Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Running around cold spring park with Sam. early morning running can be so rewarding, feels very good to be accomplishing things right away.

C • what has happened to the woolie-man? 1

Olympic games and busy schedule have conspired to keep me away from attackpoint. Will hopefully back log some of the exciting happenings of the past few weeks.

to from work. raining today. New music on the iPod for the first time since WOC. Sometimes I'm lazy about switching it up.

To/from work. sleepy today, which didn't affect the biking so much as it affected my ability to stay awake during the noon lecture by my boss. a co-worker kept nudging me to keep me from really drifting off.

after work I stopped at trader joe's which also does not carry baking powder ( so no pumpkin bread for Thursday's CSU training) and didn't have zucchini for a recipe I was planning in my head. needing a new idea I cast my gaze around the store and then saw a jumbo carton of strawberries. I remembered a recipe that I had "read" in a Swedish magazine on the train to Uppsala and made that for dinner tonight. a salad of strawberries, green beans, and feta with lemon juice ( I had to substitute lime instead). It was surprisingly and surpassingly yummy. I would post a picture, but I was too hungry to wait and get my camera.

Event: 2008 Laramie Daze & US Champs
 

to from work. way home was nicer because it was cool and I was so thrilled to be leaving work. Fleeing can be so invigorating. Legs feel better than I could have hoped for.

C • Seems like you are getting ... 2

Long O planned by Brendan. Mentally it was hard to will myself to go out on what I knew was going to be a very tough course. especially with a fresh Clem frolicking about showing off his energy :) As I headed for the first control I realized that there wasn't going to be a streamer at the location, so when I got to the re-entrant I tried to draw an O-flag on the ground. Apparently nobody saw this design though. Same was true for the second streamer as well. I feel pretty guilty that this was the straw for brendan's race. I feel even more guilty that I felt so relieved to hear that Brendan had gone out to pick up Night o controls instead, which meant that there were fewer controls left to pick up when I got done.

anyway, back in the jungle. I was able to keep moving up until control 10. Unfolding the map and realizing that I still had several k to go was a bit disheartening, and my legs were super tired. I started walking on the way to 11, and only found the control by lucky accident. I was basically just bumbling along, swatting at flies and trying to estimate how much longer I had until I was done :)

after the finish, I could only muster a slow walk back to the parking lot. draining, but an excellent course. would have been really fun to race this course on fresh legs.... don't know if I could have matched Clem's time (under 1:50:00) after putting in so much work yesterday. I think i have splits somewhere on my watch... I'll have to see how I compare through the middle section.

C • guilt 1

picking up 2 of the night controls. thankfully Ed, Brendan, and Clem all picked up a few. many hands makes light work. completely spent after this weekend, nothing left in the tank :)

Setting flags in Patuckaway. This took way longer than I expected, but setting streamers in Patuckaway is hard! everything looks the same out there in the woods and so I had to double and triple check some of the locations. I don't think I made any mistakes though, except the very obvious mistake of not hanging the first two flags on the Long course. Out of sight is out of mind and those two controls weren't on my main map for control setting.

good way to start a weekend in the woods.

Contours only course. planned by Brendan. Patuckaway without rocks is a much easier map to read, and many of the swamps and ponds were left on the map, to aid with navigation. I had one big goof, and then most of the other controls went well. I was moving fairly well, but not really cooking. I was picking up streamers as I was the last one to go out, and got messed up on a couple of occasions because the streamers I found looked like old streamers ( read: streamers from last year's training weekend) . FDFs not as bad with Mark's bug spray.

C • rocks 4

Middle Distance training. planned by ross. My idea was that since I've been struggling with the middle distance style orienteering that I should practice. so I set 19 controls, in ~5 k with lot's of change in direction. I guess there is more to course setting a middle than just changing direction, but that's about as fancy as I got. I was pretty clean on this course, and felt like I was moving faster than the contours only. I think it really helped to have set most of these streamers myself. glad that I motivated myself to go out on this one.

headed over to the beach after this one to wash off all the hemlock needles.

The on and off thunderstorms of the weekend could not stifle the team spirit of the training weekend. The creative efforts and combined generosity of all the attendees made dinner totally awesome. Dave's cooking was super yummy, giving us the energy we needed to tackle the night o.

C • amen to that 1

Night-O planned by ross. wow these patuckaway night races are super hard. foggy night made for some creepy woods :) started well, but real shaky on the way to 2 and blew up on 3 pretty badly harder to relocate at night. spent a lot of the night fighting my compass, especially on the way to 5, just heading on a bearing to a trail and that was so hard. slower after 5, just trying to survive, and really thirsty by the end, just like the wicked hard night o from last year. I assumed that Brendan had stayed ahead of me, but it turns out I snuck past him when he went far right around some swamps and I zig-zagged between them. Heat lightning was cool to watch in the parking lot after I got back.

to from work. as usual very late leaving work. whenever I have someplace to be I get stuck the longest. So an hour late picking up Brendan and Ed, but that's okay, we made it up to the Park almost in time to get our tents set up before the rain.... almost :)

New O-shoes. Got a pair of Falcon's from the Berman's. Super nice of them to let me come over on a Friday night and buy shoes. half price as compared to what I would have paid in Sweden. Anyway, the plan is to treat them better than I typically have treated my shoes in the past. I hope to follow the Saeger method, which involves taking out the insoles and drying them after every run. Their shoes last much longer than mine, let's see if it's because they have better maintenance.

C • Hard numbers about flies in urinals 2