Training Log Archive: cporter

Kickboxing - today's class was by far one of the toughest classes I have had. There was a ton of intense cardio today and very little rest so my heart rate was probably quite hight for most of the class - I was bright red, dripping sweat and at points I actually struggled to keep myself from hyperventilating. We didn't do so much stregnth training today(which is usually our "rest") but the little that we did do was pretty tough so still little reprieve was gained there. Despite my exhaustion it was a good class with some pretty interesting new exercises and much to my shins' delight little jumping jacks/jump roping so hopefully my legs will be OK on my run later.

Core Workout Class - about half traditional ab work/ half pilates exercises. I think I like this mix the most because I am very tired at the end of the class, but I am able to sustain about the same intensity for the duration of the class. What I am really hoping for though is that the instructor, Chloe gets certified to teach an actual "pilates" class, which can then get added to the schedule which means one extra workout a week. Apparently she can incorporate pilates moves into a class, but cannot teach an actual pilates class. Odd.

Jogged around the UMD campus with the Omap of the campus to mark off areas of construction for Greg Lennon to verify that the courses for the QOC meet this weekend won't encounter any unexpected surprises. Just an easy jog because I'm pretty tired from the weekend and because I had to get up at 4am to drive from my parents house down to DC. Really the biggest thing that held me back to day was my shins. They HATE ME right now...I'm really starting to worry about how it the next month is going to play out for MCM. Hopefully purchasing a new pair of running shoes will help a lot. Until then, I'm going to have to stick to soft surfaces - not quite sure when I'm going to get the chance to get over to Chevy Chase Running Co. but probably not till Fri. or Sat morning before I leave for the Highlander.

Jog to start

NAOC Long - so after Saturday's race I made the goal for myself that I would go for a repeat orienteering performance. I wanted to be clean above all, even at the sacrifice of speed, but I still hoped to keep the same steady pace of Saturday too. One thing I have been working on quite a lot in the past few months is dealing with something that used to give me a lot of trouble...pressure. So far I have been really pleased with how I have been handling it and today's race was no exception. I went out a bit nervous, but managed to get most of my nerves under control once I was on my way to #2. I had a good start to my race and didn't run into any trouble until #4 when I was a bit too far north of the control and hit another control, wasn't quite sure whether the control I found was in a depression or reentrant (both features were nearby my control), but I was pretty sure I was high so I just dropped down found it pretty quickly. I was a bit hesitant to #5 then too. I was on the right line, but I stopped short and a tree was exactly obscuring my view of the control so wasted a couple seconds there just staring at my map. No problems until my route to #11,, was the longest leg of the course so was slow going through the woods and then tried to make time up on the trail which resulted in me almost turning down the wrong trail and the having to stop and scratch my head for about half min to figure out where exactly I was, but found the control fine once I left the trail at the right point. I got a bit off my bearing on my way to #12, but found the control fine and then bobbled #13 when I was a bit too far right and the woods were really junky there so it was tough to get to the control. On my way to #14 I couldn't help myself from checking a control code I passed on a control that was hung on the same feature as my control (even though I knew I hadn't quite gone far enough). #16 was my biggest mistake at 2 min of error, I'm not entirely sure of where exactly I went, but I think I got sucked into the wrong reentrant and the mistook the swamp I was in for the one the was right before my control (in my own opinion the last little bit of woods before the finish was some of the trickiest terrain of the whole weekend.) Overall, another great race with another respectable finish (4th for the US women and 8th overall.) A number of minor errors, but the terrain was tricky to navigate at points. I was able to keep up a steady pace as well as keep my head together for the whole race too - so I'm making progress.

Overall, a fantastic weekend filled with great friends and great orienteering! Its weekends like these that make going back to work on Mondays so difficult...

