Training Log Archive: bbrooke

The rec center is closed for a few days for annual maintenance, so no yoga today.

Walked to & from Gravity / Gastronauts for their dinner special (tandoori salmon -- yum!) and a beer (actually, a michelada).

Laramie training course weekend -- Day 3 @ Superfly Marsh.

Another full night of sleep -- yay. Got up early and had time for breakfast and news-reading. But maybe I should have skipped the news reading and left earlier, because this was the most remote map of the three days...(quite a ways out on dirt roads after leaving the highway).

It was a beautiful day, but VERY windy. Looking at my tracks, this was my best day of the weekend. It's a very open area, so it's easy to match the map to features you can see from a long way away. But the map also had some rocky, less-open areas, and I certainly wouldn't call it an "easy" course.

I intentionally took wide-around routes to #7, #8 & #10 to avoid the worst of the marshy, swampy stuff at the stream crossings. But, leaving #6, I went down the wrong reentrant and that took me out wider than I had intended. I knew where I was, though (the long line of cliffs along the side of the reentrant was obvious), so I was able to recover.

That leg to #10 -- oof. I briefly considered going "full speed, no mistakes" way around on the dirt roads. But, since this was training, I told myself I should go straight through and practice actually navigating. It went according to plan -- YES!

I might have lost some time if I hadn't seen Sverre leaving #6 and #13, but otherwise I was on my own. Another super-fun day of orienteering!

Then I had to rush back home to unpack, shower, coordinate a bus-stop meetup with a friend, and get to Chautauqua in Boulder for a concert (Brian Setzer). I hate that frantic feeling, but I made it, barely on time, and was able to finally relax once we got seated at Chautauqua -- whew.



Vladimir & Steve at #1.

C • Brian Setzer 2

C • Laramie Training Weekends 5

Yay -- a full eight hours of sleep!

Yoga at Ahimsa Studio in Laramie. It was a different instructor this time -- she seemed very young and inexperienced, and the class was kinda just "OK".

I had planned to swing by Alibi again for breakfast, but....good news / bad news: their pastry oven was broken. Nooooo!!!

What I missed out on:

Laramie training course weekend -- Day 2 @ East Pelican Bay.

This course was marked with streamers instead of control flags, -- and they were really hard to see (not because they were too short or too low -- they're just not as prominent as actual control flags).

I started out OK, but the wheels came off at #13...

For #14, I opted to *not* take the easy route along the road (since this was a training course), and I ended up swinging out too wide.

For #15, I wandered for quite a while and never found it; when I realized I was close to #17, I just continued on from there.

Stopped short while looking for #18 with Sverre.

From #19 on, I did well and was pleasantly surprised at how I read the rock details on the last sequence of controls.

I went to the wrong knoll as the Finish, but I was kinda just heading to my car at that point anyway.

Had lunch with Amy, John, Neal, Mikell, etc., while waiting for the last few to finish. Went back to Alibi for dinner (after checking out and then ruling out the menu at Andale Rapido -- just not my thing). Used a coupon I had for a free mini-Blizzard at DQ for dessert.

Except for DQ putting peanut butter *cups* in my Blizzard instead of plain peanut butter (who wants hard & crunchy things in a milkshake?!) -- this was an excellent day. :-)



Runners leaving the start (photo by Neal).

Event: RMOC & LROC Advanced Practice Courses
 

Laramie training course weekend -- Day 1 @ Forrest Meadows (First with the Most).

I squeaked into the parking lot with about two minutes to spare before the official start time...so I listened to the briefing and then got ready and started about five minutes after everyone else.

The skies were very dark, but the weather held out.

I mostly walked, with the goal of being as precise as possible. I had a few small hooks and places where my actual route wasn't exactly what I had intended, but overall it went well. My time was pretty slow due to the walking and also because I stopped often to take photos out on the course.

Afterwards -- checked into my Airbnb (which, coincidentally, was hosted by the local Happy Jack ski-trail groomer who knows Mikell), grabbed dinner at Alibi Pizzeria, and then headed over to Big Dipper for ice cream. Amy, John & the others had just left to go look for trains, but I caught them on their way back.

LoCO FIT workout.

- Ran one mile to warm up.

- Ran two laps of the rec center hill loop. I was supposed to do four laps (according to my plan), but (a) I'm feeling fatigued from yesterday's workout, (b) I have three days of Laramie orienteering starting tomorrow afternoon, and (c) my stomach was churning. So I totally half-assed this, in terms of both distance and pace. :-|

- Walked home.

LoCO FIT workout (on my own, since I missed the group workout yesterday...).

- Ran from home to the Dutch Creek / Coal Creek trail to warm up.

- 8 x (1 km @ 10K race pace + two minutes walking recovery). I really, really, REALLY wanted to quit after #6. But I gave myself permission to go slightly slower and managed to eke out #7 and #8. Average paces were:

North (slightly downhill) / South (slightly uphill)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
8:15 / 8:25
8:04 / 8:33
8:13 / 8:47
8:16 / 8:44

- Ran home to cool down.