Training Log Archive: CleverSky

80 situps, 11 ring pullups.

Mt. Tom, Troll Cup, 6.2 km, 320 m,16th, 4th M35 for the weekend. I wasn't expecting rain, but I know how to deal with it these days, so whatever. I was in a chase start group with Dmitri, me, Graeme, Meg, DavidM, and DavidO in a four-minute window, and Angelica a couple of minutes further back (Jeff would have been in there but he ran early due to meet duties). And I essentially saw none of those people the whole time.

Slight oops from the start when I turned over my map and started moving forward, and people yelled at me because I wasn't following the streamered chute to the start triangle. Huh? Oh, whatever, a few steps back and off I went. The first two went fine, and I think I saw Dimitri leaving #2 as I was coming in, but never saw him again. On #3 I somehow crossed the large trail without ever seeing it, and thought I still had a way to go when I happened to see a control, which looked suspiciously like what I was looking for, so I checked the code, and it was. Lucky. I saw somebody up ahead as I was approaching #4 who could have been Graeme, don't know. Dumb mistake on #5, failed to see the trail on the left (I think I saw it, but didn't recognize it as a trail?), and decided to take the right-hand trail route instead. That would have been fine, but in at attempt to cut the corner on the left-hand turn that I needed to make halfway along, I headed into the woods way too early, completely failed to find the trail I thought I was looking for, and eventually ended up on the left-hand trail anyway. That wouldn't have been a bad route if I had done it intentionally (saved some climb), and it may not have cost me too much. I might have spotted Meg running along the trail just before I got to it, but never saw her again.

The first control after the road crossing (#7) was fine. Wrenched my right ankle coming out of it, which distracted me some and may have contributed to my drifting way too low to the right on #8. Figured out where I was when I hit a trail, and went in cleanly from there, probably a bit of time loss. #9 was pretty funny. I took one look at it, and instantly recognized it as essentially the same control as #2 from the 1986 Billygoat, which I had spiked thanks to a bit of good luck substuting for the skill that I lacked. (I had even mentioned that control to Nancy the night before.) I remembered the attack point that I had used 32 years ago, and used it again, perfect. #10 - #12 were just slow going in the steep stuff. I left #12 at kind of a bad angle, but it was mostly a trail run. Drifted way too low on #14, and came within sight of the finish field, easy climb back up to the control from there. SA shows about a minute more in errors than yesterday, in the places I expected, but that's comparatively not too bad, many people lost some time today.

I was situated such that there was little to gain and a lot to lose in terms of placing, and it turned out better than I feared. Two people who were slower than me yesterday were faster today, two who were faster were slower today, and one who was faster DNFed, so I was one place better. Will have to wait for the combined results to see how the overall placings changed, but I went from 5th to 4th on M35. Except... I'm nearly 100% certain that the monitor showed me in 3rd (one with a total slower than me, the other a DNF). The DNF I see, but the other three are clearly faster on the combined time. I picked up the M35 3rd place award based on that, but it looks like I'l probably have to mail it to Canada.

Pretty spiked when it was over. Nancy and I got something to eat, and then I had to pull over on the Mass Pike and let her drive the rest of the way home, because I was too drowsy. Slept the rest of the way in the car, and took another nap when we arrived.

splits - results - RouteGadget

Mt. Tom, Troll Cup, Red M35, 6.4 km, 320 m, 17th. Not moving very fast, especially uphill (or downhill)(and there was a lot of both), but not too horrible on the navigation. Nancy and I arrived a bit late, so I started a bit over a half hour past my assigned time.

