Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Lake Popolopen, Red M35, last place out of 5 or 6. Despite having put "GPS watch" on a list of things to bring this weekend, I forgot it. Made it to the start in the nick of time, after not being sure I could even walk that far. While getting ready, the lower back pain was such that I was unable to bend down to tie my shoes, and I couldn't have done a situp to save my life. I could barely get my pants on. Started out walking, and got to the first control circle just fine, but wasn't sure which of the 23 cliffs in the circle the control would be on, so I climbed up a little high, then had to come back down to where the control was, just as Magnus arrived, having made up two minutes. We had a loop for the next few controls, and were joined by a guy in a hat who was way faster, but a little shaky on the navigation. Despite my back problems, I was able to keep them in sight for most of the loop. The last control in the loop was supposedly a water stop, but it had no sign of any jugs or cups, which meant that the first water was going to be quite a way into the course. There was another control in sight that did have jugs, so if Ihad been thirsty enough I could have gone there. Leg #6 was back to the start of the loop, and halfway there was a row of cliffs that looked something like the one that the control was on. I caught up to hat guy there, standing still and looking around confusedly, and I said to him, "You're halfway there".

The next leg was long, with a fair bit of climb, and I opted to go to the right and save some climb (and to do my climbing late). I didn't do that great a job of executing the route, failing to get onto the bench that ran around the hillside, and instead being higher on a steep, rocky slope with some deadfall obstacles. Crossing one downed tree, I lost my footing, and as I went ass over teakettle, I thought they might need to come rescue me, but instead, the experience kind of shook things out a little and I was able to jog abit after that. I came in low and went by #10, which confirmed my location, and then it was just a slog up the hill to the control, but as I started doing that, I saw hat guy go by, presumably not knowing where he was, and I never saw him again. Magnus got well out ahead of me at this point.

The next few controls went fine, other than a little hesitation at #8, trying to identify the right knoll. On the way to #15, I spotted Magnus up ahead, having gained back a bunch of ground on him. I missed #17 a little because I spotted a control that looked about right and headed down the hill toward it, but it was in fact a different control, and mine was in sight as well, but I had to climb back up to it. Magnus was leaving #18 as I approached it, and on the next leg, he took a lower route while I went high. Late in the leg I could see him far below me, and was pretty sure that I'd be able to get to the control ahead of him. I pushed as well as I could through the last two, and finished a minute in front of him, but a minute down.

My back is still not good, we'll see how it goes.

splits

Managed to do something pretty painful to my lower back on the right side. Not sure if changing to summer tires on the back of my car was what did it, or if that just made it worse. It will be interesting to see how the orienteering goes this weekend.

Across the street, In The Dim. Planned to go out a little earlier, but I dozed off when I got home. SIx Bridges, Enigma Road, esker, and back. Just one muddy spot.

Groton Town Forest. The notion to run here came to me late, else I probably would have brought a map. Instead, I noticed some arrows nailed to trees, and decided to follow them. I suspect that most of this run was therefore a portion of the trail race course. Light rain pretty much the whole time, not enough to be any big deal.

First time in a while, but it went okay. The only dismount was when I didn't negotiate the U-turn, and at both the start and the halfway point, I mounted on the second try. A little wobbly on the steepest hill, but I kept it together. When I was starting, I heard voices from across the marsh, presumably mountain bikers, but I didn't really look to see if I could see them.

Cunningham Falls State Park, Manor Area (VA), Red, 19 controls, 7.2 km, 260m, DNF. This Quantico meet was barely a detour on our way back from visiting Stephen, so I signed us up. We knew we'd be arriving at the very end of the start window, so I signed up for Red and Nancy picked Brown (as opposed to Blue and/or Green). This was advertised as being basically on a Karttapullautin basemap, and it was hot out. It's not normal for me to run the Traverse, and then the next time I go orienteering it's in the mid 80s. The walk to the start was something like 1.4 km with 200 m of climb, and the notes said it would take at least 15 minutes, but I misread that as a 15 minute walk. After we had been climbing for a while (close to 10 minutes, I think), I looked at the map, and it appeared that we were about 25% of the way. Nancy realized that she had left her epunch in the car, and decided that the course was more than she was interested in, so instead of going all the way up to the start, she headed off to do just the latter part of her course.

The map was okay, for its intended purpose. All of the controls were on charcoal platforms and the contours were adequate. The laurel showed up on the map, but the greenbriar did not, and there was a bumper crop of deadfall. Some large boulders were shown, but not stony ground or boulder fields, but visibility was absolutely phenomenal, so you could see obstacles coming from a long way off. My navigation was basically dead-on the whole way, but between the heat, the steepness, and the footing, I felt that I was orienteering like an old man, navigating well but really just walking. On the way up to #10, I spotted #3, and considered making a detour to it because it was a water stop. I sat down on a rock for a minute or two, and decided to just finish the climb and get water at #10, but by then I was also figuring that I probably wouldn't be finishing.

Feeling really down and depressed, I sat down at #10 and started pouring myself tiny cups of water, and then something happened that completely flipped my mood: an old friend showed up. It was yurets, and he totally brightened my mood. I poured him a cup of water as he bitched in his inimitable mumbly grumbly way about how he couldn't run because of an injury, and he was dissatisfied with the map, etc., and I thought, well, your day may not be going so great, but it could be worse, you could be this guy. We were together for the next few controls, but after going to #11 and looking at my watch, I decided that if I had to go uphill again, that would be the end of the line for me. I reached that point at #14, where, uninterested in climbing the 9 lines up to #15, I just headed for the finish and got there a few minutes after the course closing time at 3:00. I saw francish on my way in, and since he and yurets both missed their control #22, which was also on my course, I suspect that it had already been picked up by the time they got to it.

So how did my old-man effort stack up? According to the splits, when I bagged it, I was solidly in second place on Red, behind only Boris, and it looks like I could easily have held onto that if I hadn't run out of time and motivation. The courses were on the tough side; out of 61 starts, there were 32 finishers, with the shorter courses (there was only Brown through Blue) having proportionally more DNFs than the longer ones. Average time among those who finished on all courses was over two hours, with the best time of thr day being 1:07 for Rick Oliver on Green. I can't remember when I last saw him, but it's been a very long time, and I wish I had bumped into him.

splits

C • terrain 2