Training Log Archive: maprunner

Met with my sprint coach. Didn't do much actual training, just lots of discussion. I now have a training plan for the next few months, leading up to my racing season in June/July.

Orienteering at Kill creek. I ran the score O course that PTOC will be using on April 12th (so I can't show my map). Temps in the 70, late afternoon, fierce winds, tall grasses, crappy woods, score O course: all made it hard to focus and stay excited.

I was inspired by Valerie, so I'm taking a swim class. Haven't had lessons since I was a kid; haven't tried to swim laps ever. Glad to see two other women in the class were also returning to swimming after many years.

Lots of drills in the basics today. Seems I float pretty well on my belly, but my legs really drag down when I'm on my back. Oh,well, guess I won't be a backstroke champion :)

Was surprised how heavy my legs felt when I got out of the water at the end of class. And bummed that my skin still smells like chlorine, many hours later.

I wonder if the C25K program is too hard for true couch potatoes? I have a colleague who is still struggling to complete the Week1 program, and we're in the 4th week. (Granted, I don't think she has done the recommended 3 workouts per week). Overall, though, I'm proud of her for starting and continuing to try.

Various sprint drills. Trying to remember my form, before I meet with my coach this weekend.

HR monitor is still wonky. Wonder why it works well on long slow runs, but can't handle the sprints???? Manually adjusted my effort levels tonight.

Body saws are really tough.

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Ulrik's hill. I had a short time before my sewing guild meeting, so I ran two repeats on my own tonight. I felt like I was pushing and it was hard at the end, but I didn't think I was going all out. So I was shocked to see I had knocked about 20 seconds off my PR. Did a second loop in a similar time.
6:30
6:31

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I re-ran the long course from last weekend's event. I wanted to practice doing it better than the first time. I knew I could improve my route choices to 1, 9 and 12. And I did. (On the way to 12, I did not run in the water; the lake is very low, so this was a rare chance to run on smooth soil).

I still messed up 2 and 7 this time; it was hard because there were no tapes or controls. I also had a hard time focusing, since I knew where I was going and so my mind would wander more.

Overall, I was 4 minutes faster than last week :) My route

PTOC event at Crowder State Park. This is a new map, and they were offering a mountain bike course, so Mike, Gene and I felt compelled to go. Even though it is 2.5 hours away from home (and that's due to distance, not traffic). The woods were great, much less underbrush than our usual areas. The contours were very generalized (no Lidar data for this area). I liked the course design.

I deliberately started late, so I would see others in the woods. I got to practice ignoring others and focusing back on my map and my plan. Had a problem keeping a straight line as I left 5. Also, I got tired after an hour or so, and missed that the marker was on the "side" of the gully at 9, so I spent some time looking around there.

Overall, I had really good focus today and lost very little time. Yeah for progress!

My route.

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C25K

A beautiful spring (!) day, so I had to bike. Even though there was a fierce wind out of the west. Stayed on flat areas to compensate.

Mike, Sandy, Matt, Mean Gene and I met on West campus. First we did one repeat of Ulrik's hill. My time was 6:55, which is pretty good for the first time out this season. My HR started to go down near the end, which is a bit strange. Monitor problems?

Then we jogged over to part of the O map and did 5 short interval course (two controls each time). The goal was to run these pretty fast, which I did. This counts as my sprint drills for the week. I was suffering. Yet my HR was 110, then dropped off all together. Damn! I never seem to get his new strap to work well when I'm doing intervals. Need to figure this out. Unfortunately, I was sometimes distracted by my HR, so I didn't do a great job of focusing tonight. Otherwise, fun exercise and nice to train with others.

OK event at the Overlook, with courses set by Gene. Temps were in the 30s today (70s yesterday and tomorrow; what bad luck!)

I worked registration, and then went out on the long course (I had run the middle course a few weeks ago). I made sure I prepared to race today. I drank a caffeinated drink (which I usually avoid) because I knew I was sleepy from a busy week; and I took a few minutes to remember my goals and turn my brain from meet worker to meet competitor, as I stood at the start.

I chose to stay in the woods to 1 and 9, just to practice moving through the woods. I had to refocus after I saw the Golden Girls at 4; but otherwise I was alone on the course.

Only real mistake was choosing a route to 12. Gene had told us that the lake was low, and that could affect route choice, but I forgot. Climbed the hill to the open field, and then remembered. So I altered my course to run around Sander's Mound (which I have never done before). Decided to climb straight up towards 13, which may or may not have been smart.

Focus was uneven today. Lots of times I had to remind myself not to think about my time, not to let my mind wander, read the map. But it paid off. I was within 7 minutes of the winners, who are two guys about half my age.

Lots of newbies and Lawrence residents today: good to see. My route

Back out to 12 to pick it up

A little exercise before joining the Girls for a nice lunch on the Plaza.

After lunch, Mike and I went out for (my) first bike ride of the year in the beautiful 70 degree temps. Lots of other folks out and about. Some topics of conversation: mountain bike maps and map holders; OUSA strategic plan; OK permanent course at Woodridge; how we want to paint our house and how much it will cost; how hard would it be for me to get up the Kasold hill; KU master plan.

Sprint drills: run fast for one minute. This is hard for me. Usually I start too fast, and then I can't maintain the speed or the form. I concentrated on form for reps 2-5, but I can tell from the GPS data that I couldn't maintain the pace throughout the one minute. Need to work on this some more.

on the recumbent at the gym

Ran Mike's third Rockcrusher course (he sets mini markers out, puts the course on Facebook). It was upper 60's when I started. After a while, my hands got cold. And I noticed that the wind was really fierce. Turns out the cold front was coming through. I think it dropped 15 degrees while I was out. Good focus today.