Completely befuddled on the way to #1, couldn't get anything to match up what I was seeing on the map, but I kept going on compass and spiked it. #2 was through probably the most beautiful open woods I've ever seen, and it seemed a shame to just be going downhill through them (that's praise for the terrain, not a criticism of the course). Slight miss on #3, coming up over a broad ridge to a stone wall. The wall was pretty low, and I saw the reentrant that it was in, but guessed incorrectly that it was the larger reentrant to the right, so I turned left, which was the wrong way. #4 - #7 went fine, on #8 I was low and overshot just a bit, but corrected when I saw the big reentrant ahead and didn't lose too much time. No problem on #9, I took the left-hand trail route on #10. Overshot #11 a smidge (misread some small contour detail), and missed to the right a bit on #12 after crossing the end of the marsh. Still had a little energy at the end, so I was proceeding along briskly in the chute, gaining on another guy who was there. He either heard me coming or heard people cheering for me, so he stepped it up, and I did as well. When he added another gear, I turned on the afterburners. Probably not nearly as fast i the chute as some of the kids, though.

Last place in M35, which is quite a contrast to last week, when I was first. But on the other hand, I was also last a week ago, so it's about the same. Looked like there's going to be a pack of maybe about eight of us in the span of a few minutes in the chase start tomorrow, spanning the four RedY categories (M35, M40, M45, F21), which could be fun, we'll see.

splits - RouteGadget

8 ring pullups (fully clothed), 20 pushups.

Bruce Freeman rail trail from NARA Park up to Rte. 225 and back, shorts and T-shirt weather. Last time I was out this way, this part of the trail was still under construction. Mounted first try, and I had only two stops, the first when crossing Rte. 27, and I mounted again first try. The second was at the turnaround, and I needed three tries. On the way back, there were some kids on bikes coming the other way who arrived just ahead of me, and traffic stopped for them, so I was able to ride right across. A tiny mishap at the end: I usually dismount off the front, which is okay, but it seems like it would be more elegant to dismount off the back. I was trying to do that, and somehow got my foot caught in the spokes, and the crank hit my calf, and I went down. No injury, just felt like a klutz.

On the outbound part of this, I saw a guy coming toward me on inline skates, and when he got close he called out my name -- it was Gary Gallagher (and Helen was close behind on a bike).

Rockhouse Mountain (West Point A-meet), 8.1 km, 265 m, 18th (1st M35). Largely a quite good race, but ultimately a minor disaster. I navigated well with the exception of #4, where I went off in totally the wrong direction (thinking I just needed to go "up the hill"), and lost about four minutes fiiguring out where I had gone. I did a nice job on the long route choice leg to #5, and even better on the route choice to #12 (aided by local knowledge from 25 years ago that the edge of the marsh is runnable). But I was almost totally undone by #9. Short leg that should have taken about 3-5 minutes, and I got to the circle in that time, but failed to find the right boulder and couldn't figure out what was what. I went up the hill to relocate twice, tried coming in on careful bearings, and checked a lot of boulders, but I was too high all this time, and the boulder was in what is now a pretty solid patch of laurel (although it doesn't really look that way from the map. So I lost a lot of time, but I did eventually find it and finished the course. Wrenched my ankle yesterday, and managed to re-tweak it several times today, so it probably deserves a bit of rest.

splits - RouteGadget

Lake Frederick (West Point A-meet), Red M35, 7.6 km, 265 m, 10th, 1st and only M35. Not too energetic, but not too sloppy. Reallly lost track of where I was on the way to #8, but it didn't matter much, I just kept going until I got there. Moderate oops on the way to #18 when I angled too low and hit the road, and wasn't perfectly clean coming back up the hill to the control. And then a minor fishhook on the way to #19. Saw Vilppu when I was on my way to #7 and he was going to #5, and he caught ne around #8. But then I kept seeing him until we were heading for #14. I was thinking that he must be having a pretty bad day, but he won, and SA shows him as having been very clean. Pretty mysterious, because it sure seemed like he was making errors when he wasn't leaving me in the dust.

