Training Log Archive: PGIn the 1 days ending Sep 23, 2009:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « | » |
| » now | ||||
| |||||||
| We |
Wednesday Sep 23, 2009 #
run/hike 46:13 [2] 4.35 mi (10:37 / mi)
weight:138lbs shoes: roclite 305
Regular loop on the other side of Mt. Toby -- run to the start of the power line power climb (6:29), hike up (17:35), run back down the jeep road (22:08). Easy pace. Shoes feel good.
Vermont in 4 days. It's been 12 years since I've run something this long (rogaines excluded, they are a different species), so my confidence level is not that high. Ran this race 13 years ago, 8:26. The course is different now though probably similar. Ought to be able to someplace between 10 and 11 hours, though there's a reasonably good chance some system will fail and I won't finish. Sort of curious to see what happens.
Course profile, supposed to have about 8,500' climb.
Vermont in 4 days. It's been 12 years since I've run something this long (rogaines excluded, they are a different species), so my confidence level is not that high. Ran this race 13 years ago, 8:26. The course is different now though probably similar. Ought to be able to someplace between 10 and 11 hours, though there's a reasonably good chance some system will fail and I won't finish. Sort of curious to see what happens.
Course profile, supposed to have about 8,500' climb.
Note
The run/hike was fine, no falls, nothing hurt, so under the theory that every day should have a little pain, I went off to the golf course, though only after hitting a couple wedge shots in the back yard to determine that it was possible to swing and make contact without actually passing out.
Joined a couple of friends, thought I might play a hole or two. An interesting experience. On some shots just the left hand hurt, on some just the right hand, on lots of them both, and on some neither actually hurt, thought those were all short putts. I decided early on that I would quit when the hands were still hurting from one shot and it was time to hit the next one. But that never really happened, within a minute or two after each shot I could stop moaning.
Played 10 holes. 4 pars, 4 bogeys, 2 others. Life was good. Looks like my round with Mike Fritz next week may be possible.
Joined a couple of friends, thought I might play a hole or two. An interesting experience. On some shots just the left hand hurt, on some just the right hand, on lots of them both, and on some neither actually hurt, thought those were all short putts. I decided early on that I would quit when the hands were still hurting from one shot and it was time to hit the next one. But that never really happened, within a minute or two after each shot I could stop moaning.
Played 10 holes. 4 pars, 4 bogeys, 2 others. Life was good. Looks like my round with Mike Fritz next week may be possible.
Note
Finally getting around to routes/comments from last weekend....
Sprint. Skipped #4 completely. Which was just a result of mental laziness throughout the run.
What I mean by mental laziness is that I wasn't taking advantage of the times when the running was easy to look ahead, and to look ahead both on the map and in the terrain. So there were many times when I was not prepared as I should have been. And for orienteering that was basically very easy....
Examples:
-- Plenty of time on the way to 1 to look at the 2-3-4 loop, but never got past looking at the general direction to leave 1.
-- Somehow on the way to 2 I thought I was on the line and heading for the saddle just right of the line, having forgotten I'd displaced myself to the north. Totally surprised to see the big trail through the saddle I went through.
-- Recovered quickly, but no idea which way 3 was when I punched 2 other than vaguely north. And so leaving 3, still no advance planning, a quick look at the map, didn't see 4, that was that.
-- Though of course I didn't know it at the time. 5 was OK, but left 5, out to the trails, was about to leave trail to attack control when I realized I was looking at 10. Quick correction, but missed the shorter route to the left to 6.
-- 7 and 8 OK, but on way to 9 made plans to take the north route to 10 but didn't bother to check the woods along the way to see if cutting the first corner made sense.
-- On the way to 10, looked at route to 11 just a little, nothing beyond that, so 11-12-13 were all more a struggle than needed, and each one a few seconds slower than they should have been..
None of these are big things, but they probably add up to at least a minute. And that's not the way to run a sprint.
