Training Log Archive: Charlie

Flying Pig Brown Middle Distance, Ransburg Scout Reservation near Bloomington IN. Map and route. A little anxious about this, but not as sore as I thought I'd be from the first two days. Overall a pretty good run, but too many mistakes to be really competitive. This was probably the day I was moving the best, though.

1. Pretty straight, amphitheatre on my right, on the little trail with the bridge across the gully, then cut off the trail to get on the broad spur headed down to the control, feeling confident, until I got a good ways down and didn't see anything developing. Lost my nerve and went over to check the gully on my right. OK, see the junction, just have to keep going, tentative, but then there it was. Lost about 30 seconds hesitating. Not a good start.
2. Angled up toward trail on my R, followed it to top of the hill, a little past the top, then angled in. Fine.
3. Moving fast, straight line, straight in. Good leg.
4. Same. Saw the stream and figured it would be in the little bend, didn't see the flag at first, but then saw the reflection of the flag in the stream, as it was behind a fallen tree.
5. Started on the straight line and ran into a big chain link fence. WTF? Total panic, apparently. Couldn't see the right end (although going right would be good no matter where it ended) so I went left around it. Area behind it seemed much more developed than on map and I continued on to the gully and went right, but stopped a few times on the way because it was much further down toward the water than I imagined. Major loss - maybe 1:30. Not good.
6. A little rattled, drifted a bit left and had to go back. Not terrible, but another 20 seconds.
7. Across the bridge and contoured along the hillside. Fine, except it seemed like there was another pretty significant reentrant before the one with the flag. So a little disconcerting, but turned out ok.
8. Straight up and over. Rock not as obvious as I expected it to be but right into it.
9. Again straight up and over, could see the flag (on the W side, the side I was coming from, instead of the NE side as on the clue sheet).
10. A little tentative, a little trouble reading the situation. Stopped even with the bag to contemplate the bridge in front of me and figured out I should be right next to it, and I was. Maybe 10 seconds or so.
11. Compass and uphill, but sucked off by control to the left. Didn't think it was right, but close enough to check it. 20 seconds.
12. Up and over, past Dan Barker taking pictures. HIt the stream just below and up the stream, as that was where the bag was.
13. Slipping on the climb up the hill. One place I could have used spikes. Not sure the building I was heading to was mapped, but nothing else that could have been it.

Ended up about 1:40 back of Dennis and George, with probably 3 minutes of mistakes. But an ok run, anyway.

Ransburg_Middle_2013_Brown - Splits

Flying Pig Brown Long Distance race at Yellowwood State Park. Not so long, especially compared to the other courses. First two controls were quite long, but the rest was pretty normal. Not as fast as the speedsters dwildfogel and walk, but no real problems and plugged along ok.

Left the big trail sooner than I should, and had a more difficult trip to the control as a result, including missing out on seeing it from a distance. Long slog uphill to 2, fighting around and through a lot of blowdown across the mapped trail, then a minor stop to check a code in an earlier reentrant and some head scratching in two other unmapped reentrants before the right one. 3,4 and 5 feeling in control. For 6 I took the switchbacks trail, climbing up to it, then down, up and down again before jumping off near the control. I totally missed the much more efficient road route to the right. Otherwise fine, and no problems with the various tender parts.

Map and route.

1. Lack of patience. I was struggling on the big trail and got tired of it, so I lost my plan and jumped off early, down the really steep skid road, and then had to climb a spur before getting down to the big stream. Just some extra work and lost time compared to staying on the big stream at the top. Then to add insult to injury, I couldn't see the flag from the direction I was coming and climbed on the hill first, before having to climb down to see it on the stream side. People coming the right direction saw it from a distance. The cost - a good 1:30.
2. Really tough climb out of there. Lots of large uprooted trees across the trail, and lots of green briar trying to go around them. Slow, slow, slow. At the top I went left, kind of afraid to go straight through the green. Should have known it wasn't bad. Off on the bigger trail, angling to the smaller trail heading north, hopping off at the bend and down to the reentrant junction, across the spur and in. Sucked off momentarily by a control in an earlier reentrant, and then another reentrant that seems not to be mapped. So maybe another 1:30 slower than an optimal performance.
3. Crossed the stream, hugged the bottom of the hillside, straight in. Just fine.
4. Also fine, pretty straight.
5. Straight to the trail, angling uphill and taking the trail left to the top of the bend and then angling down the spur, hitting it right on. Dennis saved a couple of lines of climb, had a little faster time.
6. Took the wiggly up and down trail right of the line, but didn't look nearly far enough right. The road was much faster, but I didn't even register it.
7. Out to the road (a big surprise to find out it was there). Planned to take it to the ride and follow that, but again lost patience and fought through on a straight line, losing a bit of time and fumbling a bit.
8. Through the clearing to avoid the fence. No problem.
9. Didn't see the bridge until too late, but fine to go around.

Yellowwood_Long_2013_Brown - Splits

Event: Flying Pig XVII and Eastern Interscholastic Champs
 

Stroll around the model map at Yellowwood with Dennis, Chuck and Matej. Much less green evident on the ground than on the map. They must have gotten a bulk price in green ink.