First time I can recall (off the top of my head) receiving attention from the medical crew at an orienteering meet (for an injury). Late in the course, I started noticing blood on my map and my hands, and wasn't sure where it was coming from. I had a few scratches on my hands, but none of them seemed to be oozing. At the finish, people noticed the blood and asked if I needed help, and the bored emergency crew leaped into action to assist. Turned out that I had a bloody nose. On the way to #16, I had hopped down off a little cliff, and there was a tiny, spindly sapling at the bottom that had one tiny twig that poked me in the nostril. A bit of a surprise, but not really painful. Anyway, it was clear that what I needed was a couple of tissues, but they couldn't find that and instead set me up with some weird bandage pad that was really not the right thing for my situation. So I thanked them and headed for the porta-potty to get some toilet paper.

splits - RouteGadget

Townsend SF west, In The Dark. Had to stop by the house in Townsend, so I went up to run where I had originally planned on running yesterday. This was more like "running next to trails", because a lot of the trails were creeks. I went out to the big crucifix and took a closer look than I had before; there's writing in weld bead on it that says "4 MY MOM DCK", so I guess that says something about its origin. I had remembered that there was an exit out the south side of that clearing, but I remembered wrong, because it would have been out the NW side. No matter, I went south, didn't find the trail that wasn't there, and just contoured my way out (going through a little green in the process.).

Found one tick crawling on my hand while driving home, and two more on my pants when I took them off.

Beaver Brook, just ahead of The Dim. I had an errand to run up in Hollis, so this seemed like a reasonable place to go for a change of scenery. Brought a headlamp, but didn't need it, and a map, which I used just a little bit. Water was definitely flowing after yesterday's rain, but I've seen far worse. Only got my feet damp at the very end. GPS track is none too impressive, considering that there was a bit where I ran the same trail in both directions. (OSM/OTM have the trails in reasonably accurately.)

Nope. Nothing. But I was sure glad I wasn't outside running a marathon in what I consider to be nightmare weather. My driveway had about 2" of sleet when I went out in the morning (enough to keep the garage dooor from opening, even with me pushing), and even with the rain all day, it was mostly still there when I got home.

Gay City, Red, 5.9 km, 215 m, 5th. Anticipating nasty weather (which maybe never really came), I ran early by special arrangement with the meet crew, starting a bit before 9 AM. While getting ready, I was unable to locate my orienteering shoes, though I specifically remembered getting them out and putting them by the door with the rest of my stuff when I was preparing to leave home yesterday morning (and they were still right there when I got home). So the best choice was the retired running shoes that I wear when hang gliding, and in this terrain, they were fine.

Chilly to start, but very nice temperature once I got rolling (LS poly shirt and an O top). No big mistakes, but several small ones. Went around the hill from the start intead of just going straight, had to stop and figure out what was going on when I got near #3, the approach to #5 was probably a little slow, pretty far wide to the left on #6 (but I knew I was doing that), a couple other hesitations, and my route to the finish could have been faster. We'll see if any of those show up as errors on SA. (Answer: #3 and #6 were time losses, plus a hesitation on #12.)

This is a wonderful park with a fine map, and it's a pretty fun place to run when the visibility is so good. And a nice enjoyable course, thanks, Bill and Charlie!

splits

C • I was thinking the same - e... 1

Not exactly training, but I spent a sunny 60+ degree day outdoors on my feet, and walked or jogged the length of the field several times, sometimes carrying stuff. This was a hang gliding deal, more training with the hydraulic winch. I had three short tows in the morning, then one spectacular one in the afternoon that was so awesome that nobody else wanted to fly afterwards.

Tomorrow has the potential to be some serious HTFU training.

C • My thoughts exactly, though... 2

Meandering in the Lane property, out early enough to stay ahead of The Dim, which was good because I didn't bring a headlamp. I wanted to go a little shorter, but wasn't sure exactly where, and I saw a trail off of the Enigma Road that I couldn't remember if I had gone down before,so I tried it, but it was heading for the house and I doubled back. Then instead of going to the Powerline trail, I decided to take the southernmost part of Mystery Blazes back to the cooler, but it's getting pretty faint, and I never did find it, but there was no way to miss the Mulpus, so I was able to follow it back to the bridge and thence home. Just what I had in mind, a bit shorter, pushing a bit harder, and slightly faster than the past few days. Still plenty of congestion, though.