Jog to the start...shins were bothering me quite a bit so I had to stop half way to stretch them,

NAOC Middle Distance - after almost missing my start I didn't have great expectations going into this race, which in hind sight probably helped quite a lot since I wasn't putting extra pressure on myself. Fortunately I had a few seconds at the start to take a deep breath and pull my head together. I continued to calm myself down and get my head into the race on the way to #1 and managed only a slight bobble...OK, no problem, just do it better on your second control, which I did. To say the least the map was a bit overwhelming with the amount of contor detail, but in retrospect I actually did a really good job of map simplification on this race. Hilltops were my best friend because they pretty much what I navigated by for much of the course. Overall, I wasn't going very fast, the woods didn't really allow you to move too quickly so I took trails whenever I could (which did actually backfire on me). I bobbled #'s 1 and 5 with less than a min lost between the two. My major time losses were en route to #7 (I took the trail, but got so focused in just running that I ran right past the trail junction I was supposed to turn off at and got about another 50m down the trail before I realized something wasn't right, still took a while for me to figure out what I did and then of course I had to run back) and then I over shot #10 - probably about 2-2:30 lost for those two errors, but otherwise I had a pretty clean race. I felt quite slow out in the woods, but I did keep a steady pace even if it wasn't terribly fast. Again, I can't really complain about my race, I had absolutely no idea that I had such a good run (and probably the best thing for me too.) Since the printer was down when I finished and couldn't get splits or see results, I really had no idea how well I did until Eric told me that I had finished 1st for the US women and 3rd overall for NAOC's!!! Thanks to everyone for your congratulations!

C • NAOC Medal? 3

Event: North American Championships
 

NAOC Sprint #1 - This was by far my worst race of the weekend. I had several pretty significant errors totalling close to 3 min of lost time. My two biggest mistakes were on the way to #5 (I stopped short and then ran all the way around a large patch of green before I found the control) and then on may way to one of the last few controls, like #10 or 11 (I've misplaced my map for the moment) I ran to 2 wrong controls before finding my own. When I exited the woods from the previous control I saw a flag straight ahead of me and I just went into tunnle vision and didn't even check what feature my control was supposed to be hung on because I was sure that it was it. Fortunately, I had the sense to check my control code and realized it wasn't right, then kind of paniced and ran to another control right next to it before I stopped myself and forced myself to relocate. Thankfully, I was only about 20m off from my flag. Even with all that nonsense I still qualified for the Sprint Finals, which I wasn't expecting so I guess I can't complain too much.

Psych-out warm-up since I didn't realize that our starts had been delayed yet again...

US Team warm-up before the Final. Quite fun, wish we could all warm-up together all the time...

NAOC Sprint Finals, Sprint #2 - OK, so not only was I not expecting to make it into the Sprint Series Final this weekend, I didn't even know that the Final was this weekend! Once again, no complaints, but it just goes to show how flaky I can be sometimes. As unprepared as I felt for the race I had a good run and it was a really fun race. I was a bit nervous with Christina starting only 30 sec. after me (and with everyone watching of course) but managed to keep a pretty cool head and concentrate on my race once I started. I had problems with #3 on the first loop (not surprisingly in practically the same spot as my #5 control from the earlier sprint) where once again I stopped short and then wandered about for about 30 sec. The second loop went fairly smoothly with no real errors, just slower than I wanted to be. I almost lost my focus on the third loop on the way to #18 when I took a bad route choice through the woods and go tangled up in some green, but fortunately I found the control OK and only got slowed down a bit. The rest of the race went well navigationally, but it was a real test of endurance. Fortunately, I held on well enough with a 6th place finish overall, 5th for NAOC's which means as the 3rd US woman I actually scored points for the US!!! And we beat Canada!!! (for that day at least...)

Kickboxing

Event: QOC: Hemlock Overlook
 

Sprint at Hemlock Overlook - not a great sprint for me. There was a general consensus that #9 was hung wrong or mapped wrong, but even with that warning before I went out on the course I still managed to screw it up, which cost me over a min. I also over ran #3 because #13 happened to be very close by and I didn't look hard enough and actually ran half way to #13, fortunately I was able to cut through the woods and down a different trail to #3 without having to go completely back, but still there was easily another min lost and then I also bobbled #5 because I had a hard time reading all of the different veg boundaries in the field. All told I lost at least 2:30 on the course which, looking at who finished around 12 min seems about right for where I normally finish. Oh well, lets just hope I got all the screwing up out of my system so I'll run well at NAOCs!

