Training Log Archive: smittyo

Event: BAOC: Pacheco State Park A-meet
 

Warm-up to the start

Middle course at Pacheco Pass. I had a decent run, although I felt a little slow. This terrain really doesn't lend itself well to middle. I'm looking forward to the ultra-long tomorrow, which should be better suited to the area.

Most of the legs were pretty straightforward with fairly major reentrants as handrails. Due to a misplaced control, the course was voided. I lost about a minute or two here because I saw the vetting tag in the correct position and went there to check for a control before moving on to where I had seen a control on a nearby similar feature.

#1 - took the trail around and then in to the control. Control visible from trail bend. I felt like the trail wasn't mapped quite right though.
#2 - up slightly and then down the spur, then followed reentrants to the control.
#3 - this was the misplaced one. Went down the reentrant to where the side reentrant goes up to the east and took a bearing to crosshill from there. I ended up on a cow path a little lower than bearing and was surprised when the control I saw was lower than I was. Then I saw the tag above and went up to check it out. Time loss about 1:30.
#4 - once again down the reentrant. I used the rocks along the reentrant and slightly north of the circle as an attackpoint. It was a little confusing with so many rocks round. Definitely not a spike. I wasn't doing a good job of matching the details with the terrain, so just stopped and looked around and saw the control above me and to the left. Possibly lost as much as 20 seconds by not being very sure of myself.
#5 - basically straight. Once I was over the spur, I could see the control. I took a slightly diagonal cow path down the hill and then up to the control.
#6 - contoured then dropped into the reentrant. Should have climbed right away, but was afraid I'd overshoot and go too high, so I went a little further south in the reentrant before climbing to the control.
#7 - lost some time here. I went up the reentrant to just below #4, then climbed. There was a lot of brush here and it was mapped as wide green lines. I felt it would be more appropriate as close green lines. It was not easy to see on the map. The combination of the brush and trying to identify the various areas of woods and trees got me confused. At one point I even considered the possibility that I had made a serious error and was in a totally different spot on the map marked as green. Probably spent a minute convincing myself I had not made this error. Eventually heard someone else punching the control at a tree I was heading towards. Estimated Time loss - 2 minutes
#8 - basically straight. I picked up a cow path that went perfectly along this hillside. Noted when I crossed the reentrant and then started looking for the feature. Should have measured and pace counted to avoid some minor hesitation, but saw the control on my left pretty quickly.
#9 - climbed to west of the saddle just above the shallow reentrant and then dropped to the control. I hit the yellow patch that led straight to it.
#10 - climbed slightly to the east to the end of the small woods patch on the spur. Then it was contouring from there.
To finish - just followed the fastest paths I could find that paralleled the reentrant until I saw the banner.

I reported the misplaced control. I was considering whether to make a formal complaint but discovered that this control was also on blue and a complaint had already been made on that course. The organizers had moved the control to the proper location once it was reported, so they ended up deciding to void both courses. It looks like the time I lost there made a difference of a few places in my age class.

Addendum: On Sunday, they still gave awards to all classes in the Middle. A little disconcerting since this should be one of the points of voiding a course.

I received my Silva Expedition 54 compass this week, so I took it for a test drive out at Pacheco Pass. I got permission from the meet director to go out into some close by terrain that would not be used for Sunday's courses and practiced a combination of sighting item and taking bearings from the map and then lining them up. It's extremely accurate, but takes some time since you have to actually read the numbers and transfer them from the sight to the dial. Looking forward to using it at the DVOA event.

Middle Green (Voided because of #3) - Splits

I didn't make it out to the trails before dark, so I just did a neighborhood treasure hunting run.

Walking with AbbyDog

HDR Interval workout at the track. 90 seconds x 10 reps.

SOAR Run Through the Orchards 10K. This was a fun little race put on by a group dedicated to preserving open space and agricultural land. The route was through the pathways of a farm. They laid out a 5k and those of us doing the 10K did two loops. The 5K started later, so on the second loop I was catching up to the slower 5K participants. I like this kind of thing because it keeps me motivated to have people to pass. They also had a really large group of elementary school kids who were running the 5K, so that was neat.