Training Log Archive: wokitoki

Event: CNYO - REGAINE X
 

Inspired by Mere grinding out the 50k yesterday I thought I'd do my own today. At 25k I said the hell with that - 50 would have been miserable.

first time out to boler. found a geocache by accident.

to work

2 laps of sharon creek in the alpacka with mere. the boat is a pig on flat water carrying 400lbs. got sunburnt.

ride out to sharon with full packs. got a flat on the way home - of course i didn't have a spare tube or pump. mere had to ride home and come pick me up.

run home

Event: Storm the Trent
 

Similar to last year - we started with 3 easy checkpoints of orienteering in a conservation area, and similar to last year i managed to screw this up. it looked like 90% of the group opted to hit CP22 on the hill first. i thought i would stay along the river and get CP20 first, so I wouldn't spike the heart rate so early.
All trail from CP 20 to CP 21 - should have been no problem, but i managed to to turn onto a minor trail that i thought would take me over the river into 21. instead the trail peetered out and i bushwhacked along the river, relocated to the hill that CP 21 was on. i probably wasted 10 minutes - so frustrating. i still don't know what i did wrong, but i can see that taking the controls in reverse order would have been simpler navigationally.
got back to the transition to bike, knowing it was not going to be fun trying to play catch up.

C • Well Done 2

my legs weren't feeling very energetic, but adrenaline and frustration made me push the pace. at the first route choice i opted against my original route when i saw that the county road was paved. it was about 1km longer, but i took it. i started and ended that route right behind Reeder's team, so likely not much to be gained either way.

i was impressed with everyone's work rate - Reeder's team looked really strong ahead of UNE. natalie and james (i think that's his name) clearly had better fitness than me and were maybe annoyed that i drafted them a bit, but i didn't have the gas to push the pace.

i managed to blow right past CP3. i thought the CP was right before a bend in the road - i guess i didn't read that right. so far navigating was weak. back to playing catch up after this 5min error.

i used this chain lube that i got from a prize table at a frontier race a few years back - either i put too much on or it was garbage, because my chain was badly gunked and sluggish, but there wasn't much i could do about it at that point.

into the transition to the second orienteering leg i think i was only behind natalie's team. i tried to transition quickly and in doing so took off down the trail without my pack. a couple hundred meters down the trail i realized this and made the embarrassing jog back to transition area to get my pack. just enough time for the Toms and another guy to catch me - awesome.

i cut the corner through the woods between the first and second checkpoints and that caught me up to the lead 2. at the 4th CP i needed to go 100 yds further, but turned back too soon. another 5 minutes wasted. a group of trekkers asked me if i knew where i was on the map. i showed them and it was clear they were off track by quite a bit. it was funny because there must have been 10 more groups i caught up to, all unsure where they were, so i quickly pointed where they were on their maps. they were all following each other like sheep. i've been guilty of that before.
i had to walk a bit on the way back in - tired already. natalie's team and the other solo guy pulled away.

more mountain biking - started to eat more and it helped. powerline trail was sandy. then my favourite section, single track bike-o. my new miry map board was really slick.
natalie's team over shot 52 (maybe their only mistake of the day), so i got ahead and had a little inspiration not to let the lead get away, so i upped the pace.
the long downhill cruise back to rice lake was repleneshing. i ran all the way up to CP5 and back, inspired by the thought i wouldn't need my legs anymore - only the paddle was left. wrong.

given the big waves on rice lake, sean wisely reined in the paddle and compensated with 3 extra CPs around the resort. i managed to screw up A, ran up an unmarked road for 0.5km. however, i guess i had gained a bit of a cushion because nobody was in sight when i started the paddle.

it was really choppy out on rice lake. i would guess 2ft waves with the occasional 3ft one that would completely swamp my surf ski cockpit. 2 years ago i would have been swimming for sure, but i have been out in some big waves at the pinery over the last couple of years that gave me a good handle for the boat - don't fight the boat, just roll with it.
on the water i realized i hadn't marked the shorter CPs on my map. the first one was visible, but i had only a faint idea that the second one was east. i guessed that the direction that the patrol boat was going was the direction of the final CP - lucky that turned out to be the case. final charge into the finish with major headwind.
i really enjoyed the challenging conditions, but sean made a good call to cancel the paddle when he did - things could have gone bad for inexperienced paddlers.
into the finish, completely soaked but feeling good. i think i won but final results not yet up

Event: Salomon Giant's Rib Raid