Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

5x1k w/~3min rest

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Intervals at Ballard HS. Back on the track! First time seeing one of those in a while so wanted to keep it somewhat comfortable in the 320s and focus on good form, breathing, etc. without getting too intense. Left it a bit late so was pretty dark by the end.

Tip o' the hat to Nikolay, who left today bound for another shot at the most gratuitously sadistic race I for one have ever heard of, the Barkley Marathons.

The course was designed by Gary "Lazarus Lake" Cantrell. His idea for the race was inspired upon hearing about Martin Luther King, Jr's assassin James Earl Ray escaping from nearby Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. Ray covered only 8 miles (13 km) after running 55 hours in the woods. Cantrell said to himself, "I could do at least 100 miles." Thus, the Barkley Marathons was born.

C • Barkley 2

Joined in on the Street Scramble-type adventure run that Pink Socks set up for his Wednesday running group. Fun course (and fantastic weather); got food and beers afterward with the Sockses, Run_Bosco, and others.

I don't think I've mentioned the running bet I entered into a couple weeks back with my esteemed colleague Fer_Fun'k_Sake!, wherein a beer is owed by either party based on whether my time in any particular race is half that of hers or not. The bet has yet to be put into action, but I feel confident that I've swindled her I'll be competitive.

[Side note - I feel like I've talked about beer a lot lately, but don't worry - I actually drink very little beer. Though living in Seattle seems to encourage it.]

C • Beer 1

C • Bet 2

Some mountain biking in Watershed and Everest Parks in Kirkland, because it was too nice not to be outside. Almost crashed only once.

Was thinking recently about how beneficial it is to have guys like J and the Bonesaw (and Peteris and Nikolay) - i.e. guys who are better than you at various of the different orienteering skills and techniques - around. When you go up against them every weekend, you're constantly pushed to be better or be left in the dust, which (if you channel it the right way) gives you a consistent source of motivation and purpose, and you end up improving almost by osmosis. Then you go to a big national meet, say a Champs or a TT, and find that the competition isn't dissimilar to one of your local races - only difference is there are more J's and Bonesaws - so it doesn't psyche you out because it's what you see all the time. Not everyone has that in their local club, so I consider myself lucky.

P.S. I suppose this is why people move to Europe.

C • Completely agree. If I'm th... 6

Easy/short loop through Woodland, with some terrain running included. Legs not that stoked to take action today. Am stoked, though, to find myself learning about the nuances of crossing barb-wire fences. Riveting stuff.

http://5z.com/urban/gadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?act=...

Cedar Mountain Nav Race, two-hour option. Route:

13 - 45 - 21 - 16 - 53 - 37 - 35 - 38 - 41 - 22 - 48 - 32 - 18 - 23 - 33 - 42 - 25 - 43 - 28 - 52 - 31 - 27 - 24 - 46 - 29 - 44 - 14 - 12 - 11 - 15

Didn't get: 17, 26, 34, 36, 39, 47, 51

I was able to complete my planned route with a minute to spare, despite spending five or six minutes looking for consarned 43, only to discover on the second go that it was plainly visible from the trail had I gone like 20m farther the first time. On the bright side, the woods are really nice and open in that area. Spent another couple in the wrong reentrant looking for 28.

Also, my trusty patella strap got ripped off without me noticing and is now just another piece of garbage in the forest, sigh.

C • jk 5

I have recently moved from Kirkland (suburbs) to Phinney Ridge (not suburbs), which is a pretty cool thing [side note - now I live close to more orienteers; for example, the Sockses are like 10 blocks away] so this was the inaugural run in my new neighborhood. Down through the zoo and Lower Woodland Park, then around Green Lake and back up the hill. Rainy but comfortable out.

C • Wednesday Runs 7

C • Treasure hunt 2

US Sprint champion! Second overall, 59s behind J (I count it a success when I'm within a minute of him in a sprint, so...success!).

Splits

What went wrong: Basically nothing. Lost maybe 5s going around a small pond the wrong way. Splits also show that I was slowing relative to the field over the last few legs.

