Training Log Archive: PG

Event: Blue Hills Traverse
 

Blue Hills Traverse. Can be summed up in one word -- painful. Left hip bothering me all the way, and more so after a fall irritated it after 15 or 20 minutes. Pretty distressing.

First map, Blue Hills East.
Second map, Blue Hills West.

Nice day for the Traverse if a little chilly (low 30s, sunny, breezy), but I was dressed just right (thin gloves, no hat, 1.5 shirts), comfortable the whole time. And nice to have e-punching at the Traverse for I think the first time.

It's been a couple of years since I've run in the Blue Hills and the maps are still hard to read. Partly the 1:15,000. Partly the contour lines are printing rather thin and faint. Partly the west map (remapped 5-10 years ago?) has a lot more rock mapped, sometimes to the detriment of legibility. But it's the same for every one, and perhaps easier for those of us doing a lot of walking and therefore with plenty of time to take good looks at the map.

Apart from a pretty feeble physical effort, just moving very slowly, my "run" was so-so. Ok for the first four points, with a number of other folks, can't remember who exactly. To 5 they seemed to go straight/right, I thought left looked appealing, but it was farther/crappier than expected and by the time I got to 5 I was alone.

So I took advantage of the fact that no one was watching and launched myself onto a bad route to 6, well perhaps not totally bad, but I sure executed it badly. Halfway to 6 I was quite happily placing myself to the right of the line, sure nothing quite fit, but that didn't seem to bother me. And so when I got in some "open" woods (meaning rocky and a little scrubby), I headed southeast and down I went, and then down some more, and look, there's a trail, hmmm, strange direction it's going. Pretty sure where I was, followed the trail down to the bottom just to be sure, then went and got the control. Figured I had blown off 5 minutes (it had been really crappy and slow through the light green on top of the ridge). Not really happy.

But nothing to do but keep plugging along. Saw the occasional person, no one I recognized (not a good sign). Don't think I took the best route to 10, I think farther around with less climb was better, but maybe my way was ok given how slow I was running. Got 11-14 ok. Took the low route to 15, seemed the only reasonable choice, missed a little at the control, just a little too low (30 seconds?), more or less ok to 16-18. Very surprised on nearing 18 to see JJ on the trail, didn't seem like a reasonable route but he said afterwards he was thinking his next control was back to 17. And then also pleasantly surprised to see Phil on his way out of 18, maybe a minute ahead of me.

By 19 I had caught up to Phil, JJ, Dave Yee, which was nice, but I didn't really want to get involved in anything competitive. Headed off down the lower trail to 19, slowly falling behind the others, which may have been just a tactical move on my part, since when they turned uphill way too early, I could just keep moseying down the trail without them noticing.

Got 20 ahead of them, also 21, never saw them again. Picked up a couple of AR guys, and then Bob Lux was just ahead of me. But I had no hope of sticking with them on the way to 22. Ran the rest of the way by myself, very glad to finally punch the finish control and be done with it.

Fun? It's always fun to find the little orange and white flags. It's more fun to find them on you own, and I got to do some of that. And it's lots of fun to get clear of folks you're running with by being a little more clever. But the hip was a serious bummer, couldn't run right, hurt all the time. Don't know what's going on. Need to go see the PT folks.

Thanks, Ross and Jeff and Judy, it was a fine course.

C • Light contours 15

Traverse - Splits