Training Log Archive: bbrooke

Event: Golden Hell Week
 

Too much work to get caught up on... Annoying, but it finances all my o-trips. :-P

Also -- in addition to the yellow jacket stings, I have some small patches of poison oak reaction on my arms.

Warming up.

OUSA Nationals Day 3 -- Sprint at Cabrillo College.

Hey, wow, I can handle this terrain! :-P

I had a really hard time seeing the start triangle and the first few control circles on this map -- and immediately running into a dark corridor didn't help my crappy eyes.

I over-ran #1 by a bit as a result, but then I didn't make any significant mistakes except for #15 -- for some reason I thought I was looking for a thicket instead of a clearing, so I lost some time there.

And -- yay! -- I was not DFL in my age group today. #5 of 7 AG, #32 of 76 overall.

Brunch of quiche & coffee afterwards at a nearby café.

Sprint Relay at Cabrillo College.

The "RMOC Mountain Goats" team consisted of Sverre, me, and John.

I got off to a better start than in the morning race.

My first route-choice error was taking the sidewalk from #3 to the bridge control -- I had to aggressively bushwhack to get back up to the bridge level.

I made one nav blunder, from #14 to #15, missing my intended corridor and going the long way around an extra building.

From #18 to #19, I was heading towards the gate in the east-west fence. Marie-Josée was just ahead of me and nice enough to yell out that it was closed.

Lastly, I tripped and fell in the finish chute -- doh!

Both Sprints today were really fun (of course, it's always more fun when I don't have terrible results). ;-)

Sprint 2 - Splits

OUSA Nationals Day 2 -- Long course at Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

After yesterday's debacle...I decided to mostly take safe routes on roads & trails to avoid the worst of the steep & difficult stuff.

Today went a lot better -- I was only one minute slower than yesterday's Middle course. I see a couple of weird deviations on my QuickRoute track (I stayed on the road too long on my way to #3; and WTF was I thinking as I left #4?), but otherwise I stayed in contact with the map and didn't have any hopelessly-lost moments. Yay?

Afterwards -- I caught the last hour of the Mole & Mariachi festival in Santa Cruz. I really wish I had gotten there earlier; the mole tasting / contest ended right before I arrived, and I missed the best of the mariachi performers.

I had another great dinner (same place as last night), and ice cream afterwards.

Yellow jacket stings have evolved from stingy and painful to very itchy. The posterior one is now a four-inch-diameter welt.

Olive Long - Splits

Event: BAOC: U.S. Nationals
 

OUSA Nationals Day 1 -- Middle course at Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

Wow, my performance today was god-awful -- so terrible that I would be embarrassed to share my QuickRoute tracks.

Like almost everyone else, I got stung by yellow jackets on my way to #1 (butt and hand).

And then I bumbled around and lost map contact a few times, and made some horrible route choices across scary-steep terrain -- crawling up on all fours and grabbing onto branches to keep from sliding back down, etc.

Ugh.

But I did have a super-delicious dinner in Santa Cruz.

Green Y Middle - Splits

I met up with the LoCO FIT group, but I went extra-slow the whole time rather than doing the hill workout (tapering!).

Community Park, Coal Creek Trail, up & over the Aquarius hill, and then back the same way.

It's 6:45 pm now and I still need to (a) finish a few things for work, (b) pack, and (c) hopefully get a few hours of sleep before heading to the airport for 7:50 am flight...

Runners Roost Group Run -- short & slow (tapering...).

LoCO FIT workout at Daughenbaugh / Warembourg Pond.

- Ran ~one mile to warm up.

- Mile repeats x 3 -- 8:40, 8:23, 8:46.

- Slow run back to the parking lot to cool down.

Still feeling kinda sore from Sunday's hike...