Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Kortum Trail, Sonoma Coast St Beach. Super gorgeous day: low angle of the sun provided vivid colors, ocean was incredibly blue. Alas, my legs were mysteriously shot, and I could barely keep up with L.

Sunset Rocks

(1430) - (1358) 1.26 mi

Shell Beach parking

(618) - (624) 0.55 mi

Edge of Furlong Gulch

[Easy distance]

Walk up and down the big hill before running, then walk back at the end.

Warm up: Kortum trail head to Sunset Rocks: 1035
Cool down: back from Sunset Rocks: 1340

The usual weekly accumulation of morning exercises: stretching, strength and balance. Somewhat shorter sessions last weekend due to Sunol NRE.

Drove to the cabin, stopping for lunch in San Anselmo.

Jeep trail next door. Out at 4:30. Low 50's, felt quite chilly at first, but very nice once I got going. Wanted an easy run, and was happy that I was running at a decent pace while really taking it easy. After 2 miles, felt even better, so picked it up a little during the first part of each remaining lap, and then relaxed for the rest. Went a little faster on the last lap, but still well within myself.

Splits are for 2 laps at a time, 0.4 miles:
450, 436, 432, 425, 422, 411, 402, 341

[Easy distance]

Cool down

At home. Upper body only, two sets of everything.

Jeep trail next door. Rather chilly.

Hadn't plan to run today, but L said she wanted to, so I thought maybe it would be nice to get a little exercise in before spending the afternoon at Oracle. But then L wasn't ready at the latest time I could run, so went out for an easy run on my own. Definitely still sore from Sunday at Sunol.

Splits are for 2 laps at a time, 0.4 miles:
455, 443, 434, 426

[Easy distance]

Cool down

Sunol. Brown 3.6 km, 165m climb (map claims 150). Third of 27, with Steve Haas edging me out by :27 and (good) Red runner Tobias Tornqvist 12 minutes ahead. Not counting Tobias, I had #1 splits on 8 of the legs and #2 on four others. Alas, a 5 min error on #10 ruined an otherwise excellent run.

Regularly scheduled B-meet converted by yours truly into the first ever one-day "free" NRE (sanctioned for advanced courses only). The event was a big success, with over 200 starts. No one seemed to be scared off by the NRE aspect (we certainly didn't emphasize it), and on the other had, several people asked about the rankings, making me realize that a good many people didn't even know there are rankings.

Drove in fog all the way to the park, but it was partly sunny there, though still chilly. By the time I was out on the course, it was starting to get warm, but fortunately I got done without it getting too hot.

Started at 10:12. The ground in places made it very difficult to move, being dry, hard, cracked and slippery, not to mention steep. Picking routes that avoided contouring along steep hillsides was key.

Did extremely well for the first 8, not only navigating well and efficiently, but pushing the pace. Also, knew exactly where the control would be well before I could see it in each case. Going to #9 was the first time I was uncertain about where I was; pace counting saved me, spotted the control feature about 40m to my right. At this point, I think pushing the pace was starting to catch up with me a bit, not thinking as clearly as I should have. I wanted to go to 10 by going up to the big plateau because clearly the map was weak along this hillside and moving forward was difficult due to the steepness. Started to head up, but it was just too steep, so changed my mind and contoured - slow going, treacherous in spots, but made it through. However, couldn't tell where I was, and had lost my pace count. Found myself on a spur, but foolishly didn't realize I must be one spur shy of the correct one because this one didn't have a monster reentrant on it's far side. Knew I had to go down, so went, nothing made real sense, lots more contour detail than the map shows, couldn't think of a good recover strategy (only long after the race did I think about that monster reentrant), finally decided maybe I hadn't gone far enough, so started heading in that direction and spotted the control dead ahead almost immediately. (In some ways, I was unprepared for an error in that I hadn't made a serious one for at least the last three meets.) Figured I'd lost maybe 2 - 3 minutes, but it turned out to be 5, ruining an otherwise very good day. After that, did fine on 11, had really good legs on 12 and 14, thwarted a bit on 13 by a very large, unmapped, impassable clump of fallen trees (lost 30 - 40 secs).

1. The Course Setter's Notes said there would be a common first control for all advanced courses, which you get to by following a road. So, when I picked up my map, started running down the road before I even looked at the map. Didn't run that fast, instead using the time to examine the second leg and the tree tops I could see over the ridge ahead, thereby determining exactly where I needed to go for #2 even before I got to #1. Surprised I missed the fastest time on this leg by only 1 second; maybe other people didn't read the CS notes.