Middle Distance (Red) at Hemlock Overlook - at least the middle went well for me today. No real major problems, kept a good momentum just until last couple controls which were uphill. Only really notable screw-ups are when I was high on my #5 and wound up hitting #16 in stead (luckily they were only about 150m apart.) In my defense though I found Patti Mace sitting on the ground on my way to #5 and stopped to make sure she was OK, she said she hurt her ankle, but that someone was already on the way for help and she waved me on. I still feel like a bit of a jerk for not staying with her though since I later found out that she thought she had actually broken her ankle - no word yet though if she did since the ambulance had been and gone by the time I finished. After my mistake at #5 I ran virtually error free (not too hard to do though in this terrain) until I hit #17. I meant to run around the hill top and drop down the reentrant in which #17 was hung, but I got sucked down into the wrong reentrant and then go tangled up in some deadfall that slowed me down. My route to #18 didn't go much better, but something just didn't seem right when I was running that leg. My bearing was also off when I didn't think it should have been since I was tired at that point and there was a lot of deadfall so I wasn't moving too quickly and paying a lot of attention to my map and compass. After the race I confirmed with some others that something was definitely off on #18, just not sure what (either the reentrant was mapped a little funny or #17 was hung too far down the reeentrant.) My #19 was also a bust, but that was my own stupidity - since I was confused at #18 of of the guys that I had been running with (not intentionally) caught up to me and took off ahead and out of sheer laziness and because #19 was the GO control I thought surely he knew where he was going, but we came out on the wrong trial and wound up having to run over a nice little hill to get to the right one. Even with the few mistakes I made though it was a pretty decent race. I felt a little bit redeemed after such a terrible sprint.

Short - Splits

Red - Splits

Odell Rd Loop (9.5mi) + 5 km each direction from/to my house. Long run in prep for MCM (still nervous about how that's going to go.) Angelica is probably going to kill me if she if she finds out that I ran almost 16 mi today since she was pretty persistant last weekend in trying to get me to run a half-marathon with her. Sorry, Angelica, if you (or Wyatt) happen to read this...I wasn't till the middle of the week that I decided to do this run.

So the run went pretty well. I had my ups and downs in energy throughout the run, but nothing really drastic. Felt pretty good on the hills too. The one odd thing that I have noticed for all of my runs, which became really apparent today is that it is taking me a reallllllly long (today it took nearly 45 min) time to feel warmed-up and relax into my usual stride. What is even more odd is that in my pre warmed-up state my legs feel like total crap and I can have so pretty sharp pains, esp in my shins and lower calves just above my achilles. After I'm warm I generally feel great though and don't have any pain until general leg fatigue sets in (which only happens on longer runs like today.) I've tried the usual remedies, extra stretching, icing (haven't tried heat yet though), massage, etc, but nothing seems to help. At first I thought it meant my shoes were shot already, which would be premature, but it happens, however it strikes me as odd that the pain doesn't persist. If any one reads this post and has any input I welcome it because it is really annoying me at this point and slowing me down.

Besides the leg pains at the start the run went pretty well. I really enjoyed the sections of the Odell Rd. loop that run along some pretty quite country roads. It felt just like I was running in my hometown which was a nice change from the usual busy roads around CP. I decided to do some new product testing on today's run as well and tried out a pack of Cliff ShotBlocs instead the usual GU. I was pretty satisfied with them - they reminded me of eating a fruit snack which was fun and the black cherry flavor is actually pretty good. They did seem to deliver a more subtle boost in enerygy than a GU shot, but since the directions indicated to take 3-6 per hour (I took one every 20-30min), they deliver smaller doses at more frequent intervals. I probably wouldn't use them for anything shorter than today's run, but they might come in handy for longer o-races, especially when you get to the point where a consistent stream of energy could really help with concentration (and where something solid in your stomach might be appreciated.)

Kickboxing - good class today, the cardio part was fast paced so we got through it pretty quickly which meant more time for sparring! Yay! My usual sparring partner wasn't there today so I was matched up with the only guy that took the class today. We were very unevenly matched since he had probably about a foot on me, but at least it meant that I could hit as hard as I wanted without reservation (which I did.) He was fairly impressed with me too which gave my ego a little boost (he's the only one in the class that has ever actually boxed) and said that I hit harder than he expected and that my power is evenly balanced in both arms (this is probably because I am a lefty, but am a bit ambi as well.) I did my best to keep up with him when it was his turn to spar, but being so much shorter it was hard to keep my arms up so high and absorb his hits, but considering I'm one of the taller women in the class I think he's kind of used to it. After sparring the instructors wanted to have a little fun with us so they had us do "dot chasing" for some agility training. Basically all it is is doing sprints back and forth between two spots (think back to your days of presidential fitness testing with the eraser sprints) but rather than two set spots they put these colored dots on the floor and called out a color and you had to run to it. It was actually a lot of fun and a pretty good workout. It was harder than you think though - blue and purple and orange and red look the same when you're traveling at high speeds so it was amusing watching people get turned around once they were tired. I actually like it so much I asked to go again, which may have been a mistake because of course the instructor doubled the amount of time I ran the second time around and started moving the dots farther apart on me! Finished up class with the usual abs and Susan's wonderful cool down/streching. As always a great way to start the weekend!

