Training Log Archive: Kat

I'm taking two weeks off now, with some occasional training, but mostly just rest.

C • Enjoy the rest! I'll send you... 2

Running with Aleksey and Daniel around the block.

Training day in Harriman with goats. Very rainy and slippery, but beautiful woods.

Running on trails after the course.

A morning run. I went to bed at 2AM last night after playing preference with Greg, Boris, and other goats so I was tired this morning. I woke up Greg twice at around 8:30, but he didn't feel up for running, so I dragged Boris out with me instead. We ran in random directions around Forest Park and managed to lose each other at the very end, so I did three laps of the last stretch of pavement road looking for him before going home...

C • if I did not know 4

A short run by myself in Fort Tryon Park. I was thinking about extending the run by going in the opposite direction, down by the Hudson, but my watch stopped working and I needed to be home within an hour, so I decided against it.

Biking on Aleksey's bike along the Hudson River and back. Not only is the bike too small for me, but it is also falling apart. Before I went out, I had to undo the kickstand, which was falling off. Then, I had to keep stopping every few minutes to adjust the seat, which kept swiveling down. Despite this, I enjoyed the ride and managed to make it up the two really short and really steep hills on the way back without getting off the bike.

Travel back to NYC, tired but happy.

Will, Boris, and I climbed Mt.Princeton today. We started at about 9,000 feet and went up to the very summit of 14,197 feet. There are two trails to the summit, and we took the harder (but shorter) one of the two. By the looks of it, this trail has not been used for some time before we came along. We started off by following a stream up along a canyon. I went first, brushing past the nettles as quickly as possible. Then we were out in the open, following a rocky gulch up to the treeline. Then came one of the hardest parts, which was climbing up a very steep grassy and rocky ridge. The rest of the time we were contouring around the ridge and then clambering on the rocks at the top of it. One of the hardest parts mentally was climbing up the false peak, and then climbing down the other side of it. We couldn't contour around it because there were very steep and rocky drops on both sides, so we had to go across it to get to the summit point.
It took us about 3:50 to get up there (including 20-30 minutes total of breaks). We decided to go down using the other trail, which was indeed easier but less interesting. It took us about 2+ hours to get down to the Radio Tower, where we managed to hitch a ride from some nice folks to our car. The first stop was the Mt.Princeton hot springs.

EVENT: US Classic Champs, Day 2
COURSE: F21 (Red), 8.29 km, 295m climb, 15 controls
MAP: The Big Sandy (Buena Vista)
TERRAIN: Mostly semi-open terrain with intense rock detail everywhere. Many reentrants and stream beds. Definitely not flat, but not very steep either.
MY RUN: After running hills for an extra 20 minutes yesterday, I felt like I was at a disadvantage before I even started my course. However, being tired meant that I was moving slower and therefore had more time to look at my map. This helped right from the start, when I started going down the wrong trail. After going down the trail for 30 meters, I felt the direction wasn't right and headed back to the trail junction after checking my map and compass. I made some more small mistakes throughout the course, most notable of which was #10 (where I went a bit right of my bearing and climbed around a huge and tall rock feature to get to the control) and the last control (which I approached by running down the finish chute in the opposite direction...) So I probably could have been 5-6 minutes faster (cleaner), but it was still a very good race for me.
RESULTS: 8th on Red and 2nd in F21 today, behind Pavlina. Fourth overall in US Champs.

Will Hawkins, Boris, and I drove down to the Great Sand Dunes after the races. It was raining quite hard when we got there, but luckily there was no lightning on the dunes themselves so we decided to go climb on them. Even though wet sand is easier to deal with than dry sand, it still required effort to climb the tall dunes wearing Tevas. If Will had not given me one of his walking poles, I don't think I could have made it up because my shoes were sliding down at each step. We were out for about 1.5 hours and managed to climb a dune that was somewhere over 600 feet tall. By the time we got up there, the rain had mostly stopped and the fog had lifted, so we could actually see the mountains behind the dunes. This place is absolutely amazing.

