Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Mont Tremblant, with Nancy. We had to wait until about 2 PM for the rain to stop, and then the first two runs featured the worst visibility I've ever had while skiing (downhill, at least). The gondola went into a cloud, and we were completely socked in. Find our way down was almost a bit challenging (but, y'know, just keep going downhill, and we knew that only the easy trails were open). It finally cleared out for out last run.

Back to Chapdelaine, In The Dark. Not in the mood to do much work, I picked the route that seemed like a good compromise between minimal climb, minimal distance, and minimal travel on the bigger roads. Same clothing and lights (and lack of brakes) as last night, with the addition of a hat under the helmet, which I think was plenty of clothing for 38 F. In my mind this was just a big downhill run, but the downhill is less than a kilometer at the end. Now I ought to see how many airbag recall postcards I can find around the house.

Blue Hills Traverse, 13.2 km, 340 m, 11th place. This appears to have been my 25th Traverse, plus I was the setter for one (making me the only person to have set all three legs of the Triple Crown). Warm day, probably about 60 at the start, and the sun came out just before, but then there were intermittent showers for a while, after which it got sunny, quite windy, and the temperature dropped at least 10 degrees.

Low energy in the beginning, and I was doing a lot of walking because I couldn't get myself motivated to stumble any faster through the rocks. I was able to run a bit more in the latter part. Saw a few people off and on, particularly David Oxenstierna, but I was by myself a fair bit. Navigaion wasn't too bad. Went right on #12, and I think that was probably okay. Botched #17, because I did something wrong with the trails, and next thing I knew, I was at a trail junction 300 m W of #9, which was definitely not the plan. If I had done what I intended, I would have taken the road, but instead I ended up taking trails to the right of the lake, which was fine, though the damage was already done. Missed #18 slightly. On #19, I just wasn't in the mood to take the left-hand route, so I went right, which was maybe a little shorter but definitely had more climb, and then I missed the control slightly again. The rest went fine, except that once I reached Camp Sayre, I couldn't read the map at all. Slight watering of the eyes combined wiith the busy 1:15000 took it beyond my visual abilities. I had to resort to just running in more or less the right direction, and hoping for the best. Approaching #24, I saw David up ahead going from left to right, so I figured he was on his way to the finish and I turned left and found the boulder. And then from the last control to the finish was about the most baffling finish chute I've ever encountered. I figured the finish was probably around where I knew the food was, and I had seen that building before going to the start, so I ran in the right direction and tried to find that building (which worked).

I was wondering recently when the last time was that I had run on a 1:15000 map, and of course now the answer is the Traverse. (Before that -- Team Trials?) Pretty tough without magnification, though most of the map slides through because it's somewhat underdetailed. Laser printing really still isn't up to the task.

The other toenail was completely lifted when I was done.

splits - results

Chapdelaine to home, In The Dark. I've been getting postcards for quite a while about the Takata airbag recall for the silver Vibe, and I finally got around to making an appointment to get it replaced. I had the fancy bike light on the handlebars plus a helmet lamp and a blinky on the back, but I wanted to avoid the traffic of the numbered highways anyway, so I picked a slightly longer route around back by the golf course. But I memorized it badly and ended up doing a little extra distance throiugh the neighborhoods before I got to Townsend street. Bundled up pretty good, with a T-shirt, fleece top, and another jacket, jeans, and fleece gloves. Time is about right, although the GPS watch ran out of juice just as I was about to start. No brakes, no problem.

After the Highlander, the second toenail on each foot went black. The one on my right foot came off this morning, so that looks like 48 days (in case I'm ever wondering how long it takes for that to happen). The new nail underneath looks fine, and the one on my left foot in still in place, but we'll see what happens after the Traverse tomorrow.

Off-topic, but: at last night's Grateful Dead concert, a guy in the row in front of me didn't recognize one of the songs, so he asked his phone what it was, and the phone listed for a bit (I could see the display, showing the sound graph of what was coming in on the microphone). After about 10 seconds it gave up and said it didn't recognize the song. No surprise, as he was asking it to listen to an improvised guitar solo. I typed the title of the song (Viola Lee Blues, a lesser-known cut from their first album, circa 1967) into my phone, tapped him on the shoulder, and showed him. Then at the end of the song, the guy sitting next to me (maybe in his 20s) said, "Sir? What song was that?" So I showed him as well.

