Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

West Point, day 2.

so I went out a lot slower, knowing that saturday's race wasn't something I wanted to repeat. The first cluster of controls was actually much trickier than I expect, and I came very close to making a fool of myself, I did hit the first four cleanly though, just a little more hesitant than necessary. Also, 2 may have been hung a bit off, so my exit bearing did not lead me exactly where I expected to be, so I slowed down getting to 3 too, in order to reaffirm that things were okay. The float bridge was super cool, so mad props there. 5 was just up and over, six was a clean bearing as well, keeping to the west of the green. I headed south out of the control on my way to 7, looping around the swamp and attacking up the hill. Didn't quite get far enough back across the hill and ended up finding the Red control before dropping over into the re-entrant. 8 I knew I needed to be carefulm, since it was sidehilling, and somehow I blew it anyways. I came across slowly, staying with the map, saw the big wide re-entrant in front of the control and then managed to drop down too low, forcing me to climb back up once I realized my mistake. took it straight and easy to 9, where I saw Patrick Shannon. he dropped low to contour straight across, but I headed out on a bearing trusting the mess of rock features behind the bag to act as a catching feature. This worked well because I hit it right on, though Will was still faster than me on the leg. Up and over the hill after 10, and then scrambling down the other side and coasting along to 11. the nicest woods to run in all weekend, I thought. John went out to the road to 12, but I stayed to the right of the line, thinking the road was too much added distance. I hugged the north end of the swamps and came over the saddle which made for an excellent attack point, considering that the control was fairly hidden. going to 13 I had a bad bearing, and hit the rocky knoll to the south first, and needed to adjust to get the control. 14 I took the climb early, then staying along the shelf for a little bit, but then decided the footing wasn't worth avoiding the climb, and went over the top. 15 I went straight along the line, and was really proud of how well I executed the route, checking off just enough and simplifying the rest. to 16 I arced to the east, around the clearing, and then hit the stream junction and came up the hillside from there, which made the control super easy. 17 I was careless and ran through the wrong saddle, and had to hop over the hillside to get the cliff. 18 and 19 were short and sweet. for 20 I decided to stay high, which made attacking the control easy, but I wasn't as quick as Vadim who took the road. 21 I was too excited and tried to go too fast, and ended up hitting the stream to the west of the control, but then it was just running hard to get 22 and the finish.

I was happier with my race, I still made little bobbles, but I was in great control mostly. I also think I paced well, since I was running less hard but had almost as good a time on the 10 k as on the 7.5 k.

Also, I thought that with a clean run I had a chance of overtaking Vadim for 2nd place.... and i did. I clearly need to run cleaner races still ( should spike them all) but progress was made.

Blue 2 - Splits

West Point. Day 1, Blue. Got off to a good start, and got a little cocky. I spiked the first three controls like it was a park-o or something. The climb hadn't destroyed my legs yet, and i was feeling the groove. All this was to change.

Leg 4 was down and crossslope, and I was trying to be careful... but I let my concentration drift ahead and so when I hit a plateau I assumed that I had gone too far, and in reality I hadn't gone far enough. This was a sign that I needed to slow down, but instead I decided to get #5 really well and to forget about my mistake. I hit way far north, and had to trek all the way back along the hillside. 6 was in many ways a gimme control, and 7 my bearing was good so I cleaned up there too. 8 was downhill and then back up, I was going well, but by the time I had gotten up the hill I was tired and not thinking clearly. I saw a flag and ran over to it, eventhough it wasn't in the right spot. it could have been a very clean control had I just kept to my route and not gone jumping at bags. my legs were tired and there was the option of going up and over to 9.... which I went well out of my way to avoid, trying to contour as much as possible. This was okay, but I hit the right cliff more by luck than anything else, since talking to others it sounds like there are a lot of unmapped cliffs in the area. 10 was a quick downhill control, and I did fine, though my bearing could have been a little straighter. I got messed up a bit on 11, because someone else was searching in the area at the same time. I had a decent bearing, but didn't see the set of lower cliffs I was looking for, so I climbed up to the next set, and then had to drop back down again. I need to learn to ignore others in the forest when they aren't going to help me. 12 was a slow slog up 12 contours. 13 the best route was up over the top of the hill but I thought I could be quicker contouring along the shelf. Actually I did a good job on the execution of my route choice, but over the top was still faster. I need to learn to not let climb scare me so much. 14 I really bombed, came out on a bad bearing and ran into a parallel swamp. However the swamp wasn't apparent on the map because it was covered with green slash marks. I wandered around much longer than I should have trying to figure it out. Physically tired was making me mentally stupid. 15 I went straight, which turned out to be the best option, since the swamp wasn't as bad as it looked on the map. 16 I never looked for the route to the left of the line, and again I didn't want to go straight up and over, so I dropped down and went to the right of the line. The footing wasn't stellar and the climb at the end sucked royal. worst of all, the lefthand route was clearly a better choice all around. 17 was quick, and 18 would have been if I hadn't come across another broken down stone wall that wasn't mapped. 19 I cut out to the eastern road so that I didn't need to think too hard.

overall I was dissappointed in myself for making mistakes, but was mostly in contact with the map and my legs performing well considering the climb. It felt much longer than the Long O course from last week though and it was over 10 k shorter!!!

Kudos to john for running under 10 mins a k for the course.

C • nice work 1

Sprint fundraiser at West Point.

I was really tired from the morning, and I put off running the sprint until the very end. I think this added recovery was just what I needed.

I was pretty good about knowing which bearing I was leaving the control at, before I punched in. An important sprint skill. I was a little hesitant mentally going across slope to #4 just because I didn't see it as soon as I wanted to, I didn't let up too much though and trusted that I would have seen it because I was on the right contour. I was also a little hesitant going to 9, and got a little caught in the vegetation at the edge of the road, nothing to write home about though. #10, I chose a good route choice, cutting a little ways up the road then over the fences, across the field, and over the fence at the otherside. I didn't see all of the fences in advance though, which could have been very serious if any of the fences were marked uncrossable! my next route choice of note was under the building to number 15, which saved me a couple of seconds at least. And it was clean running all the way in.

as a spectator event, I had attempted the swimming route choice across the baylet that peter was trying to make a viable route choice. I waited at the go control until Sam arrived ( having run the rest of the course) I then attempted to sprint freestyle faster than she could run the perimeter. She creamed me. Wyatt did a much better job vying with Angelica actually. I think if a real swimmer with a speedo and goggles attempted the route it would have been quick... but not for me. Anyways, the second time around I knew enough to stay dry until after I had completed the sprint.

I was proud of this sprint, feeling fit and in control.

Blue 1 - Splits

West Point Sprint (Team fundraiser) - Splits

So it was raining a whole lot this morning. but I was good and I ran to work anyways. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow....

but yeah, my legs are still tired from all that runnin' this weekend. Better than yesterday, but decidedly grumpy still at such abuse.

Amusingly, the first song on my iPod this morning was a version of CCRs "have you ever seen the rain"

Boston drivers are even less friendly in inclement weather, either because they can see even less or because the gloomy feel of the morning makes them want to annoy the cheerful runners they see passing.

wow did my legs feel tired biking to work today! I explored gears lower than Dachshund basketball. I guess that's all there is to say about the whole biking spiel, except that somewhere on the way to work I encountered a road hazard. I know this because when I got out of work and was about to bike home, I found my tire sadly flat, and stubborn about staying that way. I would have patched the hole, but I didn't bring tire levers with me. bummer. So Instead I called up my chariot, and sam came to my rescue.