Event: US Classic Champs
 

EVENT: US Classic Champs Day 1
COURSE: F21 (Red), 7.17 km, 390m climb, 13 controls
MAP: Buena Vista (San Isabel National Forest)
TERRAIN: Mix of terrain - open forest, alpine meadows, large rock formations. The open areas were very runnable, but the southwestern part of the map, which was covered in black dots, was quite slow.
MY RUN: Terrible. Perhaps because yesterday was a rest day, I had a lot of energy and started out quite fast. I almost immediately made a mistake (on #3) partly because I couldn't see the pit and partly because I wasn't being careful enough. Then I made big mistakes on #5 and #6, both caused by not going down far enough in a big reentrant and not having enough confidence in myself to keep going down. Besides this, I had no major mistakes, but I was so exhausted from running up and down the hills searching for those two controls, that I didn't have much left for the second half of the course.
RESULTS: 38th finisher on Red, 7th female

In the morning, Boris, Anna, John F., and I all did the US Champs model event. I tried very hard to understand how the rocks were mapped, but had to conclude that they could be mapped in many different ways and I'd just have to rely more on other types of features (contours, vegetation, etc.) to navigate.
The model event went down a long reentrant, and afterward we had to climb back up to where our car was parked. This was tiring.

Boris, Anna, and I went rafting after the model event. When we got back to Buena Vista after the trip, we were wearing wet clothing and did not have much to change into. Also, it was chilly and windy and the campsite was over a mile away down the road. Boris had enough dry clothing that he could walk back, but Anna and I decided to jog to warm up (literally).

EVENT: Middle Distance "A" Day
COURSE: F21 (Red), 6.07 km, 16 controls
MAP: First With the Most, 1:10,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: Rolling to hilly granite terrain, with detailed rocks and contours, mixed meadow and ponderosa forest.
MY RUN: The few middle distance courses that I've done in the past have never gone well - more controls (especially technical ones) means more opportunities for me to make a mistake. So today I just wanted to avoid big mistakes and slow down when necessary, such as in the tricky rock areas. I started off well and was having a pretty good race through #12, but then made a huge mistake on #13 (15-20 minutes). I was heading on a bearing to the control, expecting to see a big green (forested) reentrant on my right. Unfortunately I was a big higher up than I thought I was (a bit left of the line) and did not see the reentrant. Hence, I kept going till I hit the next green reentrant, which was already past my control. Stuff did not quite match up, but I figured there was no way I could have misssed such a huge feature and decided this second reentrant was in fact the first one. Then I crossed it, climbed up to the meadow there, and was almost to #7 before I finally realized exactly where I was and decided to turn back. This mistake meant over a kilometer of extra running, not to mention a lot of time hesitating, being confused, and climbing extra hills. I was pretty bummed about this, since I'd been so careful the rest of the course, but this reminded me that it is important to be very careful all throughout the course, and not just most of it. Also, it showed me that even a big feature can be hidden from view and therefore I should not rely on just one thing when heading on a bearing, but look at other features as well.
RESULTS: 35th finisher on Red, 7th female

EVENT: Crystal Relay
TEAM: Ross Smith, me, Peter Gagarin, Boris Granovskiy (in that order)
MAP: Antenna Hill, 1:15,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: The start/finish was on a hilltop with relatively flat limestone/sandstone terrain, with sparse forest. There was a steep drop down from the hill to the surrounding grassy hills and forested reentrants.
MY RUN: I started off with a 3+ minute lead over everyone else due to a fantastic first leg by Ross. I knew my job was to be careful and not make any big mistakes. I did wind up making a small mistake on #3, which was a cliff in one of many close reentrants, but I figured it out quickly enough. Then, I also hesitated a bit going into #5 and #6, because both were different from what I was expecting. (In particular, #6 was mapped as a form-line hill, but when I was approaching it, all I could see was a tree with a control on it, which made me stop and check my map.) So, overall, I had no more than 1-2 minutes of hesitation/mistakes in total, which is quite good for me.
RESULTS: Our relay came in first, with both Peter and Boris keeping the lead. I had the second best time on my leg, with Marie-Cat beating me by 7 seconds. I believe this is my fastest per km time ever!

