Training Log Archive: CleverSky

Down in Virginia for this guy's college graduation last night:

Woke up before the rest of the house, and decided to get some exercise before the rain moved in. I drove up to the nearby hang glider launch, checked out the improvements that had been made since I was here before, and went for an out-and-back on the Massanutten Trail. Surprisingly flat, but moderately stony underfoot. At the turnaround, I went up to the top of the ridge, hoping to find a small trail, but it was just rocky with a lot of deadfall, so that didn't keep me entertained for too long. Overcast and a nice tempertature, with a few sprinkles as I was finishing up.

While on a stroll in Shenandoah Natl Park, we encountered a playground that included what we used to call "crossbars". Maybe some people call them monkeybars, but at my elementary school that was a different piece of equipment. This is kind of an overhead horizontal ladder that you hang from and work your way rung by rung to the other end. Stephen hopped up and did it, though he was doing it half a rung at a time, moving the left hand forward a rung, then the right to the same rung, and repeat. The cooler move was to do first one rung, then each hand would skip forward to the one beyond, basically the way you normally go up or down stairs. So I stepped up to do that, and I did, but it was way harder than I expected. I was pretty good at it in sixth grade, because I worked at it a bunch. The limitation seemed to be grip strength. I guess I am a bit heavier now than I was in 1973.

Esker loop, In The Dark. Waited until the temperature dropped to the mid 70s (it had been in the high 80s earlier). Kept the effort to a comfortable jog. A little clumsy for a while in the middle. Somebody cleared the blowdown in the flats with a chainsaw, so that was nice. One little bit of doubling back because the trail didn't look right, because a stream meander moved.

25 pushups, 9 ring pullups, 100(!) situps, 25 pushups, 6 ring pullups.

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