2. Straight. Ran a little until the slope got to steep, then walked to the ridge. Once I could see over, everything looked exactly as I expected; I could see the reentrant I wanted, went straight there and there was the flag. Used the time walking up the steep part to examine the rest of the course, noting the long leg to #4, and to plan the next two legs.

3. On a bearing. Had to veer right a bit because there was a large unmapped gully in the reentrant before the fence, but fortunately it ended just a little to the right. Noted the three boulders to my left before the fence. Once out in the open, identified the correct set of trees. Ground rough and broken, making it hard to move with any speed, but went right to the flag.

4. Started along the contour to keep moving, but stopped after a bit to make sure my route plan was indeed what I wanted to do. It was. Stayed a little to the right to avoid losing elevation I'd have to regain on the other side. Got on the mapped road (which extends longer to the N than mapped), but saw I was pretty close to the terrace above, so pushed up there. Basically contoured on the line just above the index contour all the way around until I could see the control, right where I expected it. Had used the thicket S of the control to verify I was in the right place. Was able to run until the hillside turned WNW, at which point it became so steep that it was hard to move forward on the dry, broken ground. CS Misha Kreslavsky thought the best route was to swing even wider, to get better running, but for me, the three contour climb back up would not have been good.

5. Dropped two contours to get under the line of rocks but mostly to get to ground I could run on. Ran up to the form line spur, immediately saw the little water tank, and then it was easy to pick out the correct (2m) boulder.

6. Rough compass, head for the correct stand of trees, just trying to pick out better ground to move on. Down around the N side, saw the thicket ahead, ducked into the woods to get to the SW side, nailed it.

7. Knew the exit route before punching 6, so started heading that way. Quick compass bearing, see the flag right away.

8. Long leg, but pretty easy. An unmapped trail coming down from N made me pay attention to the trees to my right in order to make sure the trail I was heading for was the correct one. Leave the intermittent trail just before the high point. Could see the neck of woods where the control should be, and then actually saw the bag, and Evan Custer getting close to it.

9. Along the contour, but couldn't identify either the clearing or the boulder I expected to see. About the time my pace count was close to running out (and now I was pretty close to Evan), could see I was at the back of a small terrace and there was indeed a boulder at the S tip, 30m to my right. Hesitated, though, since the clue sheet said 1.5m boulder and that one looked shorter. Evan headed that way, though, so I decided to check it out, and there was the flag. Lost :15 - :20.

10. See above.

11. No way I was going to contour across those two big reentrants, so angled up, trudging along, reaching the trail in the plateau just above the first big reentrant. Was able to run on the trail, stayed on it through the top of the second reentrant. Talked to many people who contoured around the edge of the field from there, but there was so little extra climb to go straight, so I did that. Hoped to see the top of the ditch, and I did, then adjusted my bearing and immediately could make out the reentrant I wanted through the trees. Several good Green runners contoured on this leg, but Steve Gregg took the same route as I did and was faster than them, so this was clearly the better route.

12. Turned out to be my favorite leg. Knew before I punched #11 that this was going to be essentially a contouring leg, and noted that there was a fence behind the control, making a great catching feature. But there were a lot of details, and as I left #11, didn't really have a plan, but decided I'd run a 100m on the contour and then make a plan. Did that, stopped for a few moments, then realized I should try just running hard on a bearing, knowing the fence would catch me, and maybe I'd even recognize the little cluster of reentrants. So, did just that. On the way, noticed a distinct terrace a couple of contours below, glanced at the map, realized I needed to be down at that level. Cut diagonally down to the far end of the terrace, then started contouring again. Immediately saw several people walking towards me. Pretty sure there wasn't supposed to be a trail there, then remembered that Yellow had streamered sections, so this must be one of them. Anyway, saw that dead ahead was a cluster of small reentrants, picked out the middle one, and soon spotted the flag. Nice.

13. Scrooched under the fence (later realized should've gone to the gap) and started contouring towards the control. The couple of reentrants I had to cross seemed a little deep, so kept drifting to the high side, and wound up pretty close to the trail. That might have cost me ten seconds, but then there was a large patch of unmapped fallen trees, and getting around that cost another half minute.

14. Simple leg, but used my Sprint-O skills to advantage, just telling myself to get to the gate (visible when I looked in the general direction from #13), head down, make a left. Hardly looked at the map and kept up a good rate of speed, passing Johanna M in the process.

[Orienteering race]