Training Log Archive: Sandy

Yoga class. Took it easy on a few things but overall didn't feel as bad as I expected. Had to back out of one or two stretches though as I could feel a cramp starting.

I love Moreau. Fabulous terrain and excellent course made for a fun time. Pretty much spiked everything except one when I stopped reading the map and just followed a crowd and two when I refolded my map and magically jumped ahead about 350 meters from one swamp to the next. ;) Luckily, in the second case, there were folks around to set me straight. Thanks to Susie DeWitt for suggesting the skip of 18 which involved a lot of climb up and then right back down. The up might not have been too bad, but the down would have been torture.

Got some nice cheering as I came in under the wire - the last official finisher.

Getting out of the car once home was not as bad as I feared. Frequent stops probably helped although I missed the planned stop at the last rest area in NJ. I meant to fill up since gas was only $3.70 a gallon.

C • Nicely done. And thought yo... 9

Billygoat - Splits

Event: Billygoat XXXIV and 2nd Annual Speedy Goat fund raiser
 

TNT - pulled around the extended Indian loop by Sandy and Bob. Totally unmotivated to run this evening and walked way more than usual. Not very reassuring right before the Billygoat.

Yoga class.

Event: DVOA Hibernia County Park
 

"Middle" course at Hibernia - perhaps for M-21+ but not me so more like a normal course with just lots of controls. My eyes were tearing like crazy when I started so I just took out my contacts which helped a bit. Shoes got soaked within minutes and had to stop to tighten the laces. So Rob caught me by #1 and I saw him off and on the rest of the course.

Very rocky park with most areas medium green and so that with the rain meant I didn't do much running. Couldn't run much on the trails either though - just not interested in pushing that hard today. Wore a really warm shirt but my hands and arms still got cold. They didn't really warm up until I took a hot bath when I got home. Was supposed to work epunch but Vadim was nice enough to say he'd take care of it and I could just head home. Glad I got out and got in a work out. Navigated okay for the most part. Should have headed down to the road, around and back up on one control with lots of rocks on a steep hillside but happy with route choices other than that.

C • Hibernia course 1

Middle - Splits

Woohoo!! Scott is now engaged to Katie, his girlfriend of several years.

C • Congratulations! 8

Short loop with Sandy who pushed the paced early and I was able to hang on and take almost a minute off the times I've been doing lately. Woohoo! So nice to have a training partner even if we only chatted on the long downhill at the beginning of the loop since I was breathing so hard the rest of the way. :) Thanks, Sandy!

TNT - Media with Dasha. A lot of walking but a nice trek through the arboretum.

TNT - extended Indian loop with Sandy and Jim.

Sore back muscles.

Left a lot of time out there today and all of it was avoidable. I'm not sure if I just wasn't focused enough or if I just haven't been training enough although the two are probably related.

Okay to 1. Two wasn't a disaster but I lost a minute or more because I did something I do too often assuming I can just go straight, figure things out on the fly and correct. I did, but lost time I think to doing the safe thing and going around on the trail to be sure of where I was. 3 was fine but got right on four and took some time to figure it out - maybe only 15 seconds but it felt like a lot. Five and 6 were clean and then I inexplicably messed up 7. I knew where I was but the rock mapping didn't make sense to me. I came in to what was clearly the big huge boulder and I thought that the rock feature in the center of the circle was to the right of that so that's the way I went and I didn't see the flag. I started wandering around not really knowing where else to look. Don't know why I was so stubborn as to not check the other side of the big huge boulder, but I didn't until about 4 minutes later. 8 was fine and then I drifted left on 9. I knew I was left but still went and checked a control even further left instead of heading right. Clean to the rest and had a couple people following me so that was pretty cool.

So a bit disappointed in my ability to think under pressure today. But, I felt pretty strong physically throughout the weekend running quite a bit more than I've been able to recently. I think a combination of not much climb and decent footing helped and perhaps I'm getting into a bit better shape.

A fun weekend and I enjoyed seeing and talking with lots of old friends.

C • Number 7 4

C • Hey . . . 1

Middle - Brown - Splits

Won F55 but not because I had a good race.

Good to 1, but messed up 2. It was a short leg that you needed to cut through some swampy crap and I just didn't believe I had gone far enough to be seeing the standing water that was mapped so continued in the wrong direction even though the spur was pretty clear evidence as to where I was. So lost about 2 minutes there. The mapping on the way to the next control was a bit dodgy and I ended up too far left, saw the root stock and was surprised at how far from the root stock the flag was. Not sure if it was hung in the correct reentrant or not - there were several little wiggles in the circle and I didn't spend enough time looking around to sort it out. Took a stupid route to the next control since I didn't see the trail to the right of the line and so went through the campground which was totally unnecessary since it was the radio control by the arena so I knew where it was and I should have just pushed hard on a compass bearing. Five was fine and I had a great route and was moving well to 6 only it wasn't where the map said it was but about 50 meters west on the other side of the hill. Lost 4+ minutes there and lots of confidence and lots of focus. Regrouped after a few minutes and was okay to 7-10 but then made a mess of the last control tripping over the radio wire, landing on my face, breaking the control holder, and spending some time trying to repair it.

It's really a shame that #6 was in the wrong spot - it really ruined an otherwise nice course in surprisingly nice woods. There were other issues with the map (in my opinion) but they were things that you could adapt to and deal with.

I think in retrospect we - I - should have protested the course though. That control location was really, really off.

Long - Brown - Splits

Event: US Individual Championships (Sprint/Middle/Long/Trail)
 

Trail-O. Got 5 wrong - three because I didn't really understand trail-o rules (didn't realize I had to really decide which flag was in the center of the circle - I thought the description needed to be precise enough to pick the right flag) and two because I wasn't willing to spend enough time verifying things. Given that I tried to spend less than a minute at each control (didn't quite do that - but close) I'm pretty happy.

What she said.

Yoga class - one of the better stretching sessions in a while. Very welcome.

In the Wissahickon. Probably should have run but wasn't happening.

Core dvd - since I wimped out on running I figured I'd do this. Also meant I could listen to the end of the audiobook. (I only listen to them when I'm driving, doing yard work or exercising.)

Green course at Washington Crossing. Nice course on a newly redone map. Made two big errors - seeing the feature but not the flag, doubting myself and thrashing around before finally coming back to find the flag - and a few hesitations. Was off more than I would have liked on compass bearings. I'm getting sloppy and lazy in my old age.

The best part of the day was meeting some lovely people from Finland who were so excited to hear we were coming to Jukola.

C • Per Km times . . . 3

Green - Splits

TNT Media - walked and jogged the trails in Tyler. Fun to see Karen and Jason.

Some stretching and yoga poses after running - not nearly enough.

A very stressful day at work. Some days the really good parts of my job are totally overshadowed by the not so good, and today was definitely one of those days.

I knew I should have gotten up a little earlier and done something this morning. Way too ground down to do anything this evening.

C • I hope 1

TNT - with Dasha and Bob while Clem did his own thing. This was a mix of jogging on the drive plus some walking and then coming back through the meadows. Legs felt very, very heavy - no zip at all. Hopefully it's just from the weekend.

Register for Billygoat if going..

Yoga class.

Decent race but one error for about 4 minutes and then a smaller one for a minute or two. Just got tired and didn't pay attention and stayed too high both times. Figured it out reasonably quickly but there really wasn't any excuse for either error - there was plenty to use to be more precise in the navigation.

I like how my finish chute run-ins are always marked as errors with time lost.

Middle Sunday 5 Green - Splits