EVENT: US Team Sprint
COURSE: 2.91 km, 12 controls, 135m climb
MAP: The Gates of AMT Hell, 1:10,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: Rolling to moderately hilly terrain, with a few areas of technical rock detail. Sage meadows, sparse ponderosa forest, and aspen.
MY RUN: I started off really well, passing several people through control #5, but then I made a mistake on #6 (1.5-2.5 minutes) by going too far and a bigger mistake on #7 (4-6 minutes). Both mistakes happened in the tricky rock areas, which I had a tough time relocating in. The rest of the course was clean, but these two mistakes were enough to put me far back of the winning times.
RESULTS: 40th finisher, 7th female

EVENT: US Night O Championships
COURSE: F21 (Red), 8.78 km, 10 controls
MAP: The Lights of Cheyenne, 1:15,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: Rolling hills of short prairie grass, with some areas of sage and some forested areas of ponderosa pine and aspen.
MY RUN: This was my first time running out west, and I was doing a long course at night, so basically I had no expectations and just hoped to finish. I spent fifteen minutes finding the first control - thought I had gone far enough when I didn't - and then made a few more errors throughout the course, always close to the control circle and almost always due to the darkness. On #6, for example, I was right on the line heading to the control (a big boulder) but since I couldn't see it, I thought I might have veered a bit too far left, and tried to correct by going right, where I saw some other people's lights. Shortly after, I looked back and saw the boulder with the control! This type of mistake would definitely not have happened in the daytime, when the boulder would have been visible from several hundred meters away.
RESULTS: 3rd in F21, behind Hillary and Pavlina.

After Erin's wedding, the guests were split up into several big teams and played games. I won't include throwing a frisbee or playing volleyball as training, but I'll count the orienteering I did around Erin's land.

Part of Erin's wedding weekend schedule was to go to the Sandwich Old Home Week Triathlon. It was really small - the swim was less than 100 meters (in fact, perhaps less than 50), the bike was 4-6 miles (don't know which), and the run was about 2.3-2.5 miles. Most of the participants joined up into teams of three, but I went out by myself just to see what it felt like. Really fun!

C • and... 1

Biking in Fort Tryon Park on Aleksey's bike. Basically, it was like doing hill intervals. I'd go down, then go back up in gear 3 or 2. It was tough.

Event: Rocky Mountain 1000 Day
 

Involuntary rest day - flight to NYC, with a stop in Philadelphia. I hate crossing the ocean...

Spinning session at Ekeby gym. I liked this instructor (Annie) better than yesterday's guy.

Spinning session at the Ekeby gym. I thought that it would last just 45 minutes, but the instructor kept going for 60. There was no ventilation in the room and it was HOT! I was glad when we finally finished.

Stretching and some push-ups afterward.

My knees hurt, so I am going to take a break from running for a week and try to do alternative training instead.

Travel back to Uppsala - car, boat, tram, bus, train, bus. I'm tired.

Running to the start.

EVENT: WOC Tour Day 6 (Final Day)
COURSE: D20E, 4.4 km, 13 controls
TERRAIN: Himmelbjerget was very hilly and very green. The navigation was not particularly hard because the contours were big and obvious, but the presence of so much green meant lowered visibility and slower going. It was quite easy to make a parallel error.
MY RUN: I was tired right from the start and planned to just get around the course with as few mistakes as possible. I started off slowly but carefully and managed to have an ok race. I made a few errors, but nothing disastrous. My one regret is that I went relatively straight on the long leg (through hilly green terrain) instead of going way around on a trail. I decided to go straight because the around option seemed too ridiculously out of the way, but afterward, I wished I'd done that instead. Looking at the splits, it doesn't look like any of the other girls on my course went around either. That's too bad, because I think we could have saved at least 3-4 minutes by doing so.
RESULTS: 8th out of 15. Winner was 41:31.