I drew a quick course to get some more time in the woods., I focused on straight lines and countouring.

Added a few minutes on the trails to get my total time up to one hour.

After getting our taxes done (we owe the Feds $8; can't get much closer than that!) I squeezed in a bit of erging. I watched the "Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta" episode with Kate Buckley and her cousin. I wonder how much they prompt the entourage to say crazy things? Or is it all in the editing?

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Short training run at the Overlook. Focus, and legs, were definitely tired and hard to keep in line today. But I tried. With mixed success. Ah well.

Can't show the map because I used some points from MeanGene's courses for next week.

Had fun the rest of the day, escorting some Scottish colleagues around Lawrence. They were so hospitable to me and the others when we visited in January, it was time for me to show some in return.

MeanGene, Jenny P and I went to the PTOC event at Weston Bend. You know you're in for thorns, steep hills and loess soil at Weston Bend. I had forgotten how outdated the map is, too.

I chose to do the long course today so I could practice my focus. No surprise, I tend to lose focus when I get tired. I was surprised to notice, too, how distracted I get by other people. Not "have they found the control yet" type of distraction. It's all me, and trying to show off kind of distraction (Why? who cares what other people think??). I'm also working on finding the right level of focus. You have to be honed in on where you're going and what's the plan, but you also have to be open to new info (outdated vegetation on the map, better micro route choices across the stream, advantageous deer trails, etc). It's a fine line.

I was a good day. Of course, my mind wandered lots of times, but I was aware of it, and did something proactive to bring my mind back to orienteering. I especially slowed down and regrouped whenever I saw someone else. I also reminded myself once or twice that my goal today was not a fast time, but a good focus day. I'm pleased with the result.

The actual race was mixed. Some good legs, some bad.

4 to 5: I did run on the lower road, despite how the track looks (or is the map that skewed???). For some reason, I saw the circle as being around the middle of the reentrant, so I chose to attack from above. I noticed that I was in the northern "passage" (bad focus going in; good focus to notice the mistake quickly) so I decided to contour around to the correct reentrant. Not possible. The hill here is VERY steep. Even very high up the hill, which is not well represented on the map. So I had to slide down a steep reentrant on my butt, and everything (map, compass, clothes) got coated in mud. When I got to the correct reentrant, I was prepared to start climbing up, when I saw the flag out of the corner of my eye right above the stream.

7 to 8: I never considered the road route. I'm so used to being a bad runner, that it still throws me off sometimes. I also should have remembered how steep these gullies are, and why I hate gullies (I physically can not get out sometimes and I hate being trapped). So I was very frustrated with trying to move through these slick, steep, muddy gullies. And then I searched up and down for the marker. Kept looking in case I had just missed it in a tiny corner, but never found it. Saw the trail close by to the west, so I confirmed I was right, and then decided to move on. As I was leaving the gully to the SE on the way to 9, I saw a marker in the extreme SE branch. Checked the code: it was 8.

9 to 10: I was pleased with my focus on this one. Chose a specific point to cross the stream (shallower earth banks, easily identifiable location) and worked hard on contouring up the hill (instead of straight up, as I tend to do). I didn't expect to hit it directly, but I thought I would be close. But then I had to go further down the spur than I expected. I was disappointed in myself. Also had trouble spiking 11, when I tried so hard to keep a straight line. I felt better when I downloaded my track. 10 is mis-mapped, and is much further down the spur. So I was starting from a different point than I expected as I attacked 11. So, I did better than I thought. (Although I also realize that I should have been more aware that things were off, on my own, instead of realizing it only after looking at a GPS track. More to work on)
route

And a note: I'm so thrilled, I earned a Southwest Companion Pass today. This is my first success with "travel hacking". I got two credit cards, spent some money in Jan and Feb, used other bonus points and reached the 110,000 miles point today. Which means from now until 31Dec 2015, Mike (or a companion) gets to travel free every time I take a SW flight. And I have enough miles for $1800 worth of tickets. Practically free travel for the next 21 months! Time to start booking flights for O meets :)

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Haven't done these in a while. Tried to concentrate on form.

Lunch time work out with some co-workers. I volunteered to lead a Couch to 5K program. We're going to work out as a group once a week. I'm excited to see some folks just getting off the couch to start this program; I know how hard it can be to start. A few others are in decent shape, but just haven't run for a while. What ever, any motivation is good. And they went outside when it was 25 degrees! Good for them.

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We were supposed to have a local meet tomorrow, but the forecast is for freezing rain tonight, and lots of snow and single digit temps. So we postponed it. Gene had sent us his courses, so I decided to run the middle course. I don't know if it was the effect of living at altitude for the last 8 days, or the light aerobic activity recently, but running felt great. I felt like I was flying over the frozen trails in the beginning. (But I was also running fast in a effort to warm up. It was in the low 20s and I wasn't dressed as warm as I should have). It was fun to orienteer, and nice to find tapes at each location (Thanks, meangene!).

I've added notes and training for our Yellowstone trip. Can't believe this was a 10 hour week; I think that's a record for me.

Now it's time to hunker down and relax, catch up on AP and the Olympics, maybe watch a few movies, and then the Oscars tomorrow night, while letting the snow fall where it may.