Training Log Archive: Charlie

A bit late this morning, off to “our” coffee bar, greeted by the charming waitress who asks us if we want “di solito “, that is, the usual. Nice to be regulars. Double espresso cappuccino each and a brioche to share. Nice place. Then back to the apartment to have breakfast with Daria and Peppino.

Pretty good race at Grostè, at least until the end. The last control not counting the go control was a very short leg to a pit, but I just couldn’t seem to find it, wandering around looking in all the unmapped pits, eventually going back to the prior control and still getting within a few meters and not seeing it. Finally climbed on a hill and could see it from there. Frustrating. I was in 11th place after 13 legs, finished 27th.

stage 3


1. Through a bit of a lumpy area, followed the road a bit then across a broad lumpy reentrant and could see the saddle ahead of me, just hard to get there. Better would have been to cut over before the reentrant and look for the narrow path that led very close. But no trouble finding it.
2. Fun leg, climbed a fairly large hill, not steep, and from the top I could see the valley with a couple of marshes, a couple of depressions and about 80 cows. Aim for the cows, who were guarding the flag closely, but showed no interest in the approaching runners.
3. Over a hill and along the ridge of it, but confused by the proliferation of unmapped rocky pits and stopped short for a while. Maybe lost a minute or so.
4. Pretty direct, no difficulty, barely remember it.
5. Up hill, Katia passing me like a shot, over the top, the big reentrant in front of me, cliff at the top, and knew my control was just below and beyond the cliff. Spike, and 7th fastest time on the leg.
6. Another spike, going right of the hills and up the slot with the mapped ditch, right in, and 6th fastest on the split.
7. Tentative, across the reentrant and came up a little high, checked another rock first, lost a bit of time, maybe 2 minutes.
8. Straight down, easy.
9. Down near the trail, and suddenly a lot of people around. Easy.
10. Neglected to follow the train and got off a bit to the right, stopped and looked left and corrected, maybe a minute.
11. Slow, took the trail, but not far enough and had to look for it from below, harder than coming in from above, maybe a minute.
12. To the road, and then tough steep climb to the hilltop. O problem , just tiring and slow.
13. Over a little spur to the pit. Not hard
14. Shortest leg of the course, but went right by it, then spent a lot of time searching, back to 13, tried again and still couldn’t find it. 9 minutes lost by the time I tracked it down.
15. Straight, down and up. Right would have been better.
F. Somehow had the fastest split here, even though it was the same leg and time as the day before, but it came after an uphill leg here and people were tired. I did get passed in the chute by a younger guy, though.

So mostly pretty good. Took the lift down after, and walked back with Jeff and Judy, tired but not as tired as yesterday.

Very pleasant antipasto at Jeff and Judy’s beautiful apartment. Theirs is a lot better equipped than ours, and much more conveniently located. For example, we will walk a km and a quarter to their place on our way to go up the mountain to the start tomorrow.

We had been driving to the base of the lift with G and K and walking back, but everybody is walking tomorrow.