But... "Sir"? Really?

US Two-Day Champs, Hangman Tree, Red M35, 8.4 km, 245 m, 18th. 1st M35, silver for the weekend, about two minutes behind Patrick Shannon -- don't know why Victor Lin isn't eligible.

Well!

I gave this about all I had. There was one runner on Red who was clean (but about 10 minutes behind me), and other than that, SA shows me as having lost the least time. That's not a common thing for me. Fast terrain again, all route choices straight, and I was running about as hard as I could. The only time loss shown was on #1, where I ran to just about the right spot, then had to stand still long enough to figure out which wrong ditch I was at, and to look behind me and to the right to see the control. I was apparently even running hard enough on the trail run on #8 that the 30 s or so when I stopped to take a leak didn't show up as a time loss. Things were reallly clicking, I'd just go on compass, I'd check off features when possible, and with the one exception, I'd get to the circle and the control would be right in front of me, which was occasionally a little surprisiing.

As I get older, I do periodically wonder whether I need to start acting my age, rather than continuing to run Red. But despite the fact that I haven't really been able to get in much training lately, I didn't do too badly this weekend, and I think I justified my existence, even in terrain where flat-out speed was at a premium. I couldn't have kept up this pace for much further, but I did manage to not fall apart either day. I was fast enough that AP guessed this to be "running" both days.

And again, the actual climb was way less than what was listed.

splits
RouteGadget
results

C • Victor Lin 3

US Two-Day Champs, Beaver Dam Run, Red M35, 8.8 km, 240 m, 24th (3rd M35, 2nd eligible). Not perfectly clean, but pretty close -- it was pretty easy, virtually no route choice, just go straight. The first half or so was remarkably open woods, and I just couldn't go as fast as the terrain warranted. The errors were pretty small. Better placing than I expected.

Pretty chilly, a little above freezing, but dry. I wore my gray LS top and my RMOC O-top, and was concerned that I'd be too warm, but it was okay. My hands were cold at the start, but by #5 I had noticed that they had warmed up. Got nailed in the left hand pretty good by some greenbriar about 3/4 of he way around. I felt it, and thought, "that's gonna bleed". It was okay at first glance, but a minute or so later, I was leaking pretty good. No serious harm. I also got stopped dead in my tracks at one point when my hair got tangled in some greenbriar I was passing under, and neither was willing to let go.

240m of climb on the course specs? How did I manage to do it in 106?

splits
RouteGadget

Mt. Penn, 9.5 km, 305 m, M35, DSQ. Foggy (though I had a late start, probably worse earlier), cool, and very bad footing (rocky, and everything was wet). Pretty good run, except for two minor problems. One was that I had completely run out of brain at the end, and completely blew the last control. I started by doing a 180 and climbing instead of going downhill to the control, then after I corrected that, I made a wrong turn just before the control, and everything looked right except there was no boulder next to the trail (I was on the wrong trail), over three minutes lost. The other error was in a way more minor, but it had a more significant effect on my result. Although I went quite close to #11, I never saw it on the map, and went from #10 to #12.

Pretty unsatisfying experience with the download. After repeatedly failing to connect to the servers, I was able to do it from the Garmin website while at Nancy's house feeding her cats (she has better internet service than I do), but it didn't download this run. So I started the watch and created another dummy activity, and tried it again tonight -- it downloaded just the new one, and not this one, even though I could see the splits on the watch display. I finally resorted to copying the .FIT file from the watch while it was plugged into USB, and converted it to .GPX using GPSBabel.

splits
RouteGadget

(anchor for the comments)

C • Last control 2

Hawk Mountain, A-meet sprint, 2.3 km, 70 m, M35 (1st), 13th on course. SA says I lost no time, which is a rarity. A few small fishhooks, but nothing significant. My biggest time loss may have been the delay in finding the start triangle on the map.

splits

Penn State Berks County Campus, A-meet sprint, 2.4 km, 50 m, M35 (1st), 23th on course. Modest time loss about 30 seconds each on #7 (took the faint trail instead of just going down to the pavement, and had to descend a steep slope, and #11, where I took the high route, which put me in a worse position to see the control and I overshot. Maybe could have had a better route to #9 -- I went right, which was a bit longer. But mostly just slow, unable to cover ground very fast (wheezing a bit).

splits