Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Mills College. US Team Trials A-meet. Masters/Juniors (Green, Brown, Orange) sprint: 2.1km, 35m climb. 1st of 14 on Brown, 8th of 32 overall. Start at 9:48. Clear, cool, great day for running. New map; good venue, good course.

Did very well except for one bad control (1:30 error), which really spoiled the race for me.

Route on RouteGadget.

Realized later that I forgot to put an emphasis on running hard when the opportunity presented itself. I actually never stopped (except during the error on #12) and hardly slowed down; I was fully engaged the whole time, either planning the current leg or the next one. Nevertheless, there were times I knew exactly where I was going and I should have taken those opportunities to push the pace. This is something I’ve been wanting to work on, but sprints are few and far between these days, and so far I’ve forgotten about this until sometime after the race.

Rex had recommended rubber-cleated shoes so I wore my trail shoes. They worked out fine, but not sure I needed them (maybe they helped up to #16, across to #17, and down.)

Felt OK warming up, pretty loose but legs clearly tired. At the start, felt ready to go.

1. Had seen people starting earlier make a right turn at the end of the building, so headed for that while trying to get the map straight. Found my place quickly, saw it was an easy leg, nailed it.

2. Quickly headed up the road, but it wasn’t clear how to get around to the back of the building. Couldn’t see a passage way through the building (there is one, but it’s not better than going around), and there was a lot of clutter around the left side, but the right side was too far out of the way, so planned on going left. In the distance saw Sergey V coming back and going around the wall and then up towards the left side. Turned out the left side was quite passable, got to the control without any navigational problems, though I slowed a lot on the uphill.

3. Looked like there might be a passageway through the building (there was) but couldn’t tell for sure, so decided to play it safe, give up a few seconds and go around the outside. Rich Parker was coming out as I was going in.

4. Had already determined that I had to go over the bridge, so did that while I planned the rest of the leg. As I turned into the courtyard, Rich was just punching in.

5. Spotted the monument for #8, beeline to #5. Rich ran past it, turning back just as I was leaving.

6. Spotted the heart of the circle from a distance, a little hard to see whether there was olive green in the way (there wasn’t; it was just the impression from a green circle on a little patch of yellow) but didn’t slow down because saw I could just stay on the sidewalk. (From the splits it appears I did lose 2 or 3 secs, so I guess my contemplation of the potential olive greed did slow me down a bit.)

7. Had already planned this before getting to #6, so did it very quickly.

8. And again, planned in advance, did it without consulting the map. My only #1 of the race.

9. Straight, but I slowed a little because I was momentarily confused by all the punches/bags at the Finish. Lost 3 or 4 secs.

10. Before punching 9, knew I had to cross the bridge to get to 10. While crossing the bridge, worked out the exit route from 10.

11. Quickly across the next bridge, but missed the best route (through the woods): swung around 18 instead of going straighter. At the end, went around to the NE side of the circle instead of cutting in sooner. Lost :05.

12. My big mistake. Ran quickly in the direction of #12, expecting to round the corner of the building and be in woods. But I suddenly found myself in a wide covered walkway, and was confused but kept running (mistake!). Saw Gary K out ahead of me, so thought I must be all right, not realizing that he was headed for #13. Thought I noticed on the map that there was a covered walkway on the other side of the building (there wasn’t: it is light beige not light grey) so thought that I must be there - despite the fact that that one was way too narrow and had an open area on its right - by now, having run too far, I had an open area on my right. So ran to the end, turned left into the alley - no control. Figured somehow I must’ve missed the turn, so ran up the other side of the building looking for an alley, but there wasn’t any. Finally stopped, noticed I was out by a road, realized I was on the E side of the building and it hit me that the patch of woods (white) I was expecting was really the covered walkway (light grey) I’d been in - yeesh. Retraced my steps and found the control. Lost 1:30.

