Training Log Archive: AliC

And second challenge of the day- driving back to Amherst in Alex's car, which is standard. Woo learning to change gears, tough stuff when it's not at all natural.... But we made it (yay for EZpass and not needing to stop at toll booths!), after a stop to rescue Ed in Lee, MA. Have to admit that Alex did take over for Route 9 from Noho to Amherst, which has lots and lots of lights. I would have for sure stalled, and there's actually traffic there.

Burrito count: 2 (when we stopped in Lee to shuttle Ed to the auto parts store, also stopped for burritos!)

Warm up hike from bottom to stop. Jogged a few flattish bits, but almost all hiking, tired-ish legs. Hammie felt tight, so wore two pairs of lycra, to make sure it started and stayed warm!

US Classic Champs Day 2- Red Y

So after finishing, I thought my worst controls were the long legs, to 2 and 5, because my plans for those sort of went awry and had to be remade as I went because I has missed executing a bit well. But the splits show that while I lost the most time to Sam on those, it wasn't proportionally more, fairly constant slope of the time-back-to winner line, so just not as quick orienteering through this stuff in general!!

Maybe the roughest control for me was down off the Scandi-plateau, I was really nervous/hesitant to 9, could not place myself on the hillside at all, kept stopping to try to figure things out, but kept not being able, and decided the best thing to do was to keep following my compass. Should have had more faith in the flattening of the slope...

Then to 12, I lost a contact from a twig to the eye (glad it wasn't earlier!), whoops!

Also, I went through a ton of swamps today. I decided not to be scared of them, and they weren't that bad. Deepest I got was just over knee, and always really solid on the bottom, not goopy. So not fast like Scandi marshes, but not terribly slow.

447/2000

C • !!! 3

Day 2 Red Y - Splits

Event: US Two-day Classic O Championships
 

Running warm up right around the start.

From bus to start, chatting away with Alex!

Wow, that was something! Basically Scandinavian terrain, except marshes weren't runnable. Cool stuff. In general, I felt slow, but couldn't go much quicker in the terrain, more and more effective simplifying probably required for that... My major handrail today was the big marshes, only when I knew I had one of those to catch me did I feel really safe running quick.

I think my biggest mistake was to #1, where I went far too high, in a vague reentrant instead of the right one. Figured it out when I realized there were really no cliffs around in my reentrant. Other than that, least happy with 7 and 11. To 7, things started off rough when I wasn't sure if I had punched 6 or not, so went back and punched again and then got off my bearing and was a wee bit confused by a marsh, but was able to place myself. Then to 11, was quite close, but was lower than I thought, placing the stream on the map in what's just a reentrant on the map, then had to come back up for it...

Finished 2nd, 2.5 min down to Sam, 1 min in front of Pavi.

434/2000

Day 1 Red Y - Splits

Warm up, it was cold and rainy, so warm up necessary, pranced around in the rain a bit, two laps around parking lot, at least.

Sprint Series Finals Sprint 1

So this went well, pretty fast, not many probs. Some hesitation to 5, worrying about reading the veg ok, and also to 6, because bright yellow didn't seem to match the chest-high marsh reeds that were there. 7 I think I missed the route choice slightly by taking the upper path, lower along the river seems like it was quicker. Also to 8, probably should have just done path instead of woods, woods were a bit icky. But all in all good!

418/2000

Sprint Series Final Sprint 2

So the catch here, is, I *should* have gotten 12 controls. Because there were 12 on the course. But I was reading ahead to 7 after crossing the bridge and totally spaced on punching 6, which I must of went straight by. I was slightly confused by the line people were taking to 7, but not enough to actually evaluate and figure out I missed 6. Grrrr...

Still was fun to run against the guys, just have to not space out next time...

Think Jordan's way of right to #1 was faster, and also the straight up for 1 to 2, instead of the flat first, Clem and I took that way, but lost a smidgen, not much. 8, I went around the building, because I didn't know if you were allowed through buildings marked as such on the map.

429/2000

Control pickup, got 6, but they were very easy as sprint controls and having just been to all, so they aren't being counted. Still good as a warm down thought at least

Very mellow noon run with Sanjay and Barry. Sanjay is peaking for a marathon Sunday (Lowell) hence the mellowness. Sill a bit of a niggle-y hamstring, maybe haven't been quite as good about the stretching since it's been feeling lots better in general. Had a good stretcharoo afterwards though, hopefully keep things a-ok!!

River Road rollerski with Alex. Getting cooler out there. After reading something about recovering is good, I decided to make sure today was easier, so only did 2 x 6 min at whatever speed Alex was doing her tempo intervals at. Some no poles at beginning and end (25 min) and a good 10 min double pole in the middle, definitely feels pretty natural on skis now and legs don't feel too totaled from the weekend now!

No internet, so started the map organizing! Maps are going in a binder, some punched themselves, some in protector sleeves, all being entered into a spreadsheet, Attackpoint is going to have to help me with some of the dates....

Have opted for a system by big geographic region: Local (ie. Mt. Tom + Norwottuck), NE+NY, other US+Canada, England, other world and ski-o. So that will be 6 binders. Then by club, then by time. England might actually already need 2 binders.

Evening strength with Alex- I was a late one, she beat me to my house, whoops! 10 min of circuits, then some PT exercises, then 10 more min of circuits, few more min PT. The whole time I thought we were also going to do 10 min of abs at the end, but when Alex got ready to leave, didn't protest, the circuits had done enough, I think!

Also have a snazzy new ski-O jacket, woo!

C • AHHH! 6

GLOF O-Cross!

Super fun- a one-person relay type thing (called "Farsta" elsewhere?), so three loops. The first two were two different forkings of a similarish loop of about 2.7k and the course 3 and 4 shared those loops, so lots of folks around! Then course 3 had a wee short bit on a sprint map to finish it off, and one final time up that ravine to the finish... woo legs were ready to be done going up ravines!!

Slightly messier orienteering than other races, probably due to being competitive with the guys running around me and not planning and checking map quite enough, at least the places I made mistakes.

3 places that definitely lost time:
1) First time to #4: needed to go straight south, so basically down than up, for some reason I diagnoled on the down too much
2) #6 on the A forking: I hit the first stream, meant to go down it, round the corner and up the other, but was distracted by others going up and over, so headed that way a bit, before deciding mine was better since I really didn't feel like more up... shouldn't have been distracted by others!!!
3) Second time to #4 (yes, exact same control...) kind of racing with Graham, we both ended up going up the wrong side of the big reentrant to #4's west, I realized a bit earlier, but still high enough up that it was annoying to fix.

406/2000 - over 400!
Burrito count: 1 (from Friday) =)

C • Controls 12

C • Nice going this weekend! 2