Training Log Archive: KFish

Event: WPOC - IUPOC Reunion
 

Hiking Watkins glen with Syd's family. It was really hot out, but the gorge was well shaded and cool. Really crowded though, even this early.

Checked out the Panhandle trail near syd's work before picking her up. What a beautiful ride. A shame its paved, but a good excuse to take the road bike

Got sprinkled on

Event: Nitrogaine IV
 

Nitrogaine IV
8 hr Rogaine - 50 flags, 2520 points
Pontliac Lake State Rec area, MI

I was really nervous about this race after damaging my leg last week as I increased milage (pulled my glute maybe?). My leg/hip kind of ached and twinged all week, but syd convinced me that it would be ok.

Traveled up Saturday morning and then took a hammock nap at the rec area before getting maps at 8 pm. The course definitely looked clearable, being shorter than in previous years despite more off trail travel. We planned a clockwise loop that did S of the road on our way west, then worked N on the W part of the map, and then back E, N of the road. It was a lot of fun to plan on different map than the last three years, and it definitely made it a little more challenging to plan and to execute :).

Things started off pretty well, although we found ourselves going back and forth with Lone Kiwi (Tim) and kept showing him where the flags were ;)! Eventually we had a different choice and were by ourselves which suited us. Our first mistake occured on 75 where we didn't check in on our planned attack point and then got sucked off course and overshot, ending up at the trail. Thought we were on a different part of the trail, so it took us a while to properly relocate. Things got smoother again after that and we reached the water stop after 60 5 min under our time goal of 2.5 hours. Picked up $10 in FTF money.

On our way to 82, arguably the hardest looking control on the map, we met back up with Tim and led him to the flag (picked up another $5 here). Went back out the way we had come in, while Tim continued westward. We got a little sloppy in this section, bobbling 66 and then inadvertently getting back out to the road on the way to 57 because the ridgeline was hard to follow. 67 was fine and then we got pushed around by the swamps at 78, but I was able to help syd relocate.

The next few went fine and then we made our biggest mistake at 63. Unfortunately my watch lost satellites so we cant see exaclty what we did, but we think we missed the peninsula E and went far too far south on a parallel. Then we tried to correct, but somehow turned back and did the same thing again. Finally syd was able to locate us at a gully, and we very carefully paced and watched our direction to find the flag. We decided our problem was a low spot we were following that turned out not to be the marsh and turned us E instead of W.

At this point we had used up our half our buffer, and were an additional half hour behind schedule, so we had a little pep talk about picking up the pace and focusing better. Luckly the way back E was a lot of trail running and mostly easier. We met back up with Tim and would go back and forth with him for most of the rest of the race. We still managed to bobble an easy 38, get confused exiting 49, and in the trails through the field headed to 79. Also bobbled an extremely easy 31 when we got sucked onto a parallel trail and took far too long to figure out what had happened.

This was far from a clean race for us, I think a large part due to being rusty from not racing together for far too long (6 hr Rogaine in March, and before that 12 hr in October were our last 2 races together!). We were able to pull it together and clear the course and even come in 1st by a 4 minute margin! Defending champs --> reigning champs :). Once again this was a spectacularly put together race, and I commented to Syd at one point that I think this is my favorite race we do due to its supreme uniqueness. It was made even more fun this year due to the change in venue that kept us on our toes and threw us for a few loops. Thanks for the 4th year of adventure Mr. W and to helpers W4J (can I get your burrito recipe?) and Angel!

Probably traveled ~2 miles farther than tracks due to satellite loss.

Ate: 2 gu, jerky, half Awake bar, half bagel sandwhich, espresso beans. Wore: tights and long sleeves (mosquitoes warned to be bad, although they didnt seem too bad to us). ~60F with an hour of rain at the end, but was a good temp the whole time. Nathan pack worked well, but stuffed to the max for an 8 hr race. Filled up on water once (drank ~1500 mL).

C • Amazing! 1

Event: Rachel Carson Trail Challenge
 

Just barely missed the rain!

Having fun until a guy in a landscaping truck drove through a puddle splashing me and then drove away laughing...

South Park white loop minus the buffalo hill. Forgot my watch. Did not push the pace, this was midday heat, light pack, tired legs conditioning for rogaines.

Pretty toasty out. Dragging a little near the end but overall it was a good run.