13. Don’t really remember getting to the courtyard NE of 13 (I’m sure I was stewing about the big error) but once there, Graham, Vlad and Gavin WM came flying by. As I was debating whether the hillside was olive green (the S portion of it is indeed), one of them started heading up that way and another yelled “That’s out of bounds!” So, up the stairs and punch in after the 3 of them. Lost about :07 just by not running fast enough.

14. This was the only leg I didn’t figure out an exit route for in advance. They all headed left, but with the uncrossable fences that way, I thought it was better to go right, which I did. But they all got there ahead of me anyway - apparently I took too long to figure it out and didn’t move fast enough. Lost :05.

15. Back through the courtyard, down the curving stairway, no flag. Stopped to look at the map - could there be a different set of stairs? Took one more step forward and there was the flag tucked in a corner. Lost :07.

16. Along the right side of the building, NW along the path, through the gate, compass bearing uphill. As I crossed the road, saw the lone tree slightly left of where I was heading. Physically struggled to get up the hill.

17. Knew I had to contour, so started running in that direction. Saw beds of ivy and shades of green on the map, tried to keep moving while I determined if anything was out of bounds. Deciding (correctly) that I could go where I wanted, proceeded directly to the control.

18. Knew in advance that I had to go straight downhill and then across the bridge, so wasted no time heading in that direction. Steep embankment down to the road gave me a little pause. Jon Torrance passed me as I was crossing the bridge. As with the previous two legs, seemed like I might have lost a couple of seconds, but all three where among my best split rankings for the race. Perhaps I was finally running fast enough at this point.

19. As I was crossing the bridge to 18, struggled to find the circle for 19, but did finally find before I got to 18, so this leg was quick and easy.

F. As usual, my split ranking in the Finish chute was one of my worst for the race.

Definitely a fun and challenging venue and a good course. Outside of the one big error, lost about :30 in hesitations and a couple of small course corrections, and maybe another :30 in not running faster sooner - in other words, a pretty good day, but marred significantly by that error at #12.

Looks like my Garmin GPS track needs to be moved about 40m NNW. Geoman's track is much closer to being correct.

Warmup: 12 mins, 0.9 mi
Cool down: 4 mins, 0.25 mi

Mills College. One-Person Relay (Sprint). 4 loops, total 2.6 km/40m climb, 20 controls. Mass start at 11:30 am for everyone not in the Team Trials.

Didn't warm up and I was so stiff when I started that I was dead last to #1, then made some mistakes and was still dead last at #3. Thought about dropping out, but just told my self to settle down and use it as practice. Better but still shaky on the 2nd loop. Finally got loose and did very well on the last two loops, somehow managing to finish first on Brown anyway.

Very fun format, but having it as the 4th race in 44 hours was more than I could manage.

Sprint Green - Splits

Sprint Relay Variant V - Splits

Shell Ridge/Diablo Foothills. US Team Trials A-meet, Long Brown. 3.8 km, 270 m climb. Fortunately, not as warm as yesterday. Scheduled start at 10:41, but starts were delayed by 11 mins.

Wore my trail shoes because my toes were sore from yesterday and the trail shoes are easier on my feet. This was fine except for a couple of times when contouring on the sides of very steep hills, where I had to struggle to maintain my forward momentum.

Pushed hard the whole race, realizing early on that this was going to be a test of running endurance. Pleased that I was able to run as well as I did. Several small bobbles, but no errors bigger than 30 seconds, so it was a very good run, resulting in a 9+ min margin of victory.

My route on RouteGadget.

1. At first glance, thought going straight would require down-up-down, so ran along the road instead. (In fact, a little contouring and then following the line of trees would have been a better route: 20 sec route choice error.) Followed the road to the junction, took the small trail across the terrace to the road again, went down the reentrant and followed the ditch down. At the end of the small clump of trees, peered into the ditch but didn’t see a flag; took a few more steps, peered in again, and there it was, where I’d looked the first time, but difficult to see because it was in a dark crevice. Additional 10 sec loss.

