Training Log Archive: Charlie

Best race of the week, city sprint in Pinzolo, 15k down the mountain from MdC. We got early starts so we could get on our way to Milano after the race. They had advertised it as a mixture of forest and town, but it was instead two town sections separated by 1 km along the road. Very fun, 3 small bobbles, starting to turn one street too soon on the way to 7 but corrected pretty quickly, a little confused on the way to 11 because the map numbering was wrong and I was trying to figure out whether I was supposed to go to 12 or 15 next (it was 15), and suddenly found them had lost count of intersections, and finally went by the entrance to a parking lot and came around from the other side. The last was the worst, probably 40 seconds or so. Not bad, and ended up 14th out of 45 or so. Then a little visit with Daria, Peppino , Renato and the kids and on our way down the valley, arriving in Dormelletto at Matt and Sheryl’s around 3:15. Excellent.

Checking results after, Katia won W40!

stage 5 part 1
stage 5 part 2

C • W40 2

Walk to the start, as steep or steeper than advertised, but not as long.

Not my best work. Day 4 at Carlo Magno, finish at the bottom of the ski lift. A great deal of difficulty with several controls.

stage 4

1. Appeared to be easy, Head in from trail, ski run to a lone tree, but a lone tree in a forest and a tree really no different from any other, and lost about 3 minutes hunting for it in a really small area, flag tucked in low.
2. Would have been much smarter to drop a few lines and take a trail, but the trails are often hard to tell from the elephant tracks. Would also have been smart to realize there was a spur that led to it, but instead I shuttled a few times between two other controls that were nearby, visiting each of them twice.
3. Much better, through the yellow to the hill, no problem.
4. Also fine. Had to cross amreLly deep reentrant, but angled up the far side and ran right to it.
5. This control was at a tower, and I went right to it, but didn’t see the tower or the flag, but after a while, there was the flag tucked in low, right next to me, and there was the tower, although it didn’t look like much.
6. Easy on compass and top of the hill.
7. Pretty physical crossing the deep reentrant, but came right to it. My time was really slow, so I guess there was a better way.
8. I guess ok, as I got over to the right area, and only had to climb back a line to get t.
9. Kind of a disaster. Judy dropped a few lines and took a trail almost right to it. I went cross country, hitting the wrong trail a bit higher up, and ending up well past it at a ski run. Fought my way back to the right area, but got sucked off by another control a bit past. Finally corrected, at least 5 minutes gone. 10. Downhill, just keep going.
38th on the day, by far my worst, around 26th through 4 days.

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.

Middle distance at Grosté. We rode up to the lift with Giovanni and Katia, then waited 25 minutes in the lift line. The line kept growing behind us, so lucky we had plenty of time. Didn’t stay long at the finish because I accompanied Rhonda up the hill another 700M to the start, which gave me 40 minutes to visit with people coming up for their starts.

stage 2


So, the race. We started from a point along the lift line. Mostly open or semi-open, but very lumpy, with low shrubs, lots of holes small and large, some pointy rock features etc, on the way to 1 I made the critical error of going on compass and navigating off the lift poles on the next lift over. Then I climbed up the reentrant, looking for the small reentrant up the left side, but not finding it because it was closed on the bottom. Certainly more like a depression than a reentrant. Anyway, I continued up, now sure I was too high, but found some rocky pits and I was then only one line above the control. A much better route would have been contouring around to the left, no down, no up and a direct path in.

2. Short leg to a boulder, easy enough except really hard to get there, even after I could see the flag. Some steep hillsides and ground full of holes.

3. Then another mistake going straight. It took me a long time to scramble down some nasty cliffs, hanging on to whatever shrubs I could grab. Much better would have been a route around to the right flattening out the descent. The control was easy to see from a distance.

4. Longest leg, across the ski slope, and friendlier terrain on that side. It was hard to climb up to the ski slope, but once across I could go on compass and hit it right on, running down a reentrant opposite a cliff and to the pit above the cliff.

5. Easiest control, Boulder at the bottom of the steep scree slope, so couldn’t overrun it. It was behind a fairly large patch of trees mapped dark green, so the only trouble was getting through the numerous rocks.

6. Here I lost a bit of focus and paid for it. Thought I would come to the trail and go along it for a bit looking for a useful attack point, but crossed the trail without noticing it, and then everything started to look alike. Checked a couple of codes along the way, but I was too short, then got below it a line before figuring it out.

7. Tried to go pretty straight which involved down into a broad valley, up and over a spur, to a small reentrant on the far side of the spur, but once on top I wasn’t sure whether to go right or left (straight would have been optimal). Drifted a bit left and found a distinctive reentrant which set me up just fine, but probably lost a minute or so.

