Training Log Archive: bill_l

Not long enough, but start time was at hand.

St. Francois State Park - Prologue

1: Road then across field past ponds.

2: Across reentrant to south and then east through clearing to road and parking area. Misread map and mistook foot trail for the heavy black line running east. Lost 3ish minutes on trail, figuring out what had happened, and then getting back to control.

3: Redline.

4: Redline past north end of clearing, a little surprised by unmapped campground, then on into the control from a northerly direction. 30 seconds tyring to locate the campground on the map.

5: Redline. More unmapped rocks. 15 seconds.

6: Redline. The roads in the campground were hard to read but fortunately the outhouse on the far side just off the redline was mapped so keyed off of that. 15 seconds.

7: Roads to near small pond, then straight over to control.

Finish: Intended to redline through the field. Followed a tractor path through the tall vegetation that added some distance and took me a little off to the south. 20 seconds?

I think without the mistake at 2 and better reading on the run, a high 18 might have been possible (for me). Certainly a low 19 would have been doable.

St. Francois State Park - Chase

1: Opted for redline. Went a little left and ended up at last control from prologue. Easy correction to the control, but lost about 2 minutes. Safest, and maybe fastest route would have been the road along the clearing and then cut in to get the control.

2: Boomed. Bad, bad, bad route choice. Took paved road north and gravel road east. Overran attack point and ended up spending 12+ minutes relocating and then getting to the control. I did spike it after relocating, but the damage was done. Saw several people hunting for this control and served as a warm-blooded control for a couple. There was an unmapped outhouse not far from the control on the gravel road. Put this on the map and maybe my route choice would have worked.

3: Was running behind Gary Thompson to this one so I took the opportunity to relax a little and regroup from the first two controls.

4: On the way out of #3, Gary went perpendicular to the redline to try an lead me off in the wrong direction. I didn't bite, but I did wonder where he was going. Spiked 4 and started feeling a lot better. Lost 30-60 seconds looking at map to be certain of my route and location.

5: Some uncertainty with regards to mapping of rocks. Didn't want to miss control so went further left than needed. Lost a minute.

6: Went north of a rocky, deep reentrant. A little extra yardage, but I think it was faster than the redline. Nailed the control. Caught up with Rudy on the way. Was quite suprised given my early errors.

7: Did a little extra climbing to be certain to hit the clearing.

8: Redline.

9: Redline most of the way. Went to clearing to the left of the control and then straight to it.

Finish: B-line to road and then home. Right calf was threatening a cramp, so had to slow down a little. Should have taken fluids with me.

Drove to SFSP and back home again with Rudy. Enjoyed the company!
Today marked my first orienteering event (not counting AR) in the woods since last spring. Not sure when exactly. I did some control picking at Hawn and directed the Clilff Cave meet, both in June, but can't remember my last meet.

It was a perfect day for an o-meet! But then, which days aren't? Anyway, the weather was perfect. Lots of sunshine, cool but not cold, light breeze. And Eric put together a couple of really fun courses.

Note to self for next time at SFSP: Don't use the rocks marked on the map as navigable features. Or maybe scale the actual rock features down by an order of magnitued to decide if they're on the map or not? Seemed like there wasn't much rhyme or reason as to why some rocks got mapped and some didn't. Could be a good exercise to go back out and take a look.

Not sure how I feel about the prologue-chase format. On the one hand it was fun to go out on a short course, compare notes, and then go back out again. But on the other, it meant sitting around for a chunk of time waiting for the next start. With a bigger field, I can see where it might be interesting. You'd get groups of racers progressing through the course on more of a head-to-head basis.

On the whole, I had a mixed run on both courses. Biggest difficulty was reading the map while running. Second biggest problem: bright sun through the leaves on the map while moving made it doubly difficult to focus (optically not mentally) and forced me to stop a number of times. On the good side, for the most part I was moving through the woods really well and reading features pretty well.

Chase - Splits

Prologue - Splits

No run today. Heel still hurts. Hopefully it's good enough to run on Sunday for the o-meet.

Wake-up and pre-ride stretching.

The PF feels much better this morning. Maybe a run tomorrow.

Weights up a little thanks to the Dewey's Pizza and light workout schedule.

Had trouble going to sleep and then woke-up 1/2 hour ahead of the alarm. l started reading an AR book: The Thrill of Victory, the Agony of My Feet. It got me thinking about racing. Can't do that at bedtime...

Ride out to Castlewood, about an hour and a half of singletrack, then ride back home.

A chilly but beautiful morning. The view from bluffs of the Meramec River valley in the early morning light revealed some fall colors in the mostly green forest canopy. Thought the trails might be muddy after the rain on Monday but they were in perfect condition with no mud to be found, however I didn't do Stinging Nettle.

The 20-30 mph headwind on the way home made for a slow crank up Dougherty Ferry.

Once again, I was surprised how much traffic there was on Big Bend at 6:15. In an effort to get off of Big Bend, I tried Carmen to 141 on the way out. Less traffic but a bigger hill. There is a way to get from 141 over to Reis Road, but I didn't have a map with me so went 141 down to BB and then out to Reis. I don't typically ride sidewalks, but on the way back, road the sidewalk along BB from Sulpher Springs to DF.

C • I've always found that stre... 4

Cloudy, Mid 40'sF, windy, wet-ish roads, not very motivating conditions for a bike ride. Heel still hurts to much to run. Maybe a trip to the Y later.

Kirkwood hills. Didn't beat the rain.