Training Log Archive: AliC

To/from gym, trying to plan a route that involved the most shade... figured today should mostly be rest, but not bad to get the physio stuff in!

hopscotch, mogul jumps, twist jumps x 3
inside-out squat jumps x 2
bosu ball: 15 throws, 30s eyes shut, 15 R leg dips x 3

12-12-12 x 3, because they started off on the sore side, didn't want to push to 15!

Team Trials Middle @ Blue Mountain

Last of the weekend's races, came in 2nd a bit after Andrew, a bit before Jenny (she was ahead all the way til control 10, actually!), first of trialers. A good race, but had to stay what felt like slow to not get confused for 1-6, then picked it up a bit in the slightly less crazy detailed bits. HR reflects that, L5:L4 is way lower today than in the long, which was way lower than in the sprint...

1- timid approaching and in the circle, now don't quite know why...
2- stayed on the trail a bit, then attacked from cliff nose, helped a bit by an Alex hurtling down the hillside on her way to 3...
3- did not go for the marsh crossing! and on the way in, ended up a cliff above even though I was trying to be careful *not* to do that!!
4- saw Alex in front, she must have been better to 3, full speed ahead to catch her
5- with Alex down the corridor a bit, she went up earlier, a bit later, I had a momentary panic that I wasn't sure exactly how long I had come, realized I had been kind of half-conciously pace counting from the trail junction and it was *exactly* time to head up and to the control, phew. Alex still a bit ahead!
6- hurtling down close to Alex, she was leading, counting cliffs, she was going really well, couldn't pass and keep in contact....
7- Alex and I choose different reentrant routes, seems like mine was a bit speedier
8- used little trails a bit
9 - over cliffy hills, then friendly recognizable marshes and in, was super suprised to see Sam coming at me when I punched
10- straightish, could hear Sam right behind, focus focus!
11- uhhhh, mixed up plan, initially wanted to go more straight, then saw how fast Sam was moving on the trail and changed plan... at that point, probably would have been better to stick to mine!! into the control, me chasing Sam chasing Boris
12- race race race, but could not catch on Sam or Boris
finish- hmmm, yeah, not a sprinter, lost time to both Sam and Boris!

Such a great weekend, thanks so so much to everyone who helped out!!!

QuickRoute

1418/2000

C • Congrats! 16

Green Rec Course

And it was really fun out there, so I wanted to play again, plus it's good training! Neil said the green should be pretty different than the Red, so headed out to do that.

Also went pretty well, actually faster per k than the real race, but think that's only because I didn't have to go to super-crazy-detailed land on top of the hill again. Not sure how Garmin thinks I did more climb on this course than the Red though...

Pretty smooth the whole way around, but do feel like I wasn't really simplifying much, just picking off pretty much everything on my way... is that over-cautious? It just doesn't seem like terrain that leads to easy simplification because there's just so much there in your way that you're trying to find the best micro-route over or around or making sure you don't fall off cliffs....

QuickRoute

1428/2000

Red - Splits

Turn garmin on, on no! Tells me batteries are low! Ask around, Ian luckily luckily had both computer + cable, so was charging during warm up and just lasted through race!

Nice, a good long! Finished 30s ahead of Sam, who might of made a few more mistakes, and then Jenny A. came in 3rd, a few minutes behind that. I actually had a really clean run, maybe not optimal route choice on the 2nd long leg, but other than that and a mistake at 8, just kept flowing through.

Beginning was most timid, did not feel into the map at all until maybe 5 or 6... I didn't cut the corner to 1, didn't choose the right side of the hill for a good approach to 2 or 3, and was a bit confused and had to come to a full-stop-and-map-stare to 4. Saw the other Alison C. there, which made me focus, actually, went the right side of the cliff to 5, then knew I wanted to just take the trail to 6, planned most of the way to 7 (long leg) then.

Did the pretty-standard route (from comparing to others) to 7, which I think is pretty fast, big trail, bit cross-country, big trail, 2nd bend go down stream, then kinda in. Didn't quite add up everything in the circle immediately how I wanted it to be, but continued on and was not far off.

8- actually the worst control of the race, even though I wasn't much punished for it, bit lucky as Cristina made some noise up above drawing attention to the fact that I was too low... went trail to trail to linear marsh, all as planned, then instead of trying to work around the big soupy-looking marsh, headed up hill on the stone wall, which was a niceish place to cross... then down, thought I was heading a long a flat area, but got all the way down to the stream, must have gone down to the reentrant.

9, 10, 11- chase down Cristina, ran togetherish a bit to 9, then through the spectator, and up up up to 11, realised I was starting to tire...

