Training Log Archive: ebuckley

Scoping out the Third Thursday course for December using the USGS quad. Some fun stuff, but I'll have to enhance the map to make it work. Mostly trail and grass, but some roads as well. Did a major face plant while running on the sidewalk and reading the map.

Over to JB and back. Return trip with David Frei.

Warmup.

SLOC meet at Jefferson Barracks (1:10). Rudy's updates helped, but the map is still really rough. The situation was made worse by some substandard printing where the shades of green were all printed too light which exaggerated the optomistic view of the runnability. Turned out to be a pretty brutal HTFU session.

That said, it was a fun course on interesting terrain. Generally the challenge was finding the best around route as going straight through the woods was only tolerable in small doses. After a while I started treating all the woods like they were medium green, regardless of what the map said.

David is so despondent about the state of the Death Match that he's resorted to treachery. He got there before me and "helped out" by copying some of the first loop maps which were in short supply. I got one such map and it had control 9 on the wrong feature. That set me back about 3 minutes and he beat me by 1. At the finish he feigned great distress at the "error".

C • specific comments on map ap... 6

5x800@4:05-4:15 in the terrain with equal recovery spent picking controls. Felt like I've been moving too slow in the woods so I took advantage of the fact that Kate didn't need her car today and went up to Cuivre River (1:15) for some high-speed work. Effort was pretty close to threshold, but I took just enough edge off so I could stay in contact with the map. Set the 800m legs along ridge tops, so all I had to do was make sure I got onto the right spur to approach the control.

I certainly couldn't move at that pace on a technical leg without things going terribly wrong, but it was a hoot moving at 5:15/K through the woods on a map. I think I actually tend to run most legs cleaner at high speed, but am obviously more prone to disasterous errors. I think I need to do more sessions like this and reset my expectations regarding nav speed.

C • Question about controls in practice runs 1

First opinion on the WRX from a friend of mine who's a mechanic: dump it - it's through. Crap.

In to work. Even more frosty. I remembered to put on a long-sleeved jersey, but I should have worn full-finger gloves as well. Legs felt OK, but an easy day is clearly in order with hard stuff scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday.

Home via Tilles. Easy pace.

Direction drills at Tilles (1:4). Not too tough given the easy pace, but it did a good job of getting my head into a map for the day.

In to work. Frosty! Quite a change from the last few days.

Home via a rambling and not particularly interesting route through mid-county.

Over to CC Lake and back for...

... some night nav at Creve Coeur Lake Park (1:10). Woods were thick for this time of year and I was pretty much out of gas for the day, so I went slow. Clean nav, fun sesion.

Technique work at Hawn (1:15). Started with a speed change course (5 groups of 5 technical controls in thick vegetation separated by longer legs through the white woods. Then ran a course that worked my old nemesis - coming over the top of a ridge and dropping into the control. I haven't had as much trouble with these types of legs lately, but it will only stay that way if I keep drilling them. As a bonus, the second course was in the part of Hawn that's become overgrown (first half of TT courses) and the vegetation is all still out, so it served as light green training as well. Good nav for the first 90 minutes, then had a bad patch. Recovered and ran the last few legs well.

C • daylight 2

On the way back home, the WRX threw a rod (or, at least that's what it sounds like and the box-4 engine is notorious for that failure). Managed to nurse it to a gas station in Crystal City and Kate came and picked me up. Depending on how long it takes to round up a new engine, my map a day plan for October may be out the window. I'll still get in as much as I can.

Some poor route planning turned a 40-minute recovery run into a 80-minute maintenance run. No harm done, legs weren't too toasted from yesterday, anyway. Finished up around 7AM and then hopped in the car for the drive back to St. Louis.

Kate took me straight to work where I still had my bike from Friday. Left around dusk and went home via Grant's Trail. Stopped at Carondelet Park for my daily dose of map work.

Control picking at Carondelet (1:5). Almost too dark to read the map without lights, but I managed OK. Decent speed considering I was wearing my pack, which had a fair bit in it. While I was at it, I also worked on my exchanges (not counted in time). Both were pretty quick - around 2 minutes including locking/unlocking the bike and stowing shoes in the pack.