Training Log Archive: maprunner

Event: OCIN Flying Pig XXI
 

Night O champs, F50, 1st place of 2

I was really looking forward to this race since I love night O and I tend to be better at it than my peers (or just more experienced?) It was also a flat area, which always helps:)

However, I was not looking forward to starting at 10 pm (which is past my usual bedtime). I was also not looking forward to 6.6 k through woods that had standing water and lots of deadfall (I was told by the folks who had run in the day time).

Pretty easy start through. For 3, I thought I could cut through the woods, but I messed this up. I was more cautious going to 4, so AP says I lost some time here.

Gained some more confidence in the woods for 5 and 6, then blew 7 pretty badly. Obviously did not follow my compass (which was one of the things I was trying to do better this weekend). Stopped when I saw the road, which is a good thing for me. Found a trail and thought I knew where I was, but the trail was going in directions that didn't make sense. Turns out I was very close to the control, but I didn't know it. I thought it was wiser to relocate from the road., which worked. I was spooked now, and took the long way around from now on, even when it wasn't necessary.

11 was awful. Trails were standing water or shoe-sucking mud. And the area around the control was crappy vegetation. I lost a lot of time and motivation on this control.

As I left 11, I looked at my watch and saw how much more course I still had to do. I seriously thought about packing it in, this was not as much fun as I had hoped it would be. But I decided it would be a good test to see if I could stick it out, so I did,

14 was funny. As I approached the control, I saw a flash of reflective tape in the distance and headed towards it. Then I noticed many more controls, in someone's arms. They were picking up controls! I panicked and looked at my watch. I thought the time limit was 3 hours?? I accosted the two people picking up the markers and asked if I still had time, They gently pointed out that they were picking up daytime markers. Oops! My apologies for the false accusation. And then I had to turn around and go back to my control, which I had passed in my haste.

I was getting really tired now and anxious to finish. It was no fun to look for 16 (tree in woods) at night, so I just got to the edge of the green and threw my headlamp around until I saw the reflective tape.

I was so happy to finish and jump in the car. We still had an hour drive to the hotel. Got to bed around 1:30 am.

I made some mistakes out there, but overall, it was a better run than I first thought. I relocated when I made mistakes and kept up a good pace for the second half of the course. I was not tired at the end, I was still able to run on the roads.

C • tree in the woods 2

OCIN_Flying_Pig_2017_5 - Green Night - Splits

Plan was to run a 32:30 5K today. But when I got to work, I had an email with an invite to dinner that night (near work, many miles from home). We had been trying to arrange this dinner for awhile, so I wanted to go. So, how to do both? Go to Target at lunchtime to buy some running gear (which I needed anyway) and some cheap running shoes (I had been running in O shoes).

I went to Corporate Woods to run on the trails there. I hadn't been on these trails in probably 18 years (Mike and I used to rollerblade here all the time). I felt like Nadim!

I used MpaMyRun on my phone since I didn't have my Garmin. It was hard to pace myself (trying for 6:30 k) and I was running a bit too fast. I got near the halfway point when my phone shut down. I've been having battery issues lately. The battery is charged one minute, shuts down the next. Ugh!

I got confused as I returned to the starting point, and stopped a bit too soon. Ran some more through the parking lots looking for my car. I was out for ~35 minutes.

Dancin' fool

Next Sunday is the Flying Pig sprints. Two in one day. After the Long race on Saturday. So I decided to duplicate those conditions this weekend. My starts for the sprints are 2.5 hours apart. So I ran two sprints today, 2.5 hours apart.

Mike drew me a course for Sprint 1. I decide to share my track with him live (on Garmin) to add a bit of pressure to myself. Course was fun, and shorter than I expected, so it was nice to see the finish on the map.

Second sprint was on West Campus. This was course I had designed in 2015. It was fun to run it myself. Mike tracked me again. I tried to run all the way up the hill but couldn't make it.

We are starting to plan our trip to Chile, for April 2018. My AP friends provided lots of good tips when we were planning our New Zealand trip. What can you suggest for Chile?

C • Z&J 1

Ft Leavenworth BingO race. Mike and I drove up with Sandy. This is a score adventure race, where you are given a BingO card and have to find those markers. You could choose to make an X on your card, do the outside box, or the whole card. I planned to do the outside box. I saw that I had markers on the southern and northern ends, but I thought it was do-able in the 90 minutes we had planned. But I forgot that this is 1:15,000 map.

Navigation was fine (I had been to many of these locations before) but energy and motivation levels varied. It was tough to do all the road running in the southern part. I saw how far I had gotten in 50 minutes, and decided not to get the 3 northern markers. I also considered skipping 15, but I had never been there before, so down I went. I expected that I could cut through the woods there, but no dice. Heavy vegetation and a deep stream. I was with Sandy and Gene at this point (or at least, I saw them. They were moving much faster than I).