Training Log Archive: Kat

DVOA Long Champs Green Course.

This was the first time i had gone orienteering in a month, so it took a few controls before I remembered what navigating was like. I felt good physically, however, since I had taken off two days from running before. Having learned from past mistakes, I started out nice and easy and found control 1 without major issues. I checked the map perhaps more times than i needed to, but this was better than not checking it enough. Going to control 2, I ran into some problems. Mainly, since I am not yet a good judge of distance, especially when running through and over dead branches, I thought I had gone far enough when in fact I hadn't. Also, I veered off a little too far to the left. So I basically spent fifteen minutes circling around an area which I believed was close to control 2 and in fact wasn't. That control took me 30:34 to get to!!! After that, is the next bad control was #4. I had major difficulty trying to attack this control and it seems I wasn't the only one. This control was on a clump of rocks in a region that had rocks all over the place and dense tree growth, with low visibility. I probably spent another 15 minutes circling around there trying to find it, a total leg split of 24:36. Other than that, the only other long split I had was from #4 to #5, which was 23:56. This was a very long leg, however, and I was not pushing at all. Actually, now that I look at other people's splits, it seems that the fastest split for that leg on green was 21:52, so I suppose I wasn't as slow as I thought.

All in all, I'm happy with the way my first green course went. With the exception of control 2, I managed to pick pretty decent route choices and head in the right directions. What I really need to work on it find the controls once I'm within a hundred feet of them.

Stretching out on the grass at our campsite. Very relaxing.

Running with Aleksey in Fort Tryon Park. I tried to take it easy, especially on the downhills, because we were running on gravel or pavement most of the time.

Fast hill repetitions with Aleksey on the same grassy hill where I did hills with Jamal. But this time, the 8 reps we did went by a whole lot faster because Aleksey is faster than I am. We would run up the hill (took about 28 seconds), run back down (another 27 seconds or so), rest for about 30 seconds, then do it all over again. No math problems this time - Aleksey's brain hurt. But we did these 8 reps (including rest) in 12 minutes, as opposed to the 28 it took me to do them with Jamal. True, we weren't doing math this time, but nonetheless, this makes me realize again how much of a difference it makes to run with faster people...

6 Strides with Aleksey (40-45 seconds each) on the grass in Fort Tryon Park.

C • Speed vs. endurance and conditioning 2

From home to end of grassy path along Hudson River took exactly 20 minutes (last time Aleksey and I ran this, our time was 23 minutes, I think). Then ran back to the lighthouse and stopped to stretch.

6 strides (about 20 seconds each) in the usual place from the tree to the lamp pole.

Run home from the lighthouse. I tried to go slowly because we were running on pavement for the most part and my shins hurt.

Didn't have time to run today....