Training Log Archive: AliC

Event: Billygoat Run
 

5th overall, and won the girl-goat! A bit over Marie, we were in the same pack for most of the second half, she was tough! Sam ran away from me to 17, but unfortunately missed it, and so didn't get helped as much by the speedy pack running.

My goal from the start was to just not panic. To 1 was a nice smooth trail run most of the way, good time to scout the skip. Then lines of people from 1 til 7, was surprised to see Hannah, Alex and Becky ahead in the distance at 3, how'd they get ahead? Did they skip? Yup, turns out they had oped to do a trail route 1->3, also skipping some climb.

To 8, the pack went for a trail route, my mental plan had been to go straight, but... peer pressure. Then to 10, a choice! Half pack went again to a trail, I liked straighter, almost messed up going too far west of line, but made it, through gap with ponds, and around marsh and in. Trail route may have been faster though, maybe gained 20 m on me by control?

We all bailed out again to the trail to 13, although doesn't look like the best option in retrospect. I did look ahead while on that trail section though, and firmly decided to skip 14. Turns out, everyone else did too =) Was running with Sam along the trail while skipping, had a little chat, then into 15 and 16. Seemed like she had a little more go in her legs, and she pulled ahead heading to 17.

Then into the butterfly! Although I totally messed up the way there, tempted by the trail flanked by yellow. It went the right direction there, but only going up and down *huge* hills, eep! So was behind the pack by the time we actually got to the butterfly centre.

Butterfly was wicked fun. Flying around the lovely open woods in a pack: Vadim, Sergeiy, Carl, Boris, Giacomo, me and Marie. Lovely set of controls. Then leaving the butterfly, everyone went right. My plan was to go left. Had a quick map check, nope, don't see what the heck they are doing, I'm going my way. Crossed paths with Balter who cheered, saying something like, "Keep it up... I mean it!" What did that mean? And then put full weight on a fully turned-over ankle. Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie!! Hobble, hobble, can I run? Maybe, ok, yeah, let's go again!

Was happy to find 28 + 29 smoothly on my own, unsure if pack was in front or behind, then saw them heading to 30. Hit 31 more dead-on with Vadim and Sergeiy than the others, then with them to 31 and along the trail run into 33. But then to 34, really spiked it dead-on, pulling ahead of both of them. 35, almost went down the wrong stream, corrected, up hill, and then just a sprint in! Ending in 5th, pretty cool!!

QuickRoute

1355/2000

Control pick-up round 1, pre-awards, which meant I came back just in time for awards, and not fully dressed, straight on with the new BG t-shirt, woo!

Had issues finding 2 again, from different way in. Not terribly pleased with that...

1359/2000

Control pick-up round 2, after driving out to access point with Boris, Marie, Sergei. Ankle really started complaining....

At least control pick-up got me a few more controls over PG for today, but he still got more with the sprint yesterday, next weekend's training might help me out...

1362/2000

Billygoat - Splits

Event: Speedy Goat Sprint Relay
 

And the Speedy Goat sprint relays happened!

Was super fun to watch, hopefully as much fun for all who participated, I'm sure that climb to the finish was really brutal, especially the second time around... (thank Erin =)) I'll get some of the Flip footage I got put together sometime in the near future for folks to have a look!

I think things went relatively smoothly, all controls got out in good time and Ed and Ross successfully forced whatever software it was to adapt to our sprint-relay format. We probably should have tried to have at least the teams that were signed up together assigned numbers beforehand, and, if it had been possible, have the numbers written on the back of the map sometime before the 30 min before the start... thanks to all for the patience with the slightly late start!

Thanks so so much to all that helped, to WCOC (esp. Donna) for the invitation to put the meet on, Sam for being registrar, and Linda for making sure I actually thought about the things that needed doing. Promise I'll be less clueless next time around =) Oh, and Pavilina was also a superstar, vetting the controls in the first place, and helping out both setting and taking in.

C • Hey, it was a lot of fun, t... 7

Setting out controls for the yellow course. Actually, perhaps the first time ever that I set out controls for a real race!

Anyways, double-triple made sure I was in the right place and everything added up.

Scurrying, lotsa scurrying...