C • pretty solid run 1

Still muddy (I think always muddy...) and legs felt like Pb, just had no oomph today. Probably a combo of hot/humid/dehydration and increased running mileage recently. Still pushed as much as i reasonably could. I accidently skipped on section of trail and took the paved path, and then intentionally skipped another short lobe, so a little shorter distance than last time.

To the dude riding a fat bike unicycle on these trails, good on you!

Run from our hopefully-soon-to-be front door trail access point! Nice easy 6 mile run.

Event: WPOC Deer Lakes Orienteering
 

WPOC Deer Lakes Red
7km 240m

My focus area today was constant motion. I did a pretty good job, but in the future I need to make sure its constant FORWARD motion. No huge mistakes, but turned the wrong way onto trails several times, and didn't do a good job of exiting controls in the right direction. Otherwise, I actually had a pretty clean run, and did much better entering the circle than I often do.

Woods were very wet from overnight rain, but it cleared up and actually turned into a pretty nice day.

Syd started a few minutes back, but caught up at the halfway point. I gained it back though, and I beat her by 1s! :)

Event: BFLO - Ranking event at Sardinia Forest
 

Event: Oak Hill in Cuyahoga Valley NP
 

Registered for:

CNYO Rogaine 24 hr
Rocky Mountain O Fest - 6 races
Legend of the Dogman 18 hr

I guess its the year of the foot race.

Beautiful morning for a bike ride before doing some more house shopping this afternoon. Did a bike-by of one of the houses we are looking at too!

Blew another spoke in the back wheel. That's 5 in the last year - I think its time to just go wheel shopping. Any suggestions on how to go about doing that?

Event: Michigan Adventure Race: Caberfae/Epic (20 or 8 hours)
 

Event: Boston Sprint Camp
 

Slowing getting out of my recent funk and getting back into longer harder exercise. Pace all over the place, but correlates with hills I suppose.

I was feeling lazy (mostly with respect to hills) so I decided to do the "flat" trail loop, but try to do it at speed. I think I have lost a lot of confidence in my ability to move quickly through the woods (partly due to excessive ankle twists, partly due to decreased willingness to get lost, probably other reasons too), so I think a good way to get that back is practicing speed on uneven ground. I'll use this as a sort of "Time Trial" and try to increase my speed. When I am happy I'll add the hills part of the loop back in (or alternate, or something). I definitely went faster than my usual plod on the trail, but I know I can do faster than today (even with same muddy trail conditions) - I was pushing but not overdoing it. Gotta start somewhere. Also, I didn't trip or twist an ankle or anything, so that's a plus. #Norway2019 (Ha!)

First goal - under 9 min mile on this loop - totally doable.

I also think pacing syd on this would be good for her.

Heard about this park from a coworker who has been exploring it on his mountain bike. Decided I'd be better off checking it out on foot first. I took a picture of a pretty pathetic trail map on my phone, and then took off on a well marked trail. From the trail map it looked like the trail I was on didn't meet up with the main trail system, so eventually I got antsy and took a side trail. Unfortunately it quickly petered out, but I decided to bushwhack to find the main trail. Its amazing how easy it is to get turned around with a terrible, contourless trail map and a compass phone. Eventually i slid my way down to a stream that I was confident would cross the trail, so I followed it and did meet up with the trail after bushwhacking a ways through some stinging nettles. Happened to run into the coworker too. I talked to him and he confirmed that the trails did meet up, so after doing an out and back I found the legit trail back to the loop I started on. Got back to my car but decided I hadn't quite enough, so I did a second loop and tried to push the pace a little bit. Overall a fun adventure, but I think I'd look for a better trail map next time! and maybe bring a compass.

C • Love this 3

switched it up and did some top roping.

Seems like the past 2 weeks I've had some bad luck exercising, so to have a 2 hr ride with no issues was a plus! beautiful day out. Boston to West Newton. There was quite a nice visitor center in west newton, had a brief chat with the curator and a couple doing half the trail to DC and then coming back.

Run back to the car pushing the bike

Took the bike shop 4 weeks to replace a bottom bracket on one bike and two spokes on the other. A little frustrating but I guess it’s that time of year. Finally got them back and went for a ride. Should have checked tire pressure but maybe I assumed they would have filled them... nope pretty squishy ride. Then I got a flat 3 miles from the car. Probably should have replaced it, we had the stuff, but didn’t really feel like it so I ran back holding my bike upright with one hand. On the plus side, the bike shoes weren’t that bad to run in.