Middle.
Tried to be a little more disciplined in the afternoon, but still somewhat dissatisfied. 1-4 were fine, knew what I was doing. A little shaky approaching 5, not comfortable with the contours, so as a result I wasn't ready for the departure from 5, slow/sloppy. 6 was OK, also 7 and 8. Then overran 9, right by it, didn't think I'd gone far enough. And then 10 and 11, both just winging it, not just finding a simple to execute route and doing it. The damage wasn't much, but you don't want to encourage bad habits. The rest was easy.
Not a bad run, just a little disappointing.
On the other hand, totally pleased with how I dealt with the morning's DQ. Didn't spend more than a few minutes pissed, decided that I could choose between being pissed and miserable all the rest of the day/weekend or not, and it was just up to me. And when I put it that way, the choice was easy. Ending up having a very pleasant afternoon and evening, lots of good conversations, subjects ranging from Team stuff to interest rate swaps to pediatric endocrinology, in over my head on most of them, but fun anyway.... :-)
Ultralong.
Navigating was excellent, physically not so bad, just had a lot of times when I was tripping/stumbling/falling. And most of the time when off-trail had a very hard time reading the map without stopping. So time was a little slower than I hoped (I thought 70-75 was doable for me, ended up doing 80). But still a decent run.
1. Very hard time reading the trail and the contours on the map, even when running on the trail or in the field.
2. Was on an unmapped trail just coming into 1, thought it might continue through the green afterwards. It stopped within 50 meters. Nasty getting back to the trail. Ran all the way up the hill, then took the control pretty well from the corner of the field -- compass, pace, past the top of the first reentrant complex, then a little slower past the next one making sure I was at the correct height, then the final knoll was right in front of me. Nice.
3. Easier than it looked. Compass just left of north, past the two wet spots which were very distinct, then up the spur and along the marsh. Simple.
4. Careful compass from the pond, aiming off just a little to the right and then dropping down.
5. Silly me, I thought it had been field-checked and would be fast running and good visibility, just stay on the high ground and go right to the control. Lots of downed trees, very annoying. Got up to the high ground, careful compass, pulled up just right of the control, guessed correctly.
6. Figured by the time I got out to the road I would have been most of the way there on the straight route, so straight it was. Compass, plus pace to know when I should expect the cross trail. Past the marsh, didn't see the little trail, but placed myself correctly on the big one, rest was easy. Only problem was falling down a bunch of times, plus twice within 100 meters getting my contact knocked off-center, but fortunately not out of my eye. So a very slow time for spiking the control.
7. Interesting leg. A mix of techniques, using handrails when I could, but the terrain and visibility meant that it wasn't so easy to tell how far along you were and when it was time to flip to the next handrail. But generally in control the whole way, map and compass and pace. Last approach was very careful, not much to go by, spiked it.
8. Across the grain, trying to keep good control on direction, combination of map and compass, distance was easy. Spiked it.
9. Simple, just getting there. Took the big trail because I could run most of it.
10 and F. Simple. Actually running quite hard, had plenty of energy left.
So very pleased with finding the controls, just unhappy that I am getting less and less coordinated in the woods. But that's the way it is.
And overall a very nice weekend.
Sprint. Skipped #4 completely. Which was just a result of mental laziness throughout the run.
What I mean by mental laziness is that I wasn't taking advantage of the times when the running was easy to look ahead, and to look ahead both on the map and in the terrain. So there were many times when I was not prepared as I should have been. And for orienteering that was basically very easy....
Examples:
-- Plenty of time on the way to 1 to look at the 2-3-4 loop, but never got past looking at the general direction to leave 1.
-- Somehow on the way to 2 I thought I was on the line and heading for the saddle just right of the line, having forgotten I'd displaced myself to the north. Totally surprised to see the big trail through the saddle I went through.