What went right: Basically everything. A super clean race overall, was reading ahead well and choosing the right routes; a couple times I even chose a better route than J, which almost never happens because his sprint-smarts are better than mine. We did pretty substantial studying of the 2014 map, which definitely helped.

C • Gooooooooooooold! 13

Blue Sprint - Splits

8:23/km

US Champs Long. A very good race - came 4th overall, 3rd Cascader, 2nd American!

Splits

What went wrong:

Here was the race at 15:

Harvey 58:27
Bone 58:30 (+0:03)
Enger 58:41 (+0:14)

Leg 16:

Bone 11:45
Harvey 13:17 (+1:32)
Enger 14:44 (+2:59)

Final margins:

Bone 82:48
Harvey 84:18 (+1:30)
Enger 86:20 (+3:32)

Obviously, 16 was the decisive leg between the three of us. I took a straightish, more complicated route that led to more up-down-up-down, while Eric went road route right. I also came into the relevant reentrant too high, so probably 60s lost in error time near the circle and maybe 90-120s on the route choice, with a little due to fitness.

Also was 100s behind Eric on 7, which is weird because I spiked it and the only route choice was straight up a steep hill. Conclusion: I am not a good climber.

What went right: Almost all of the things! I spiked 19/20 controls, only bobbling 16. 3 was my best control - a longish hillside contoury leg that I nailed dead-on, 30s clear of the next fastest (J) and only 3s behind the random elite Halden guy who showed up. Disregarding him, I had five top splits and two second places. Only a minute of error and two minutes of route choice time loss.

Blue Long - Splits

Event: US Individual Championships (M/L/S)
 

7:20/km

US Champs Middle. Same old story of missed opportunity.

Splits

What went wrong: three 90s+ errors - ran right past 7 and ended up at 9; bad route choice to 11; confused in the rocks around 20. Two 15s errors - one rock too high at 6, one rock too low at 18. Hit a bit of a wall and bled time compared to J on the hill-climby 16-17-18 legs.

What went right: Fitness not as poor as I was expecting relative to the field given lack of recent training. Five top splits and four second place splits. Had a couple stretches of great orienteering - 1-5 (was apparently leading the race at 5) and 12-15, where I was moving well and navigating cleanly, but within my ability. My problem in general is that 95% of the time I'm unable to string these good stretches together into a full race.

C • Stringing together a full race 2

Blue Middle - Splits

Here are a couple of my longtime O' goals:

Win the Cascade Winter Series
Win an individual US championship

Accomplished the first one last month; will take another wild swing or three at the second one this weekend.

C • Goals 3

8:10/km

Night-O @ Lincoln Park.

As a rule I'm relatively awful at night orienteering, but this was one of my best efforts - main reason probably being that J fortuitously left his headlamp in my car last weekend, and his headlamp is way better than mine. Lost maybe 45s on 3 when I couldn't parse the small trails and had to bail out, and about a minute on 13 when I ran right by the feature without seeing the control (flag was somewhat hidden) - should have recognized where I was at. 7.5/15 top splits.

Everyone look at me, I went running! Cool huh.

Ages/categories of Cascaders traveling to US Champs next weekend:

F/M14: ooo
F/M16: ooo
F/M20: oo
F/M21: oooooo
F/M40: oo
F/M50: oooooo
F/M60: ooooo
F/M70: o

Hooray for a somewhat even spread!

Legit screenshot from my Amazon.com home page:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByAB8YjXrPFoMy1tX...

C • Awesome Eh 1

Sunday was an important milestone - I raced without a knee brace for the first time, only wearing a patella strap, and didn't experience any setbacks. With US Champs in two weeks there isn't time to accomplish much of anything, so I will continue to play things conservatively until getting back from California, then if all goes according to plan, cautiously ease into training and hopefully have two-plus quality months before Team Trials in early June.

Also, go Zags!

Also, here is an intriguing theory on that whole "Why the Hell Has X% Percentage of America Suddenly Gone Bat-Shit Insane" question that just a few people are struggling with right now.

