Training Log Archive: syd

Event: 2018 Frozen Beaver
 

Frozen Beaver 2018

Great course design. Last year it was easy to plan a route that minimized elevation, but it was much more difficult this year. Ended up with a CCW route. I didn't think I would clear the course so I planned a very inefficient route near the start/finish that would've been great point wise if I had to drop, but ended up being a terrible idea. Usually I do a better job at route planning, not sure what I was thinking.

Started off with a small crowd to my first control and then it thinned out pretty quickly. Had a couple small errors right off the bat as I was still adjusting to the 1:24 map. I didn't quite go far enough out the spur to 70. I realized it pretty quickly and found the CP no problem. Headed to 81 I decided to cut down early because they said the reentrant was steep, but then I went up a parallel reentrant just before the one I wanted. Once I realized what I had done, I popped over the spur and hit the flag right on. After that my navigation was really clean and I was happy with how well I was moving.

First decision was if I wanted to do the long out and back to get 32. I was right on my time targets at this point, so decided to just go for it. Next decision was 64 and I was still on track, so over the ridge I went. The hill from 51 to 64 was brutal. It was so steep and felt like it went on forever. There were all kind of reentrants in the vicinity of 64, not at all what it looked like on the map, but the flag was hung high on a saddle (?), so I didn't have any trouble spotting it. A bit of a reprieve from climbing and then back over the ridge from 54 to 53. Ugh. Had a nice flat stretch for a while after that where I was able to pick up the pace again.

I was getting worried about time after 82. I still had a long road run back to the finish. Thought I might still have time to clear, so decided to just go for it. The hill to 56 was covered in thorns, not fun. Headed all the way to 40. Found it no problem and then headed up to the road. My legs had no hills left in them. I decided if I saw 50 from the road I would go down to get it. I didn't see it so just headed to the finish. I had 5 minutes to spare, more than enough time to have gotten 50. Especially considering the late penalty was only 10 pts/min. I thought it was worse. Bummer. Wouldn't have changed my placing, but I would've had the satisfaction of clearing.

This is by far the fastest I've ever travelled during a rogaine. Going into this race I decided to push the pace and just see what I could do. I reasoned that my legs would never hurt as bad as they had during the Ironman marathon. Felt great for the first 3 hrs, started to fade on the hills in hrs 4-5 and really started to hurt the last hour. But I've definitely felt worse in the past! Did a good job of staying on top of food/electrolytes/water, which helped for sure.

Overall, really happy with my fitness and navigation. Route was sub-par. Finished 2nd solo, 3rd OA.

C • congrats 3

Finished a V4-V6, and a few other routes. Still not a fan of the ranges they use to rate. It’s much less satisfying. I may have climbed my first V5 (!) but I’ll never know for sure.

Easy run along the trail. Brought along the FB map from last year.

Finished a couple new V3-5s.

Intervals (4x2x2)

Warmup

Orienteering at North Park. Worked on pacing / bearings. Thanks to Mr. W for the course design. Had a bunch of ticks on my clothes when I finished - yuk.