-- Recovered quickly, but no idea which way 3 was when I punched 2 other than vaguely north. And so leaving 3, still no advance planning, a quick look at the map, didn't see 4, that was that.
-- Though of course I didn't know it at the time. 5 was OK, but left 5, out to the trails, was about to leave trail to attack control when I realized I was looking at 10. Quick correction, but missed the shorter route to the left to 6.
-- 7 and 8 OK, but on way to 9 made plans to take the north route to 10 but didn't bother to check the woods along the way to see if cutting the first corner made sense.
-- On the way to 10, looked at route to 11 just a little, nothing beyond that, so 11-12-13 were all more a struggle than needed, and each one a few seconds slower than they should have been..
None of these are big things, but they probably add up to at least a minute. And that's not the way to run a sprint.
Middle.
Tried to be a little more disciplined in the afternoon, but still somewhat dissatisfied. 1-4 were fine, knew what I was doing. A little shaky approaching 5, not comfortable with the contours, so as a result I wasn't ready for the departure from 5, slow/sloppy. 6 was OK, also 7 and 8. Then overran 9, right by it, didn't think I'd gone far enough. And then 10 and 11, both just winging it, not just finding a simple to execute route and doing it. The damage wasn't much, but you don't want to encourage bad habits. The rest was easy.
Not a bad run, just a little disappointing.
On the other hand, totally pleased with how I dealt with the morning's DQ. Didn't spend more than a few minutes pissed, decided that I could choose between being pissed and miserable all the rest of the day/weekend or not, and it was just up to me. And when I put it that way, the choice was easy. Ending up having a very pleasant afternoon and evening, lots of good conversations, subjects ranging from Team stuff to interest rate swaps to pediatric endocrinology, in over my head on most of them, but fun anyway.... :-)
Ultralong.
Navigating was excellent, physically not so bad, just had a lot of times when I was tripping/stumbling/falling. And most of the time when off-trail had a very hard time reading the map without stopping. So time was a little slower than I hoped (I thought 70-75 was doable for me, ended up doing 80). But still a decent run.
1. Very hard time reading the trail and the contours on the map, even when running on the trail or in the field.
2. Was on an unmapped trail just coming into 1, thought it might continue through the green afterwards. It stopped within 50 meters. Nasty getting back to the trail. Ran all the way up the hill, then took the control pretty well from the corner of the field -- compass, pace, past the top of the first reentrant complex, then a little slower past the next one making sure I was at the correct height, then the final knoll was right in front of me. Nice.
3. Easier than it looked. Compass just left of north, past the two wet spots which were very distinct, then up the spur and along the marsh. Simple.
4. Careful compass from the pond, aiming off just a little to the right and then dropping down.
5. Silly me, I thought it had been field-checked and would be fast running and good visibility, just stay on the high ground and go right to the control. Lots of downed trees, very annoying. Got up to the high ground, careful compass, pulled up just right of the control, guessed correctly.
6. Figured by the time I got out to the road I would have been most of the way there on the straight route, so straight it was. Compass, plus pace to know when I should expect the cross trail. Past the marsh, didn't see the little trail, but placed myself correctly on the big one, rest was easy. Only problem was falling down a bunch of times, plus twice within 100 meters getting my contact knocked off-center, but fortunately not out of my eye. So a very slow time for spiking the control.
7. Interesting leg. A mix of techniques, using handrails when I could, but the terrain and visibility meant that it wasn't so easy to tell how far along you were and when it was time to flip to the next handrail. But generally in control the whole way, map and compass and pace. Last approach was very careful, not much to go by, spiked it.
8. Across the grain, trying to keep good control on direction, combination of map and compass, distance was easy. Spiked it.
9. Simple, just getting there. Took the big trail because I could run most of it.
10 and F. Simple. Actually running quite hard, had plenty of energy left.
So very pleased with finding the controls, just unhappy that I am getting less and less coordinated in the woods. But that's the way it is.
And overall a very nice weekend.