EVENT: WOC Tour Day 5
COURSE: D20E, 4.3 km, 14 controls
TERRAIN: Same map as the WOC middle final was run on - Gjern Bakker. Very technical terrain with lots of small reentrants, hills, and other contour detail. The southern part of the map was covered in heather and was especially difficult with surprisingly low visibility.
MY RUN: I was debating whether to run at all today because my left knee hurt after yesterday (tendonitis) and I've developed a cold. But the chance to run on the middle final map was too good to pass up, so I decided to give it a go. I knew that doing a middle distance course on this terrain would be tough and I was determined to be careful, but as it turned out I wasn't quite careful enough. My split to #2 was 13:20 and my split to #9 was 16:37. So I had some pretty big mistakes. Nonetheless, I had fun out there and enjoyed the technical challenges.
RESULT: Last on my course.
NOTE TO SELF: I need to get better and quicker at translating between map and terrain.

Jogging to the start.

EVENT:WOC Tour Day 4
COURSE: D20E, 8.0 km, 15 controls
TERRAIN: We ran on the same map that the WOC long final had taken place on yesterday - Londal Skov. The terrain seemed pretty typical to me - the white parts were pretty runnable, the green parts had extremely dense coniferous trees, and there were big hills and reentrants everywhere. There were also enough trails and rides that the best route choice was not always obvious.
MY RUN: I started out a bit tentatively because I knew this was a long course with significant climb and I didn't want to burn out before the end. I saw the girl who started one minute ahead of me at #1 and then caught sight of another girl who'd started ahead of me at #2. It only got better from there. As I was approaching #5, I saw Camilla (the girl who'd won the previous three Tour days). She started two minutes after I did and I was surprised she hadn't caught up to me before then. Then I got stuck in the green there (which was so thick you couldn't see more than a few feet in front of you) and thought I'd lost her for good. But I went on to have an excellent race, with virtually no mistakes after that. After racing down the finish chute, I happened to glance back and saw that she had come in right behind me! I already knew I'd had a good run and would have been happy no matter where I ended up in the results, but this was a very nice bonus.
RESULTS: 3rd out of 16!!

C • Congratulations... 3

Today was the WOC Tour rest day, so instead I went with some others to do the Model Relay course. It was nice in the woods and despite the course being 4.4 km with 200 meters climb (which used to seem like a lot), it didn't really feel tough or physically challenging at all. I think I'm getting better at running up hills!

After watching the WOC sprint qualification races, we didn't have much time to get over to where the WOC Tour races were being held. I changed in the car while driving there and then ran to the start immediately after we parked.

EVENT: WOC Tour Day 3
COURSE: D20E, 5.2 km, 13 controls
TERRAIN: Same terrain as yesterday - we ran on an adjacent part of the map and used the same finish.
MY RUN: It was really flat today compared to the last few days and I felt like I was flying! I still made about 8+ minutes of mistakes between a few controls (mostly due to not going on proper compass bearing through light green woods), but most of the legs went ok and I was happy to be going fast for a change! In the past, I've often felt that my speed was hindered by my meager navigational skills, but nowadays I'm beginning to feel like I can go fast and navigate at the same time. I still make mistakes, sometimes quite big, but then again I made big mistakes then as well. The difference is now I can go faster without necessarily increasing the chance of making mistakes. The only times I've ever felt so fast while orienteering before were when I was following people (such as Abi Weeds in the spring), but this was all me! That's pretty cool!
RESULTS: My time for the course would have put me 9th out of 15 starters, but because I was 5 minutes late to the start and my result time includes this, I am listed as being last :( On the bright side, if I'd had a clean run, I think I could have beaten the #1 girl! I was going fast enough...