2. Rough compass up to road. Had planned to continue diagonally up the hillside, but it was too steep, so ran along the road almost to the sharp bend crossing the big reentrant, and then climbed straight up. Paused a few times to recover, and used those moments to plan the long leg to #3.

3. First thought was to go left towards where the big power line crosses the ridge, but there was no marked fence crossing there, so abandoned that idea. Contoured into the reentrant (tough hanging on to the side of the hill) then angled up to the road. (Hat got knocked off at one point, which is way I don’t like to wear a hat even though I should to protect me from the sun.) Forced myself to jog along the upgrade. As I rounded the bend towards the fence, saw Nancy, seemingly poised to cross. I called out to her that that wasn’t a legal crossing point; she said four other people had just crossed there. George told me later that there was actually a 2-meter wide gap in the fence there (which I didn’t see). Does that make it legal to cross? Anyway, continued up the trail to the marked crossing point. Saw Rich Parker heading up towards the saddle, but I had planned to go around the right side to save a few contours, so took the path heading SW and did just that. The hillside was so steep that I couldn’t run without losing my balance. So, this probably wasn’t a faster route, but it did save my legs a little. Diagonally down (steep!) towards the forest where #3 was (pretty easy to identify from these heights). Went around the edge of the big, forested reentrant on the other side of the road instead of going direct, probably a 20 sec route choice error. Contoured towards the control; I was just a little high. Rich was contouring out as I was coming in.

4. ENE to the road, force myself to keep running (passing Rich), all the way to the terrace NNW of the control. Swing around the side of the spur, descending a bit, into the forest - but no control. Realized it was much lower down than I had been thinking, so headed back and down, and saw a rootstock way down towards the bottom, and figured that must be it, and it was, though lower down than it looks on the map (as many people agreed). 20 sec error, giving Rich a chance to catch back up. Despite the error at the end, had a very good split even compared to the Green runners.

5. N along the bottom of the reentrant then take the NE fork up (walking) to the road junction. Take a quick drink at the water stop by the next gate. The road to the right looked tempting, but thought I’d save a couple of contours by contouring on the left side of the hill, and that worked out nicely. Crossed the trail, contoured through the reentrant, around the spur and into the bag in the next reentrant. As I came around the spur, saw Katie heading down the reentrant the control was in towards the bottom of the bigger, W-E reentrant.

6. Before punching 5 had already decided I would contour out rather than drop to the bottom. The sidehill running was a little difficult, but well worth the savings in climb. Crossed over to the hillside with the control, and angled up towards the rocks. Had to walk, but caught up to Katie at the control.

7. Quick exit as I’d had plenty of time to pick at my route on the climb up - didn’t even need to look at my map. Contoured N, caught the little trail, into the saddle, saw the top of the reentrant a little to the right, down to the control.

8. Angled up, W, to the trail I’d left. Trying to run along that trail was no better than being on the hillside, so cut further left and around the N side of the hill. Going down to the road was really steep and treacherous: had to sort of slide from tree to tree, braking myself by grabbing onto the trunks. Got to the road right at the where it meets the bottom of the subtle reentrant, then angled up and around the N side of that hill until I saw the rocks, and then the flag, maybe a half a contour lower.

9. Down the nose of the spur to the trail junction, then try to push it along the trail to the T-intersection. Trying to pick out the map detail in the saddle to come, inadvertently stopped to get a better look - sign of a fading brain! Left at the junction, figuring I’d angle up to the saddle, and lo and behold there was an unmapped trail going exactly where I wanted to go. Forced myself to keep moving up to the saddle. Should’ve been easy from here - just follow the reentrant down - but my fading brain was giving me an uneasy feeling and I probably checked the map a half-dozen times as I descended, finally spotting the control.

10. Left, contouring around the hill, having trouble making sense of anything (and realizing my brain has had it). Pause a few times, finally get it in my head that the cliff is very near the bottom of the reentrant leading to the Finish, start cutting down and see what looks like the top of the cliff (and Chuck, up considerably higher, looking down), head there and right to the control. Lost maybe 25 secs.