C • Theory 1

C • Zags! 5

Haha so not to be an ass but true confessions, I'm semi-wondering if this is actually me here. Reasons being:

1. Eric was wearing the no-sleeves sprint US top for this race, while I was wearing the short-sleeve top; it's a little hard to make out but I think this guy is wearing short sleeves - you can sort of tell at the end of the video.

2. I remember taking the over-the-top route into the control (17) at the beginning of the video which was actually a sub-optimal route that Eric probably was smart enough not to take.

3. I've had a lot of good views (mainly from behind or while being passed) of Eric's running style over the years; he is more of a long-striding loper than this guy seems to be.

4. The drone definitely followed me for this entire stretch, and I definitely took those exact routes to 18, 19, and on the way to 20.

The video also appears to be considerably sped up - Leg 18 takes Video Man 0:23, while the fastest real-time split was 0:37.

Regardless, this is way awesome stuff and it's super cool of Kelsey to take the effort to make it happen.

C • The Man in Blue 5

I did a fun thing when I test-ran my LTF Long Advanced in God Mode, which was to take splits, so that now we can compare them to the mere mortals.

One caveat: In a number of these splits is reflected the fact that I set three- or four-inch pieces of duct tape at many (but not all) of my control locations, and didn't record or remember which ones I had or hadn't taped - which led to me sometimes either searching for tape that wasn't there, or, failing that, spending extra time poking around confirming that I was indeed at the right place. Naturally, it's also considerably harder to spot a small piece of duct tape than an orienteering flag. Taken together, these factors acted as something of a check on the Power of God, and allowed Superman a sporting chance at certain times.

1. God: 1:23
Bone/Jones: 1:36

Straight the only real option here.

2. G: 2:14
Bone: 2:45

Course Setter's Choice: Left (due north out to the trail along the powerlines, turn right up the hill).

3. G: 2:11
Bone: 2:09

Straight again the only viable option. If you read the contours right, this is actually a deceptively simple leg, as you merely have to aim off to the conspicuous spur left of the control, then angle into the crazy trench/saddle thing. Impressive split by Eric.

4. G: 1:55
Bone: 2:08

Course Setter's Choice: Straight (also an option: up the spur to the right and around on the trail).

5. G: 1:09
Jones: 1:12

Course Setter's Choice: Straight, attacking from the trail bend.

6. G: 1:20
Nachev: 1:13

Course Setter's Choice: Straight. In the rough open areas of LTF where visibility is excellent, you can often "cheat" by taking a general bearing, ignoring the piles, and going into scan mode, counting on the fact that the control will be visible from a good distance away regardless of whether you end up left, right, or dead on. I hadn't set any tape here and so had the hamstring of checking off each pile, but after a bit of loitering, confirmed I was at the correct place.

7. G: 1:38
Bone: 1:30

Course Setter's Choice: Unclear between three possible options. I took the trail route right; it appears that the left trail route was faster. Straight was also viable.

8. G: 1:54
Bone: 1:15

Course Setter's Choice: Straight. I apparently spent quite a while here looking for my tape, and eventually figured out that I hadn't put any at this location.

9/10. G: 4:46
Bone, Kolyvek/Roach: 4:51

Forgot to take a split at 9, so this one is combined. Course Setter's Choice for 9: Right out to the edge of the rough open, then up to the trail and in off the corner.

11. G: 1:21
Bone: 1:15

The confirmation factor again at work here.

12. G: 1:47
Bone: 1:42

Eric beats God on running speed alone. Go figure.

13. G: 2:10
Bone: 2:04

Course Setter's Choice: Unclear. I went left (south to the border trail). It's possible that right along the powerline is faster. 11-12-13 was not a good stretch for God!

14. G: 0:39
Bone: 0:50

15. G: 1:23
Bone: 1:39

Course Setter's Choice: Straight, slightly right around the green patch. Also viable options: Trail route right; straight but slightly left around the green patch.

16. G: 1:03
Bone: 1:21

Course Setter's Choice: Straight; the forest is actually quite runnable here.

17. G: 2:25
Bone: 1:54

Course Setter's Choice: Left out to the trail, direction less important than speed (straight along the S edge of the creek also an option). Ironically, I spent a while here trying to physically locate the actual boulder, as it is a very low, sneaky, moss-covered, stump-resembling boulder.

