Training Log Archive: TomN

I got lost going from the start to #1. I was sure I would find the stream and reentrant, but I didn't, and wandered around in the swamps for a while. When I heard the start whistle and it was coming from the wrong direction, I knew it was time to bail. So, followed the whistle back to the start and tried again. Found it this time, but still not good.

I began to read the map a little better after that, and the proof of it was a good route to #3, threading the needle between the hills. For #4, I went up the trail to the intersection with the big boulder, took the stone wall to its end, then picked up a trail and promptly lost it. So I headed SW to the nearby hill and stayed in contact all the way to the control.

At that point I got into a train of about 4 orienteers and wasn't a competent enough control picker to be able to do anything but follow the crowd, although I finally got some running room to the road and up to the finish.

Saturday - BrownX - Splits

The Fall 2017 Goddard Space Flight Center 10k. This is a free, timed 10k, held twice a year on the mostly natural surface trail around Greenbelt Lake. The only catch is it's on a Wednesday at noon.

It's 4-2/3 laps around the lake, measured years ago by John Sissala, a certified USATTF course measurer (and NASA employee). Today was 70s and muggy, overcast, with rain in the forecast. No rain fell during the race, but it rained before and after.

I've run this course many times, and although the lap lengths are awkward, I've developed a method of pacing. Today I figured 8 minutes for the first 2/3 lap plus 4 9s would get me 44:00, and 9 plus 4 10s would get me 49:00. I wanted to be closer to the lower number, but it wasn't to be. Actual lap times: 8:15, 10:01, 10:06, 10:07, 10:01. Total 48:37. Much slower than I hoped for, but pretty good splits, indicating a steady pace.

I was totally dead afterwards. I went back to work, showered, ate lunch, sat down at my desk and thought about what to do next. The answer was, sleep or die. So I went home and obeyed.

Short Stumble at Fair Hill. I kept up a good pace the whole way through. I only navigated on my own on one leg and parts of 2 others. From 4 to 14 I followed Andras, and we picked up a third guy for much of that time. On the last leg from 15 I passed them and got behind Victor. I have no idea how we came through the green part, but when we popped out into the field Andras was back ahead. I closed the gap a little, but he finished ahead of me by a few seconds. And deserved it, because he did almost all the navigation.

The course split up the pack pretty well on the first few controls. They weren't technically difficult, but there were good route choices. I took the road around to #1, and saw that it was faster than going straight, so I took trails whenever possible from then on.

The event was fun, but it wasn't really orienteering, at least the way I chose to run it.

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StumbleShort - Splits