F. Here’s how much my brain was fading: the Finish just didn’t look like a Finish to me, and I started worrying that there was actually one more control to go - even checked my clue sheet to see what the code would be for this one. Finally sorted it out, maybe slowing down a little and costing a second or two. Definitely pushed myself to the limit.

Long, uphill walk/jog to start; starts were delayed by 11 mins, so had to jog around for another 5 mins before actually starting.

Long brown - Splits

Event: Run Black Diamond
 

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching. Eased off on pushups and core exercises as the week wore on, resting for the Team Trials A-meet.

Black Diamond Mines. US Team Trials A-meet (hosted by GetLost). Brown Middle, 3.17 km, 155m climb. Start at 3:24 pm. Very warm day. 1st of 13.

Did quite well in unusual terrain. Passed all 11 people who started in front of me (at 2 min intervals). Got a bit dehydrated towards the end (no water on the course) and had trouble focusing, making three 20 - 30 sec errors. No error more than 30 secs on the whole course.


My route on RouteGadget.

1. Took a few seconds at the start triangle to make sense of the vast vista in front of me vs the skinny terrain on the map, and then to make doubly sure that all I had to do was run down the road until under the power line and then cut across. Ran a little past the power line to get around some fight, took a bearing and proceeded. The terrain had many undulations I couldn’t identify on the map, but given how good the visibility was I figured I could ignore all that and just compass and pace count. Soon identified the trees just N of the control, and once through them saw the notch and then the bag. Did this leg nearly a minute faster than anyone else on Brown and 9th fastest out of 32 on Red, only 26 secs behind AliC.

2. Since #3 was so close to #2 and looked easier to get to, decided to head there. Down alongside the spur, making sure to see #5. Debating whether to go out to the road or to try to find my way between the patches of green when I saw a fence in front of me, and then located it on the map. That swung the balance: headed for the corner of the fence and out to the road. Quickly down the road and through a gate, excellent attack point for #3. (Saw Katie and then Janet incorrectly heading N on the road.) Chuck was coming down the hill as I headed up. Nailed #3 no problem. Slow down to navigate carefully for the last 50m. Surprised by a huge mound of dirt. Went up and over it, couldn’t see any contours on the map corresponding to it, but realized it must be the little patch of yellow NW of the cliff. So looked down to the left, saw the top of the cliff and Rich Parker about to go down there (and Rosemary heading past it). I now had a 3:18 lead on Brown, only 9:25 in.

3. Directly back to 3 without going over the mound. Janet and Katie were coming the other way, heading to 2.

4. Down the hill towards the gate I came through earlier, but stayed on the right side, running parallel to the fence, trying to make sense of all the detail in the circle. Surprised (again) when I came to some large dirt mounds, but realized that, like the one near 3, these must be the slim yellow patches on the map. Passed Rich, heading for the green between the mounds. Do I really have to go through that fight? Just then George came from the E and dived in and I went in after him, soon saw the bag and passed him while we were crawling.

5. Out the other end of the fight, quick bearing, recognized the long spur with 5 on it, and began the slog up. Had to walk most of it. Chuck was about 100m ahead.

6. Around the patch of trees, bearing helps me pick out the right hilltop, just a matter of slogging up. Walked, but walked hard, making up ground on Chuck.

7. Now an even bigger slog. No trouble picking out where to go with the huge earth bank ahead. Decided to climb up onto the grassy spur for better footing and shorter distance. Used the lone tree as an attack point, crossed a steep-sided reentrant and went around the little spur to the bag, just as Chuck was punching in.