Good visibility. Plenty steep. Spikes would have been good but I didn't bring them.

Brown/Green sprint on IU campus. Nominally 2.7 KTook a while to find the start triangle on the map. So many controls! I was worried about my knee, and worried about the length of the course, but it all was ok. The knee support does its job, and I felt no worse after than before. Kept a steady pace and didn't get too tired. From 4 I was looking at #6 at first, lucky to see 5 partly hidden by a bit of dark green, or rather olive green as I figured out and had to go around. Another runner got nabbed by Mike Minium after going through the olive green. Went around instead of through from 8 to 9, which turned out fine. A bit longer, but the control was fit in front of me. Other people apparently had to hunt for it. Small errors on 13, 14, and 15, and again on 18, where I had a lapse for a moment and thought I had to cross the creek. Maybe 40 seconds in total. I seem to have won M65, but only because Dennis unfortunately mispunched. He was 1:30 better, otherwise.

Map with Route.

1. Took a while to find the start triangle on the map - so many controls. Finally found #5 and worked backward, then it was easy to 1, just along the side of the building.
2. Big fence in front. Around the right, closer than left.
3. Right side of pond, could see control all the way. Better than left, where Dennis lost sight of it and got sucked in by a different control.
4. Corner of the building, easy.
5. Almost missed it as I was gazing at #6, along the same line, but snapped back to it quickly. What's that green stuff? As I got close and saw the daffodils, I realized it was olive and went around on the stairs. Good thing, too, as Mike M was control sitting and dissing people for going through the olive green.
6. Around building to the left, although R would have been ok, too. Cut off the road before the stream and momentarily regretted it until the stream was small enough to cross, so no problem. Dropped down from parking lot to path before the green, so good.
7. Saw the stairs to get out of the parking lot, so through the parking lot and down the stairs. Some folks were scared off by the dark line and went L around the building. Through the ramp between the buildings and around. Caught and passed Rich Gaylord and Rob Wilkison at the control.
8. Left around the building to 8, getting there before Rob and Rich who went through the overpass.
9. Left around the buildings to 9. Thought about going through, but this seemed easier at least for navigation, and worked out well when I rounded the corner looking right at the bag. Some people who went through lost time looking for it.
10. Left around and down the stairs into the courtyard.
11. Easy, courtyard to courtyard and straight across on paths.
12. Around left and through the first set of buildings, seeing someone leaving 15, but not paying enough attention to realize that it was mine, just focused on my building, a little put off that the map was rectangular and the gazebo roundish, but ok. Looking outside as I was coming to it and then realizing at last that it was inside.
13. First error, drifting too far R, but eventually seeing the tree. Lost about 10 seconds.
14. Next error, drifting right again and getting on a path I wasn't expecting. Saw Lou Pataki, who was on the right line. Also about 10 seconds.
15. Worst error, but only about 10 seconds, I think. Saw I was looking for a pair of boulders, didn't see anything obvious and ran by to a pair of trash barrels, obviously not mapped, and too close to the buildings. OK, calm down, look again at the map and figure it out.
16. Run fast, down the center of the grassy area.
17. Easy.
18. Another 10 second error. Momentary lapse had me headed to the bridge to cross the stream, until I looked again and saw that would put me on the wrong side!
19. Up to the building and around.
20. Could see the depression from a distance.
21. Path to the building, around and in.
22. Moving faster, checked twice that I needed to go to the near control first.
23. Easy
24. Under wraps a bit, trying not to strain anything.

C • Good job 2

IU_Campus_Sprint_2013_4 5 Br Gr - Splits

Short outing with Rhonda and the dog. Not much time today. Several calls and leaving at noon for Indianapolis.

Keeping my arm out of things, but this was still pretty stressful. Some warmup, then three sets of deadlifts, followed by a WOD with 10 min Amrap of 800 M run then alternating sets of 10 situps and KB swings. Then rest 3 minutes and repeat. Not so much hard as just stressful to various body parts, particularly low back, but also my knee.

dog walk with R & S. Snow receding, but still quite a bit left. Very crusty this morning, as it was pretty cold.

Had the final follow up with the hand surgeon who had removed the cyst from my hand about 6 wks ago. It was a benign blood vessel tumor. Why does one get them? Possibly from trauma. I had wondered about that at the time. I think I pinched or otherwise stressed my hand around then, can't remember the details, but I remember wondering about it when the cyst first showed up. Glad to have it gone.

With Rhonda from PV. Pretty cold. 26 F when we left the house. Very slow, but making progress compared to where I have been. Hamstrings felt vulnerable, but not painful. Backed off several times when they seemed to pinch a bit. Glanced at the watch with about .4 mile to go and thought that we could finish in about 56. I'm a pretty good judge of pace, but I was surprised to hit it that close: 55:59.99 on the garmin. I don't think I could do that again.

Events of the day conspired to make it a rest day, and not feeling spunky enough to fight back at it, a rest day was fine.

C • Glad to see you've gotten some running in! 5