Training Log Archive: Ari-o

So, orienteering was fun. Especially when I remembered how to orienteer.

I got out of Dodge a bit later than planned, then hit a wall of traffic into Danbury. Bad enough I put the car in park and sent some texts. Which meant by the time I was off of 84 I was looking for any pullout to use the restroom.

I had plenty of time for the course, especially if I remembered how to orienteer. First a quick warm up to use the restroom again. Nice, cool, breezy day. And then off. Orienteering!

First skips, 1, 5 and 16 were the obvious ones, I decided 16. So off to 1. In some deep, not-dry mud, and then up some benches up to the control. Cool, I remember how to orienteer. So then off to 2. Ran the spur and found a control, but not really in the right place. Oh, wait, this is 3. Should I go to 2 or use my skip? Actually, 2 is a decent skip, lots of contours between 2 and 3. Fine, use my skip. Not a great skip.

Back to the trail and whee down to the road and off to 4, navigating pretty well. Then down the herd path to 5 around the pond, also orienteering well. Actually, maybe getting cocky.

So 6. I was following stone walls and at some point followed the wrong one the wrong direction. Somehow north instead of west. And I got to a road. But there was no road on the map. I tried to make things line up and there was nowhere that I could be. This went on for a while until finally I realized there was the little yellow stripe along the map. Wait. That's the road? I don't really agree with the mapmaker, who either has it as a clear area with small areas of large trail, which kind of just look like cliffs. It makes sense, but I think would make a lot more sense as an indistinct trail. The narrow strip of yellow kind of looks like a contour line, especially where it runs parallel to the contour lines.

So once I figured that out, I yelled words at no one in particular, and went running off to the actual control. That was easy enough. Then to 7. Here the issue was not realizing how bad the slash thorns were (impassable). I tried several times, and finally gave up running the stream bed when it was impassable, and then finally went around.

So I found 7. Then off to 8. Well, I forgot how to take compass bearings. I first went west, then east, when I was supposed to be going south. I stopped for a second and said "okay, back to basics, following a bearing, read the terrain." And got to 8.

I think that was finally what I needed to remember how to orienteer. I'd already made 16m of mistakes. I made 31s the rest of the way (per AP).

9. Spike.
10. Contour a bit high, then due south on a bearing, spike.
11. Spike
12, 13, 14, spikes, or close to it. 12 I think I took a decent route to avoid some climb, 13 I found the control sort of matching the description, 14, nicely done.
15-17, lagging, thirsty and not too fast, but navigated well.
18. Now I was tired and thirsty, and a long climb to the finish.

So, maybe if I orienteer a bit more?

DIY Goat - Splits

Easy taper run on a gorgeous, cool day in Maine on the KH trails. With poles, fartleking up the hills a bit.

And then I jumped in the lake, because it was over 50.

After work scamper up Abraham. Got stuck in a queuing theory nightmare where Route 2 was down to one lane and the light cycle at the bridge was not optimized for the volume; it was almost at the exponential growth stage (lots of wasted cycle time, etc). I thought back to grad school, they tried to teach us this!

Anyway, I started later than planned, but churned through the first couple of miles at 12 minute miles, the first mile or so has been moved around a bit to avoid some wet sections, and I decided to run the parallel-ish road on the way down in the dark instead. Abraham is 2.5 miles of pretty easy climbing and then 1.3 miles at a 27% average grade (1600' per mile on the steepest mile). So that was fun. I was huffing and puffing at L3 most of the way, stopped around treeline to put on my gloves and windbreaker, which was needed; it was probably in the 30s on top and blowing hard.

A couple of quick snapshots of the sunset and then down. Felt pretty good with the headlamp once in the woods, turned in a 16m mile on a gradual down with some tricky footing, and then hit the road for the jog into the car.

News on the radio was not so great. But the run was good!

More "well … shit" for this year.

Pisgah would have been this Sunday. In recent years, Pisgah has been warm verging on hot.

Forecast for Sunday: low of 35, high of 59.

(I guess I could go run 50k on Sunday, but I think I am going to go do my own Goat.)

Earlier trip out tonight, on a cool, cloudy evening with some sun/smoke sun on the horizon. Lovely day for a roll, DP out, skate back, out to the bridge and back.

I started just behind an older gentleman on a bicycle (as I was putting on the skis he came by and said "out to enjoy the new tah!") and eventually caught him, and he was so excited to see a rollerskier. Not because he's a skier, but because he wanted to take pictures to post on his Facebook page.

On the way out were were both yelled at from a minivan (ant this guy was wearing a Harley Davidson sweatshirt, so, yeah) and on the way back, once I'd dropped him (he wasn't doing so hot up the hills, and I was skating) a dog ran out. But some nice light and some color coming in.

I'm now testing my blinky light to see how long it runs on a charge. Up to 155 minutes. Hopefully it dies before bedtime.

Finally did this run! KH trail to 17, down the lake, and then down to Hathaway and up through the KLT trails and finishing before sunset. A bit shy of 12, but not by much. With some hills.

On the hill up from Hathaway to the KLT trails I got chased by some shaggy dogs. I think they just wanted to come on a run with me. I should have just kept running and had their owner chase after. Harder to blame them here than in the city; it's a dead end road and they don't see a lot of people.

Got out for my rollerski way later than planned. Turned around at 5 mi or 30m, whichever came first (5 mi did). On the esker, DP out, skate back; focusing on good soccer kicks skating and it seemed to help me go fast to beat sunset, all sub-5s coming back.

Super hazy from the smoke but that's up high; AQI of 5 or something.

Felt good, need to do better on timing to get more rolling in. Basically no traffic, though.

Event: 124th Boston Marathon Cancelled!
 

Angsty run, finishing at the farm for veggies, then running down the hill with a bag of veggies to slow my pace.

Not a bad day for running.