In The Dim again. I thought this loop was shorter than this (translation: man, am I slow right now). Not very wet or muddy out there, which was nice. There were a few places where pretty big trees have come crashing down o the trail, which isn't much of a problem for an agile pedestrian. But I suspect there are folks who will get out there with chainsaws before too long, considering that they've been doing some modest earthmoving in spots to smooth and widen the trail.

(Actually, looking at my historic times for this loop, I think it actually is longer than I had remembered.)

50 situps, 25 pushups, 8 ring pullups. Snow again, the third time in the last week or two that we've gotten white stuff, but not enough to warrant dealings.

Townsend SF, In The Dim. Brought a map, didn't look at it too much. It wasn't too helpful early on because it was a 1990s vintage map, and the beavers have... been busy... and at the end it was too dark to see it even if I wanted to. Okay, I suppose I could have turned on my headlamp, but what fun would that have been? I was pretty confident that I had the map memorized well enough to get back to the car, and in fact I went exactly where I intended, but things were pretty mysterious in the last part. It appears that I even made a 90 degree right hand turn (both on the map and on the GPS track) that I have no memory of actually making. It was a longer run than I was vaguely expecting it to be, which is fine. A lot of puddles out there.

Ansonia, Red, 5.1 km, 170m, 5th. OK, I guess I remember how to do this. Not moving very fast, but I navigated pretty well, no real goofs though a few hesitations and fishhooks, and I went kind of wide on #7 and #11. SA doesn't show me as losing time on #7, and somewhat surprisingly, I had a best split (#6), and even weirder, a second-best split on #5, where I actually went to the right of the rockpile and had to double back to the control. Very nice day, incredible visibility with the leaves off, and a little cool (which I overdressed for).

(OK, why did Attackpoint guess that this was running, but that the second one was orienteering?)

splits

Ansonia, Brown, 2.5 km, 100 m, 2nd. Too tired after the Red to do another course, but I ate a couple of cookies and did it anyway. Went out intending to just walk, but I did end up running some. Pretty clean navigation other than a clerical error where I went to #7 instead of #6, but immediately realized that something was wrong and continued on to #6. I had been going slowly up to the point, but then sped up.

splits

Willard Brook SE, In The Dim. I wore a headlamp, but managed to not turn it on (until I was back to the road and wanted to be visible to an approaching car). I wonder if it will get darker than that at Jukola. I decided that if I made it to the larger trail in under a half-hour, I'd keep going around the loop, and if not, I'd head back to the car. Well, it was 30:05, which I considered close enough, so I continued. There's enough stuff down from winter storms that the trail got a bit hard to follow in spots, and a couple of times in the latter part I thought I might just have to bushwack back down the hill. A little wet, but not as bad as I expected, though Old City Road was a creek. Bypassed the last twisty section on the esker by the road.

Just wasn't motivated to do anything. I had time to do some exercises, but didn't feel like it.

Neighborhood loop, In The Dark. Finally tricked myself into getting out the door by deciding that I could settle for doing just part of what I'd had in mind, but then once I was out there I double-crossed myself by doing the whole thing anyway. Something went wrong with the track (maybe the memory filled up?), because the watch wouldn't sync and I had to copy the file to the computer manually and upload it, and then it showed only part of what I did, even though the watch knew the correct total time and distance (which I corrected). I really did make it home, I'm not still out there in the middle of Holman Street.

80 situps, 25 pushups.

80 situps, 25 pushups.

80 situps, 25 pushups, 25 pushups

Killington (northern part) with Nancy. Four runs before a break.

And four runs after, to get Nancy to 300 lift rides for the season, despite her ailing knee. This could be it, because orienteering is starting up, and Nancy is probably returning her rental skis this week. I'm not throwing mine out yet, because the pass is theoretically good until June 1, and you never know. The MAX Pass for me (birthday present from Nancy) turned out to be 294 lift rides over 26 days of skiing ($24.19/day, $2.14/lift) at 14 different ski areas in five states and one province. 707 km between lift rides and downhill runs, and 82384 meters of vertical.

To cap off the season, since it was Easter April Fool's Day, I decided to dress up like the Easter bunny go completely retro.