Training Log Archive: TomN

A short run in the late morning just to get the gears turning.

I've been running my regular distance too fast. Today I slowed down, and enjoyed the long run.

Goddard perimeter road and antenna range.

SVO Rocky Ridge on a beautiful day. No QOC event today, and this venue is only 1.5 hours away, with terrain that is not too common in the mid-Atlantic, so it seemed like a good idea. As it turned out, the Red course offered plenty of running on nice trails in nice woods, but the control placement was more on the Orange level, with obvious attackpoints and catching features nearby in nearly every case.

I was determined to take all opportunities to go cross-country, but I lost a lot of time as a result. The right way would have been to take trails around to the nearest attackpoint at every control. My way got me into plenty of rocky areas, which I almost always failed to navigate correctly.

I'm the first to admit I'm not very good in rocky terrain, but as I've improved in general, I still can't understand the mapping here. I think there's a relative standard being used, viz., a half-meter boulder in an otherwise featureless area is mapped, but a 1m boulder in an area full of larger rocks is not. At least that's my working theory. I was tempted to retrace my steps and test this theory on several occasions, just for the sake of science, but it was too easy to just go for the nearby catching feature and move on.