I pushed the trail which was probably right but was badly executed (my feet really liked running on grass more at his point), so was wrong. We navigated some of the bends but apparently missed one, there were a couple of annoyed pauses at frisbee holes and we pushed a little further on the trail and the parking area came into view. 1 min to go, that was it and we were done.

A list of things to remember for the future:
1) sometimes prior vegetation can be used to predict future returns.

2) sometimes when in dense vegetation, you should follow your gunt and bail (truth be told, this has normally worked out better)

3) make a good plan for the end of the race at the start of the race. Only one of 44 and 56 might have been a gamble. However, both were in the same reentrant so the odds of getting 90 points was high and should have been the finish strategy.

Overall, much of the forest in the S and central part of the park was pretty open and the evening was lots of fun.