Training Log Archive: BillD

Event: WCOC Hurd State Park
 

To hurd with expectation that the new map by Walk would be a treat. It was.

Feeling good on arrival I opted to try Green.

I pulled another Mt. Kisco: blew myself up on the very first control. While I told myself on the way to the park to concentrate on keeping contact with the map, I let myself be distracted by Walk's "twist": go as straight as possible between controls. Now good map contact and good azimuth maintenance are not mutually exclusive, in my small brain they apparently are. I devoted too many grey cells (Poirot) to managing the compass and not enough to reading the map. I think I was also too excited when starting out at the prospect of getting to O again, having had to miss so many opportunities this season for health and family care issues. Before I knew it I was sighting the road way beyond the first control - comprehension of time and distance was nil, and I knew I had "done it again d--- it".

OK, let it go. Beautiful woods and lots yet to see on a great weather day. Decided to subordinate (but not abandon) the "twist" to staying with the map. Much better. And with the open woods, the subordinated compass still got a lot of attention.

I'll skip the details, but I must comment that there were a lot of spoilers standing around the controls today. And I will confess that I read a grey area (bare rock) as green lying in proximity to #8, which threw me too far north as I spotted a laurel patch to my right as I thought, aha! that's the green patch. My only big bobble since #1.

Felt pretty strong coming in to the finish and before noon. So downed a banana and a bottle of water and picked up the Brown map and headed back out to redeem myself. See the next session.

My route: green.

Brown went well for me. Map first, compass second. Counted my paces. As it turns out as I look at my QR, I was doing pretty well staying on the "twist" (direct routes). Finished in better relative times to the Usual Speedy Demons than I have before. OK, a couple of the legs were repeats from the Green and thus familiar, but I was beyond my usual distance and not fatigued.

And never once thought about my right hip arthritis! Drove home smiling.

My route: brown.

Brown - Splits

Green - Splits

Many hours marshaling leaves with an electric blower. A slow tool, but it doesn't tax my shoulder.

Went over the hill to UHart for the first of four lectures on Beethoven's 3rd Symphony (The Eroica). The prof is really on top of using technology to demonstrate his points: audible snippets of the visual score so we can see and hear the notes (great for us non-musicians), various snippets from YouTube to compare and contrast phrases from other works and composers. He makes an hour and half go by really quickly. Great stuff.

He showed a picture of the first page of the original score where Beethoven scratched out his dedication to Napoleon in disgust after Napoleon declared himself to be Emperor. Susan and I remembered seeing it in person two years ago when we toured the Leibowitz Palace in Prague.

BTW, Louis van Beethoven (who did not object when people misspoke the van as the more aristocratic von) apparently means "Louie in the Beet Field".

C • Beethoven lecture 2

Meandered for an hour in Town Forest but my gps tracker didn't start so no track.

Arranged coverage for Susan this Sunday so I can get to Hurd and see what Walk has in store for us.