Ran course A-1, after we'd picked up controls (or Kevin, Hannah, Becky, Marie, Nelly, Boris and Pavilina did rather). Actually, was wimpy and skipped running up and down the hill to the start (had been up and down *several* times already! =)). So started at 1 and finished at 10.

Still unsure of best route to 2, I went left, was surprised by cliff, not sure why, it's obviously there. I think I didn't process the contours under the brashings indicating the hill top, thought the cliff should be facing the other way. Had fun with the rocky loop on the hill top in the gorgeous white woods, then back down the hill.

1320/2000

Midday training at Norwottock. (Graduation day at UMass, we were instructed to vacate campus by midday!)

Stayed on the north side of the ridge, trying to practice some slope-o, used the map from the Thanksgiving score-o Phil planned last fall, plus a few extra added circles.

Pretty smooth, if not blazing fast, is quite hilly. Parts of that slope might be undermapped, I came up in a reentrant between 55 and 53 with a definite significant cliff (>2m) that couldn't have been anything on the map, because it was on the east side of the reentrant.

Had to redo one short leg over bumpy reentrants, got pulled downhill. Second time just focused more on not being dragged, everything added up a lot better along the way and into the boulder!

1311/2000

Trail run back

Event: Cemetery Hill Inaugural Sprint
 

First run on Phil's new Cemetery Hill map- cool!! (And so many thanks to Phil for making map, planning course, setting streamers.)

Super flustered at the beginning, just not in a focused mindset, ran around forever trying to find 2, sorting out what was what in the disc golf land (Phil totally had meet notes, which I read, just didn't sink in... )

Things went a bit better after that, but still sloppy at many controls. I think the main thing was that on the 1:5 map, with such high density of controls, you're always just trying to keep en route to the next control, and have very little down time to plan the one after...

Ran into barbed wire (my own fault, it was mapped) without gaiters on the way to 10, a cut that impressed my Spanish class afterwards, but really not so bad. Oh, and also majorly fooled by a mini-version of the spur, with also disc golf stuff on it right before 28. Think I was trying to read ahead to the finish, blah, more focus needed!

Really good fun, even if a messy-ish run, great sprint training.

1300/2000

- Splits

I think I spaced and only actually did 2 sets? 15-12-12

Resting HR also back down to normal, good.

2nd loop of the race course, chatting with Alex

Hippity-hop!

Woo, psyched with this, improved 31 seconds from 2 weeks ago! A whole lot closer to the 17.53 I need before Aug 20.

For sure paced it better, quite comfy for most of the first two miles, maybe besides the hills, then steadily into hurt. Splits were 5.51, 5.47, 6.56 (so that last 1.1 mi is at 6.12 pace). Possibly a bit of fading, but the last mile is also def the hardest, the one you actually gain climb on.

Ran around folks the whole time, first mile or so around Paul and guy-in-yellow, then I pulled up and led for awhile after coming through the lap (yay orienteering speed on downhills!). Guy-in-yellow passed me at the top of the steep climb in mile 3, but I stayed pretty much right on him until the final sprint, fun racing times.

Right at the end, a surprise cheer from visiting ski-o personality Carl Fey who is touring some US business schools for work. Dinner and ski-o chat after with him, PG and Alex, awesome. Scallops make me happy, as does ski-o chat. =)

Warm down loop with Carl, PG, Alex, Kelsey and Kristine, woo quite the group. Kelsey also skis. And has expressed some possible interest in orienteering. We shall see...

Hmmm, pretty darn high resting HR. Recovery day for sure, is it just high from all the training this weekend? Did having out-of-control allergies Sat eve help it rocket? Suspicious...

Drills, waiting for the guys to emerge from the locker room. They must chatter!

With the noonies, said I wanted to do a recovery run, we ended up doing the 'Puffers Trails' loop. I was deceived by the name, thinking it would be similar to 'Puffers' which is just a 5ish mi run, but anyways, we took it slow, had a guy who can't run on roads at all, hence super-traily-ness of the workout.

At one point, detoured (through sprouting poison ivy!) to have a look at the coolest beaver dam I have ever seen- it's goes on forever and even bends a corner and really is keeping the water at least 2 ft above the water below. So cool, beavers are impressive engineers! (You can even see it on google maps satellite from the GPS link above- look just north of where my first split is. Can even see the bend!)

C • That's amazing! 5