Training Log Archive: silkychrome

Event: 12th World Rogaining Championships
 

w Space Monkey. 2150 out of 4500 points (36 controls), if anyone is counting since there are no results yet.

Jeff and David got 2960. just reporting it so if people are looking up scores on their drive home like I am then they have another to add to the list.

also I got to meet Bash!!!

we started out with 2 HUGE loops planned - 45k in the south and 50k in the north. not quite a sweep route but something that would score in the high 3000s. a bit of history: the last time Space Monkey and I faced a rogaine situation (2012 CPT Nats), we didn't plan ANYTHING and ended up overtime DNF. so this time around i wanted to overplan and then make changes on the fly. based on the model map experience w Jeff and David the day before, i thought travel could be slow (in the 2-4km/hr range) but we still went big. our planning time was hilarious: i wanted to go crazy w markers, highlighters, map wheel, string, etc etc, and Andrei didn't want any of that. good thing they gave us 2 maps :). we also planned to come back to the HH around midnight to re-stock food. that is not what the top teams do but it sorta made sense w the course layout, and carrying less is always nice.

we went south first because the terrain had less relief and less (mapped) roads - good things for hitting in the daylight. everything went great but we were moving slower than we planned (granted our plan was crazy ambitious) so around hour 4 we started adjusting our route. that, and we both ran out of water at hour 5 with no water controls in close range. we used a mapped stream as a handrail to 64, except the stream was intermittent and full of cow poo. finally we found a semi-clear puddle and filled 1 bottle out of desperation. then climbed the wrong spur to 64, likely bc we had been so distracted w the search for water. but we relocated, corrected, hit 64, and then found a tiny steam of moving water to fill bladders. woohoo! chopped off the whole eastern portion of our loop and headed back to the HH. sun set after 47. we made an attempt at 85, the worst bingo control on the whole map, in the dark, but soon realized we couldn't read the terrain and bailed after a single pass through the "broad reentrant". (in hindsight, i wish we would have gone after 100 instead - slightly more distinct terrain.) got a few more controls on the way back to HH, arriving there around 12:15am w 1300 points.

south loop: 34k redline, 25-30-90-91-69-102-58-95-57-65-93-103-74-64-80-47-(85)-41-60-70-20-33-HH

restocked quickly, ate some hot food, changed shoes, and we were outta there. saw lots of Euros looking dejected and complaining about the map, which sorta made us feel better. i had a fear of skipping low-hanging fruit controls, so we got 5 of them right off the bat. couldn't find the flag at 32, but found the vetting tape so we thought it was stolen and only spent 5min looking. then a longish road shuffle north to 86 where we got to watch an awesome lightning show in the distance (tg it didn't materialize as rain on us). sun rose after 49. there were a cluster of 70- to 100-pointers (cornucopia of CPs!) that i wanted to be sure to hit, and we did. then we had the unfortunate realization that any more CPs would put us too tight into the time limit, but we had already gotten the CPs that were close to our return route (if that makes sense. to put it another way, we had sorta painted ourselves into a corner). so we just went back early w 850 pts.

north loop: 24k redline, 23-44-61-51-32-43-86-24-49-83-77-104-73-82-79

overall this was a great experience. i LOVE the strategy part of rogaining. physically i did not have a good day. well my legs were fine but my feet took a beating - no blisters just sore/fatigued/bruised. i was not moving thru the woods v well, and got frustrated when Andrei told me to hurry up. after hour 20 i just wanted to be DONE. ugh.

lots of complaints about the map but as an adventure racer i thought it was really good! ha! the contours were great. there were lots of unmapped roads but after a few hours we could guess at where they were based on terrain, so that became a non-issue. it would have been great to have the veg mapped. Andrei did a great job w the nav - i followed along and offered a few "are you sure?s" but in general we went straight to everything. i am bummed w my poor performance on my feet and w my motivation, and to have that at a World Champs race, well...boo. silver lining is nothing terrible happened which should make recovery a bit easier for T-Rolls in a few days. AND 24hrs on my feet now will only benefit me in the future. anyone have funding to go to Finland next year?

C • Bonked hard 9

3 CPs on the model map w David and Jeff. Terrain is pretty slow, plus we just hiked. And told stupid jokes.

up to the top of Fern Glen to make sure runners knew where to go at Alpine Shop Thursday Night Trail Series. then back down.

WU:
5min row, foam roll, 2x10 AS, 2x10 SD, 2x20m lunge.
THEN:
4x(30/30/60) mtn climber, FLR, rest.
THEN:
5 rounds of: 5x hack squat each leg, 20sec ALL-OUT assault bike, full rest.
THEN:
3 rounds of: 10x OHS 35#, 3x assisted pull-up.

EZ to TNW and back. 75 and low humidity. what is this, January?