Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Buffalo Orienteering Club meet at Chestnut Ridge park. Sprint course. Finished around 5th or 6th I think.

Distance is the distance covered, per Forerunner. Straight line distance was stated to be 2.0 km.

C • Relay Champs 2

Score-O at Chestnut Ridge. Did pretty badly. Made some strategic mistakes, and then the heat and hills got to me a little, which made my orienteering execution get even worse. Plus I was distracted by my (paper) punch card that fell off once (retrieved for me by Mike Lyons; thanks, Mike) and then continued to disintegrate into a wet blob with each successive control because I was carrying it in my pocket from that point on.

Distance is the distance covered as measured by Forerunner. Climb is a very rough estimate.

Sprint - Splits

Did a run on the canal, from OCD fitness center, right after I got out of a meeting at 11 am. Thought I'd beat the heat a little by going then, but there was plenty of heat to be had ... Fairly brutal day, I wound up walking nearly the last half mile on the way back, because the heat had gotten to me.

Event: Finger Lakes Rogaine
 

CNYO 6-hour rogaine, at the Finger Lakes National Forest.

Teamed up with Dan Brown of Ithaca and Vince Cassano from ROC, at the last minute. I was entered with Anne Schwartz, but she hurt her ankle pretty badly doing the 25K trail run last week, and decided that she really shouldn't attempt the rogaine.

Dan and Vince and I got our team together two days before the rogaine, on Thursday. Dan had never met either one of us, and had never orienteered or rogained before, but he's a triathlete and serious backpacker, so he's in good shape. I only barely knew Vince, from talking to him a bit at local meets, and Vince had never done a rogaine before.

It turned out that both Dan and Vince took to rogaining very well; everyone contributed to the discussions around strategy, to navigating to the area of the control, and to finally hunting for the control once we were in the right general area.

We laid out what we thought was a workable strategy, heading north to take advantage of a lot of road and trail travel. But as things often go, we had to revise our plan downward a couple of times, as we realized we weren't making as fast of progress as we had hoped. Plus we had some major problems finding one control (#45); we did finally find it, but it didn't seem to be in the right place, plus the map didn't seem very good in that area. We probably lost 30 minutes, which certainly set us back.

We wound up with 13 controls and 680 points, finishing with 3 minutes to spare. We were pleased to find that we were the top overall finisher in the 6-hour category. So Dan's and Vince's intro to rogaining was a successful one.

Our route: 55 - 77 (didn't find, didn't spend too much time) - 52 - 73 - 66 - 33 - 49 - 69 (didn't seem right location but we found it and didn't lose too much time) - 45 (definitely not right location, found it but lost 30 minutes) - 82 - 59 - 72 - 32 - 54. Wanted to go for 46, 78, and 63, but we just didn't have enough time.

The mileage covered is fairly approximate, as I couldn't wear my Forerunner which I've come to depend on for mileage (no GPS allowed, of course).

C • Congrats on winning 6 hour course 7

Finalizing the courses at Iron. Bay East, for July 15 meet.

Went to Fairport, intending to run the 5-mile race, but I hadn't pre-registered. I told myself that if they still had shirts left, I'd pay the $22 and enter the race; if not, I'd go for a run on my own, since I couldn't see paying to do a race that I really hadn't prepared for, without at least a nice shirt to show for it. :) I went to the table to register, asked if there were shirts left, and was told that they had JUST run out. If I hadn't hit this long red light on the way down, I think I would have made it in time!

So I stuck to my plan, declined to enter the race, and did a semi long run on my own. Partly on the canal path, and partly on roads. In fact, I pretty much covered the whole race course, but in the reverse direction, and got to see all of the runners twice, once about a half a mile from the start, and a second time about a mile from the finish. It was a very different perspective on viewing a race like that.

All in all, I had a good run, slow but long enough, and I didn't need to take any walking breaks at all, which I was pleased with. I don't regret my decision not to enter the race, I think I had a better workout with respect to my goals than if I had done the race.

I ran into Gil near the finish area of the race; it sounds like he did very well.