12- 2nd long leg, went with most left route choice and executed well, although maybe not fastest option, more straight instead? came up from the bottom, which was tough climb, but nice to see control up there ahead of you, was coming into it with Wyatt and Sergey

14-15 used little trails, was finding them more helpful than expected!

16- smidge of big trail, cross-country, then on the little trail with the stream until it diverged from stream was a bit nervous about locating cliff, but made sure I came off stream at a specific cliff + boulder

17- fell hard on the way into it right after road, ouf!

Really quite happy with the smoothness of today's race, timid start could have been worse (like if I ran off and made a big mistake) and 8 really was a bit lucky, could have lost more time, should have processesed both terrain and done a compass check there (think trees down may have distracted a bit). Might also need to spend a bit more time evaluating route choices, like for 12...

QuickRoute

1406/2000

Warm down trot, trying to stay in shade with Sam and Hannah!

Red - Splits

Event: US Team Trials for WOC '11
 

Drills! And not alone! Totally saw Anna, Eddie, Nate also drilling!

TT Sprint @ SUNY Purchase

Neat to have the trickyness of the multi-level stuff, I never really got caught out by it, but did maybe avoid it too much in one case (to 6, took east tunnel instead). Down to Sam by 30 seconds, she was fast! But 2nd in the TT for women and also overall.

A few little bobbles, most annoying was running extra around the little house way right of the line 3->4 because I was trying to plan my route to 6... grrr, not good, 5s lost?

And then still didn't have a firm plan for 6 until the corner of the first big building when you really had to make a decision. To be honest, I didn't even see the route through the upper level, which apparently was fastest by maybe 7-8s. I was deciding between the west and east tunnels, went for east, which I think was right of those two options. I think I have a leftover fear of multi-level stuff from the Barbican in the London City Race, and just didn't want to try to make sense of it....

8->9 (aka evil rabbit), had planned to go past the finish, stairs, tunnel in, but didn't leave control right (maybe distracted by Sergei?) so ended up going the other route...

11, I didn't notice the wall was grey until I had bothered going all the way down into it (crossable walls you can surely just reach over, yeah?), but then looked on the way out and scooted myself up and over the wall.

Maybe need a bit more sprint practice, stuff comes up so quick. And you work much closer to max, which makes the focus harder to keep...

QuickRoute

1389/2000

Warm down trot with Greg around finish area, still hot out...

Girly warm down, invaded by Ross partway through!

Red - Splits

Little easy training at Pond Mtn after picking up Cristina from Hartford, I did a bit of the beginning of last fall's blue course, plus a random control from some other course that was on my map from picking up controls.

Nice to run in the woods, kept it real easy, so got to notice a lot navigating. Still, had issues going from 4->extra control. The first time around, came in maybe just slightly low of where I wanted, and because veg was thick, did see nice big flat-bottomed reentrant that was the major attackpoint and kept going... went back and redid it, realized what had happened.

At the end, tried to battle my way through greeness to avoid the poison ivy in the field. Not a stellar idea- made it through marshy skunk cabbage just to run into a wall of woman-eating thorny stuff and had to back track to the poison ivy anyways, thwarted!

1377/2000

Orienteering with Manuela at Norwottock! We did a backwards bit of a training course that I think Ross actually planned last spring. Felt like an idiot at the beginning because was really unsure to 12 and then 11, and here I was trying to show Manuela how cool orienteering is and such... jeez.

Picked it up from there, she led once in awhile, she wasn't really phased by the running through the woods, but surprised by how small scale the map is/navigating my less distinct features than trails and major things she's used to from adventure racing.

Throat fine to breathe, ankle fine in brace, life is good!

1367/2000

Going to the Badger Training camp for the first weekend, Jun 11-13, looks like fun terrain! Anyone else interested? I found cheap flights $139 RT from Hartford -> Milwaukee, maybe there a good deals from other places too? You know you want too.... =)

C • fun! 3

Glad to see HR is sticking low, since throat is still a smidge weird. And now, time to finish talk, eep! Ironically, the section left is the one in my own field. I feel more responsible for coming up with really good (and possible) ideas.

15-15-15, finally! Will do those numbers at least once more, but then am supposed to graduate to the single-leg varieties and go back to 5...

C • which exercise? 2

Could have gone longer with recovering illness today, but there was not much time between all-day workshop and spanish class! A sunny little run around the sports fields and the floppy ankle fine grass-running sans brace. Optimistic it seems to be doing well, time off for illness probably did ankle good!