8. No real problem except the killer climb getting up to it. Had to stop and catch my breath a few times. Maybe better to have headed more left to save climb, but can’t complain.

9. Good leg, across the ski slope, checking off some useful features, hill past the slope, cross trail just left of the boulder, then on compass until I saw the reentrant with the cliff on the far side and the knoll behind that. Perfect.

10. Left of the big cliff, more or less on compass and staying high, a little further than I thought but came right to it.

11. Difficult footing, but no mistaking where to go.

finish.

I’ll fated decision to walk down the mountain with those noted mountain goats, Rhonda, George and Lyn, Jeff and Judy. Did most of it still wearing my ice bugs, carrying the backpack, deeply tired and sore footed when we got back.

Back to the excellent Hotel Dahu with Jeff and Judy for dinner, particularly nice because with 4 people we could order different things. I had a first course of maccheroni cacio e pepe, Rhonda a rice dish with vegetables and ham, Judy a kind of spaetzle and Jeff a parsnip soup with ginger and turmeric. Second course, pork shank for me, beefsteak for Rhonda and Jeff, smoked fish platter for Judy. Desserts, peaches stuffed with almonds and amaretto and a wine sauce, a lovely cake with ricotta and berries and chocolate pudding. Quite fine.

Event: 5 days of Italy 2018
 

Sprint race in MdC. Hamstring a bit sore, but manageable.

stage 1

Katia’s dad, Giuseppe came by and invited me for a bike ride, very vague about how far we were going. He had been nice enough to bring bikes for us. So off I went, pretty hard just getting through town, as it’s all uphill, then out to the main road and the climb up to Carlo Magno. Very steep. Then he said something about going down for a while, and maybe some up and off we went down, down and more down, while all I could think about was the difficulty of ever getting back up. I’m a fair amount heavier, but I was leaning on the brakes hard so as not to pass him on the down. Eventually he pulled off at Folgarida and asked if I wanted to continue or head back, and I elected to head back. It was 7k up from there, but not as steep as I feared and I made it, although he was disappearing like a Croatian guide. When we got back we chatted a bit and then he went off and did it again.

Walking around with Giovanni & Katia and family, including Katia’s parents and her sister and two kids, so a large entourage. We were generally headed to Lago Nambino, but eventually the group came apart and we headed back to town with just Katia & Giovanni and their kids. We saw George and Lyn in the park, and then Rhonda and I headed back with the idea of going to the model map. Instead it seemed like I would take a nap.

C • If you happen to... 4

I had been struggling since we got here with hamstring pain and a spasm in the left glute that was not responding to the roller, all due to the difficult travel, the 4 + hour drives on both sides, the waiting in line. Anyway, the bike ride was the answer. The spasm is gone, and with it the hamstring pain, so maybe I will run tomorrow after all.

Dinner upstairs in Katia and Giovanni’s apartment with the whole family, Katia sister Ilaria, her two boys Ilia and Enea, Katia’s parents and Giovanni’s dad, Renato. Giovanni cooked torte salata, baked layers of pasta, spinach, ham and cheese, and Rhonda made a fine salad, mixed greens, carrots, celery, blueberries, raspberries, apricots, cherries from Renato’s tree, pistachios, pepitas and feta. Maybe a few other things.

Out and about early, the town deserted. We were on a hunt for coffee but it wasn’t looking promising. Did a general tour of the whole town, established the location of the event center, basically seeing no one. Around 6:30 we ran into a couple of guys, asked them where a bar was that opened early, followed their directions, but it didn’t open until 8. Finally almost home we spotted Bar L’azzurro, open at 6:30. Excellent, cappuccino and for want of anything more pleasing, a cornetto.

On the model map. We went to the event center where we saw Giovanni’s friend Andrea. I met Andrea in 2014 when he was helping out with the Mediterranean Open championships in Montecatini Terme. Anyway, he advised that we drive up to Malga Montagnoli to see the model, and so we did. Thought we might do some of the upper controls, but we ended up just doing the six lower ones. We got scared off the steeper part below 6 by the difficult footing and steepness.

Another pleasing dinner at Dahu. Quite an elegant place. Again the vegetable and salad buffer, but different things, for a first course a delicious risotto with blueberries and mushrooms. Who would have thought? A real taste of the forest. Also some soup of pasta e fagioli, then Rhonda had a filet of trout with almonds, wonderful, and I had a pork shop alla Milanese, also excellent. Creme caramel to finish, then toddled off home to bed.