Mansion Hills Run - gave another new run a shot today and enjoyed it very much. My only complaint would have to be that in my own stupidity I chose to start the run from UMD on a football game day. It wasn't too bad when I left, but by the time I returned to my car there were people tailgating all around it. I also mistakenly wore the totally wrong color, bright royal blue rather that Maryland red, so I stood out like a sore thumb. Oh well, the run was pretty and I only lost about 5 min during the run by making a wrong turn at one point and also getting stuck at a seriously long traffic light (and forgetting to stop my watch). 15 miles tomorrow! Woo-hoo!

Run from the Archives down Adelphi Rd to University Blvd then up the Paint Branch Trail to Cherry Hill Rd, then down Rt. 1 back onto University and up Metzerrot Rd to the Archives. I've done this loop once before, but enough time has passed that I can't give too much of a comparison between them. I was actually feeling pretty distraught on my descent down Rt. 1, after the hill on Cherry Hill (duh) because I didn't think I was picking up as much speed as I had the last time I had run this way. However, the only thing I do remember about the last time I ran this loop was that I ran in exactly an hour because I HAD to be back in my building before 6:30 when they lock the doors - needless to say I watched my time carefully that time around. Since I ran today about a min faster I obviously wasn't going as slow as I thought I was, but I do think I was running all the hills slower and not recovering from them as quickly which would account for my distress over being slow. Really I should have run this loop significantly faster than I did, even though I did improve upon my last time. I blame my recent lack of motivation to get my butt out and run, also my total neglect to attempt any sort of speed/hill work out. I'm really starting to worry about how the MCM is going to go. I have enough time I think to get well enough prepared that I'll fininsh it OK, but it could be ugly.,,

Northwest Branch Trail between Columbia Pike and Wheaton Regional Park. Branched out on the NW Branch (haha, yeah I'm lame) and tried a section that is entirely unpaved. I started on the east side of the river which was much tougher going with a narrower trail that was steeper and rockier as it weaved its way across the floodplain from the edge of the river and up the steep banks at points. At least it made for a pretty, interesting and a bit more challenging of a run. For once I didn't get lost on the trials either because they were well blazed. I turned around once I got to the road that the NWB Trail crosses right before it heads into Wheaton Regional Park and then headed back down the west side of the river where the trail is much wider (its actually more of a dirt road at the top of the trail) flatter and much easier to follow. Thankfully I ran the trails in the order that I did because I started to lose visibility about half-way through the second trail on my way back and it was pretty much dark by the time I finished. Great run!

C • NW Branch Trail 2

Kickboxing - pretty good mix of cardio and strength today

Perimeter Trail at Greenbelt Park

Core Workout Class- mostly pilates moves today so lots of akward looking exercises that we all got a good laugh at ourselves about. I do like the pilates, but I also miss Chloe's more bootcamp-like class of push-ups/sit-ups. The pilates is really enjoyable and I do feel my core working, but it just lacks the same intensity - also, I don't think that 25 min is long enough to get a good pilates workout.

Hickory Run - Green Course. This race would have to rank as one of my top 3 worst races for the year. Not that I ever run well at Hickory Run, but this was one of those races where you begin to question if you have ever in fact orienteered in your life before...with the exception of #2 I didn't make any really huge errors. On #2 (which I might add was not a terribly long leg) I made it to my catching feature just fine and then ran about 30 degrees off my bearing. I knew I was off fairly quickly, but it still took me a while to admit to myself that I screwed up, bail out to the nearby powerlines, and then reattacked the control and found it just fine, so that wound up being a leg that took me 11min when it should have only taken me 3:30. Ugh. What is really more bothersome about this race was my complete inability to run on a compass bearing, which was essential to navigating this course (there wasn't much in the way of route choice for a lot of the legs, in my opinion.) I am also one of those unfortunate orienteers that doesn't consistently pull to the left/right of their bearings, I go either way. It was actually commical in this race because I seemed to switch directions every control - maybe that was due to overcompensation from the previous let, but I'm not sure I was that cognisant that I was doing it during the race. My favorite part of the race (sarcasm) was when I got my hair stuck in a tree branch on the way to #9 - the branch wouldn't break and I couldn't get my pony tail out so it too me over a min to get untagled. That situation pretty much sums up the whole race. By the end of the race I did have a few cleaner legs, but by then I had lost so much time that it didn't really matter.

