Training Log Archive: Charlie

Left at 6am on the bus to Pozzuoli to catch the ferry to Ischia, but on the way we learned the ferry from Pozzuoli had been cancelled because of rough water, so we scrambled for another plan, which involved catching another ferry from a different harbor, so longer on the bus, and a much longer ferry ride, arriving at the island at 1030 or so. First start pushed back from 11 to 1130, and it was already 1115 when we arrived at the park, so I had to hustle since I was the third starter.

Small town forest, very thick, but with a lot of trails, mostly faint on the map. Turns out that the course could really be done without going into the thick stuff, which was good because I was wearing shorts. The terrain was very complex, with lots of big rock features, depressions, man-made objects. I was really thrown on the way to the first one and went past it. I never did figure out the map scale until I was done. So maybe a 2.5 min error on 1, then an inefficient route to 2 that cost another minute, and then settled down. One more rather bad error that I got lucky on. Heading from 5 to 6 I got distracted by the parallel line from 8 to 7 and ended up navigating to 7, ready to punch, but it was the wrong code for 6. Took me several seconds to realize why I was in the wrong place, and so maybe another minute lost. However, everybody else was having trouble too, and the times were spread out. When I looked I was 5th of 25 in M70, and on a different course from the M65s.

Had a nice time comparing notes with Bjørn Sandlien, also M70, who remembered meeting PG in the early 90s with some enthusiasm. Nice fellow, seems quite fit.

C • Dove siete arrivati sul'isola? 2

After the race we hiked to a local restaurant for a rather serviceable penne with tomato sauce followed by a rabbit cacciatore that was excellent. Then we had a bus tour of the very interesting island, although I am getting way more bus time than meets my needs. And finally the ferry, this time really to Pozzuoli so it didn't take as long to get back.