8. Spent a lot of the climb to 7 looking for a way not to have to continue to climb to get to 8, but I couldn’t spot one. (There was a way, I just didn’t recognized it on the map; perhaps I should have been looking more at the terrain across the way than at the map.) Pushed myself ever upward, having to pause 3 times to rest, but finally got to the top. Around the top of the spur, got my strength back, ran across the first road to the second, then down between the two patches of white, coming around the broad spur below the powerline, descending a little as I went. Got to the top of the long reentrant leading down to the control, verified by the little tree at the bottom of it, and headed down. Probably lost :20 - :30 by the route choice, but executed it very well.

9. Down, then across the sharp reentrant (not difficult knowing it was OK to lose more altitude), head for the trail cutting down towards 9. Faked out a little by an animal trail, realized it wasn’t next to the gully so kept going and got to the actual trail. Down alongside the gully, trying to identify a pit on the map (oops, misinterpreted the clue), but just headed for the lower part of the gully, and when I got there saw Sheila Cotter, the first starter on Brown, heading down. A little puzzled that there was no pit, but it was clearly the correct control.

10. Sheila and an F21 headed down the road, but I thought I’d be clever and avoid going down and up the sides of the broad reentrant in front of #10, so headed for the road junction. (This was a 20 sec route choice mistake: one of the contour lines in the broad reentrant was a form line, so I only saved 5m climb, and went too far out of the way to do that.) NE from the junction on the little trail, but not able to match what I was seeing to the jumble of stuff on the map. Pace count ran out, noticed the (dry) pond on my right, realized I needed to go N over the spur, which I did, getting to the bag right behind Sheila. :20 navigational error (on top of the :20 route choice error), my first nav error of the day (and the first leg on which I didn’t have the fastest Brown split).

11. Knew in advance that the first part of the leg should just be to go straight, so proceeded without hesitation (as I had been able to do up to this point on each of the legs). Used the E-W reentrant and the patches of white in it to guide me to the depression, and hit it right on.

12. This is where the dehydration must have kicked in. Took a bearing and looked ahead, but couldn’t convince myself that what I was seeing was correct - not that anything looked wrong, it was just that I couldn’t make sense of it, so I didn’t move for 15 secs. Finally decided everything was OK, and went a little left of the straight line, crossed the fence and got on top of the N-S elongated knoll. Now I should’ve been on the NNW edge of the circle (I was) and I expected to see woods ahead, but instead I saw the side of spur out in a field. (The map is a bit wrong here.) Again I froze because it just didn’t make sense to my fading brain. Finally saw two F21’s converging from different directions to a spot on the side of the spur just out of my view, so figured that must be where the bag was, and it was.

13. Mounted the spur, struggled my way up to the road and turned left. Plan was to turn right on the heavy trail W of #13. Looked up and saw the two F21’s turning right on a trail, so followed them. There was a gully on the left, but it didn’t look right, so I crossed it hoping things might match up better, but they didn’t. Then realized that the trail we turned on was 150m S of the one I meant to turn on and that we were actually off the map. Headed N, crossed the heavy trail and then the gully, and quickly spotted the bag. Very fortunate that this was only a 30 sec error.

14. Proceeded gingerly down the reentrant (my toes were hurting) to 14, with the two F21’s flying by me in the process.

A rather strange run in that I did so well despite so often seeing things in the terrain that I couldn’t identify on the map. I guess that forced me to simplify the map, which turned out to be a good strategy on this course (but might have been a disaster in the part of the terrain that the other advanced courses went through but Brown didn’t).

On the 4 common legs with Green, averaged about 6th out of 17.

Long uphill walk to the start in the hot sun.

Warm up by jogging down to the cemetery and back and jogging near the start. Didn't want to do too much in the hot sun.

Too tired for a cool down, but did stretch.

Vlad grabbed me to serve on a jury (with Patrick Nuss and Cristina Luis) for a protest about these courses being too long (winning time on Blue was 57 mins).

Middle Brown - Splits

Added links to RouteGadget, QuickRoute and WinSplits to my description of Sunday's race at Pt. Pinole.

Front of house. Just warming up. Knees and shins creaky.

2 loops: 614, 522

Cool down