US Team Training Camp - Chang of Direction Training. Middle distance type course with short legs and a lot of direction change. This training was as much a challenge of will as it was skill. After running 16+ km collectively on Sat. and then my disaster of a race on Sun. morning, I was exhaused and fed up with Hickory Run. Fortunately I ran the course pretty well, although for a lot of the training I wasn't alone which as Sam and I had discussed gives you an extra boost in confidence as you move through the woods - it also incidentally kept me moving through the woods period when my body really didn't want to. For most of the course Sam and I were in each other's sights, but I feel like while we were both aware of each other's presence, we were doing our own navigating so I don't feel terribly guilty about keeping her in my sights. The added advantage of keeping up with her is that I was able to show to myself how much my body really could take and still navigate reasonably well. I will have to say though the best part of this training was finishing - whether by design or not Tom had us finish right next to a dammed up stream with a pool that was just deep enough to take a quick dip in to cool off in the extremely uncomfortable heat and humidity that plauged us all weekend.

Control Pick up with Alison after training - just walked because we were pretty damn tired.

Event: DVOA Training Weekend - Hickory Run
 

US Team Training @ Hickory Run - Our first training for Sat. was a simplification course which Tom had us look at beforehand so that we could discuss route choice with o'teers of similar ability level (Sam Saeger, Victoria Campbell and I made up our group). Then we ran the course and once again discussed how well we were able to execute our planned routes. In retrospect this training went the best for me. I only had "trouble" with the first 3 legs and that consisted of just a little hesitation and coming into sight of the control from too far to the left/right of it. I think most of that just had to do with getting my head into it since I haven't orienteered for 3 weeks. Otherwise I was really pleased with how this training went...

US Team Training Camp at Hickory Run - Chang of pace course. This would have to be the the training that went the worst for me. The couse consisted of "sets" of one longer leg with an easier control placement that you should be able to hit with a rough compass bearing and therefore travle pretty quickly through the woods to and then two shorter legs with difficult control placements that you would obviously have to slow down for. For this training, we paired up and "raced" each other through each set. One person took off and then the other waited 30-60 sec and tried to catch them and then we discussed what we did after each set. I paired up with Victoria Campbell. Unfortunately I don't think that each group gave previous group enough time when we started and so there we ended up in one massive group running through the woods. I admittedly was extremely distracted by this and virtually stopped navigating at some points and I don't think I was the only one to do so. It didn't work in our favor either because at one point we actually all ran to the wrong control which was hung on a similar feature about 30m off from ours (In our defense there were a lot of flags out in the woods, but still not an excuse) and some people left for the next control before we realised that we were at the wrong spot. So needless to say this was a messy training and I don't think I got much out of it, besides a lot of frustration.

US Team Training Camp - Sprint. Just a self-timed sprint course through the camp. I was really slow on the sprint because I was already exhausted from two earlier training sessions. Even though I was slow, I kept a fairly consistent pace, but mental fatigue definetly caught up to me during the sprint. I had several legs where I just literally could not make sense of the map (which is pretty pitiful because I pretty much know the camp inside and out) so I just took a bearing and ran on that and hoped that I'd either see the control or eventually figure out where I was going - worked about half the time. At one point I was so tired that I hit the camp road, stopped, looked at my map and could not figure out where the road was on the map (ummmm there is only 1 road that goes through the damn camp!) To add insult to injury I did this right in front of the West Point cadets that were sitting out in front of their cabin - it must have been hysterical to watch me stop, stare at my map blankly, run one direction for about 10m and then turn around and run the other way once I finally figured out where I was! Needless to say, by the time the sprint was completed I was feeling pretty humbled.

Kickboxing

Core Workout Class