18. G: 2:23
Bone: 2:32

Straightforward trail leg. Uninteresting but unavoidable given the giant unmapped swamp in and around the OOB area.

19. G: 4:27
Bone: 4:57

Straightforward longish running leg, but with a tricky touch at the end. Course Setter's Choice: Jump off the main trail near the line and across the fairly runnable top of the hill, rather than continuing to the small trail, which leads to extra distance and unnecessary climb.

20. G: 2:46
Jones: 2:21

Another trail leg. I spent some time loitering here as well, as a backhoe had appeared near the control location and cleared out a bunch of juniper and created some new brush piles - all of which had happened after the map had been updated not a month prior.

21. G: 2:31
Jones: 2:42

Course Setter's Choice: Straight. The test I set up here was whether people would snap out of trail-running mode, look up, and take a beeline through the rough open for the plainly visible tree line, ignoring the irrelevant trails running to and fro.

22. G: 2:00
Bone: 2:00

Course Setter's Choice: Unclear. I went trail route right, but executed it suboptimally. Straight is likely a touch slower; trail route left may be best.

23. G: 2:38
Bone: 2:10

The Boulder. Eric apparently smashed me on this one; I was overly cautious and spent too much time overthinking/picking a jump-off point. Even when you know where The Boulder is, you know you really don't know, even when you're God.

24. G: 1:07
Bone: 1:10

Straight was the only real option here, unless you wanted to end up in the swamp.

25. G: 1:19
Bone: 1:14

26. G: 0:35
Jones: 0:29

God always mails in his finish splits.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

God's estimated time losses:

20s @ 7 (route choice)
50s @ 8 (confirmation factor)
20s @ 10 (confirmation)
40s @ 17 (confirmation)
30s @ 20 (confirmation)
30s @ 23 (route choice/hesitation)

C • God vs. Superman 6

Event: COC Ultimate Orienteer #2 - Ft. Steilacoom: Middle Distance (NOCI Day 2)
 

So this weekend Cascade hosted the National Orienteering Championship Invitational, which is the NJROTC national champs - basically the Navy's version of Interscholastics. Jourdan and I were co-course setters for the two days - me primarily Saturday, him primarily Sunday.

It seems to be a peculiarly insular event - unsanctioned by OUSA, and you never hear about it on AP or elsewhere - but turns out it is nonetheless quite large and somewhat of a big deal in the NJROTC community. Larger, in fact, than when we hosted the Interscholastics in 2012, and indeed larger than any Cascade event in recent memory and possibly ever. If starts were meters, we could've tossed a stone to go over 1000 for the two days. We had teams from some 10-12 states, including FL, GA, SC, MD, NJ, NY, and CA, among others. Lots of excitement and team spirit (and dabbing) among the kids and their entourages.

Anyway, we (Celia included) pulled off our course-setting duties without any major disasters, working as a rotating team to make sure that each control location was visited by at least two of us. This was the most serious course-setting I've ever done; it is somewhat nerve-wracking to set for an A-meet-caliber event, but it feels good to pull everything off well and to hear some nice things about our courses.

A couple pics from this afternoon's award ceremony:

The crowd gathers.

Henry County from Georgia, overall team champions. Patrick and I were impressed by their sharp custom Noname unis.

Western Washington team Oak Harbor, second place overall. Very cool to see some of our WIOL kids compete and do well against national competition. Most notable local performance came from Caleb Peek (back row second from left, holding Space Needle trophy), who not only won the boys varsity championship going away but also won each day, in two quite disparate terrains, by 2:45 and 4:00 respectively in a field of over 100 runners.

RG for Day 1 and Day 2. Will write some about the specifics of our courses tomorrow.

C • Starts 1

5:32/km

Event: COC Ultimate Orienteer #1 - Lincoln Tree Farm: Long-Distance (NOCI Day 1)
 

Wake up wake up sleepy controls!!!

Come home little controls!!!

Wow is stationary cycling boring.

Eerily, depressingly prescient