Training Log Archive: JanetT

Event: 2014 US Classic Championships
 

Walked along a dirt road (and climbed a bit) to the start, arriving with a few minutes to spare. 1 km from parking per the meet notes. Warm, temps in upper 60s probably.

Brown X course on Badger Gulch map, or some portion of it (Glen has a copy of the full map for his day 1, but courses were printed on 8.5"x14" paper where configuration allowed). SL 5.3 km / 80m climb

Didn't feel I had a clean run because I was off a bit (again, usually to the left) on maybe a third of the controls, but AP split analysis shows no errors, so relative to others I guess it was a clean run.

Pleased to be just five minutes behind Beatrice as I saw her as the likely winner overall based on past experience. Virginia Lehman has also beat me in the past, and I think she had been in Laramie so was likely more used to altitude, but I have a good cushion going into Sunday.

EDIT: Added FR track and course statistics

I signed up for the US Trail O Champs for some reason, and figure did give it one more try before swearing off the sport completely if I didn't so well. Managed to get my 1:30 start time rescheduled to 12:16 because I wanted to attend the AGM as EMPO's delegate at 3:00 and there was a two-hour limit for the course (and I didn't know how fast I'd be).

Trail O Champs course plus three TempO problems. Interesting experiment after having attended Clare's talk on Friday, but results showed I only got one TempO control correct and 9 of the 16 TrailO problems (several of which were later protested and two thrown out). I learned I really didn't enjoy it, especially after having been on a regular foot O course earlier, because I'm much more rewarded by choosing a route and executing it well, than picking out the right flag of many (or none!). If TrailO were all A-Z problems (where you identify if the flag is placed correctly or not, and have a 50-50 chance of getting it right), I might participate more often. Meh.

Sharon was course designer for the champs, letting her experience protests from another angle. ;-)

From TrailO finish back to parking. Tired. Then AGM and dinner.

Brown X - Splits

After listening to a couple of talks at the convention, Glen and I teamed up for a try at cell phone O, sponsored by the junior team on a blown up black and white campus map of the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

I went first, and other than a couple of hesitations while I searched for streamers in the control circle (including one which called the control a "tree" when in actuality the tree had been taken down and the streamers placed on an electrical box at the position), did fine for a first time. Mostly brisk walking with a bit of jogging here and there, followed by sitting while Glen was out. The person back at home base had to write down the word printed on the correct streamer that the runner found.

Ran down our cell batteries, but it was fun. :-)

Model map for US Classic Champs near Round Mountain. Checked out 9 of the 10 controls (the other involved a barbed wire fence crossing that I didn't want to do).

Valuable because my bearings were off to the left on most points...good to know to use other techniques even in the wide open terrain. Good also to attempt to understand mapping differences in the boulders, dot knolls, knolls, boulder clusters, and rocky ground. Pace counting woked well for the most part, then I looked off to my right. :-)

C • off to the left 4

Short warm-up before club sprint at COCs.

From parking to relay arena and back.

Club relay at COCs, with Glen and Mitch Collinsworth as a 9+ point Team New York (we had 11 pts). Haven't seen results yet but know we didn't win; some Canadian team with fast runners received awards, including Joanne Woods who won my category in the long.

Leg 2, nominal 1.7 km, unknown climb but some; intermediate level. Course redesigned a bit at the last minute to avoid the tag-off being in an area blocked off for a toad migration (they just started moving a few days ago, and we had to pick our way through them on our way to the relay arena).

I managed to mess up at an area with several mapped trail junctions including a trail I didn't see at first so I was confused, backtracked, then decided I was right the first time, 45-60 seconds lost (or more; I always underestimate my errors). Otherwise fine, though I had to encourage a passing dog not to lift a leg at a control I was about to punch.

Downhill from the ski lift drop-off to start area.

COC Long, nominal 3.0km, 60m climb. Black Magic map. Sunny and temps in 70s, but we were in the woods quite a bit.

The course started 410 meters above where we finished on the ski slopes of Blackcomb Mtn, below the Wizard chair.

Control 1 was 85 m (adding:) *of descent* mostly straight downhill through the woods, which were not easy to run or even walk through at that point. I knew it was going to be tricky but I kept on a pretty good compass bearing and watched for the two flatter areas, one just before the control. I think I was just right of the reentrant as I got to the flat and looked around in the wrong direction before returning and finding the flag, so several minutes lost there.

Good on 2, following compass. On 3 got in the general area but thought I was looking for a cliff and not a reentrant, so a couple minutes lost. Straight to 4. Careful down the hill toward 5 looking for the bike trail, but around to the right. Figured out where I was from the v. large cliff on the map and spiked it from there. Then 6 contours practically straight down to a trail. The course had descended about half of the 410m by that point, a third of the way through...all relatively short legs, none longer than 250m or so.

The rest of the course was still tricky but less steep, more across the ski slope than tumbling down the steep woods. Made an error on number 9 misreading woods blobs and finding 10 first, requiring a 20 m climb back up to 9. So likely around 10 or more minutes of error, on 1, 3, and 9.

14th of some higher number, 1st was 47 minutes with 2nd one second behind!

NOTE: added FR

Long W55 - Splits

Jogged from our lodging to the start of the sprint (later jogged/walked back from the finish/arena to lodging to change, before heading back to see the results).

Took it slow and easy to see how the knee would do. I'm under the influence of NSAIDs mostly to keep the swelling down, and it's helping with the soreness, at least, though the knee still looks like a goose egg.

This afternoon we'll ride the gondola up Whistler; I'll pick up my HPP fund raiser map but not run it (it's a predict-your-time format, about 2 km course). Then we can take the Peak to Peak gondola to Blackcomb and see the sights.

Fun sprint in Whistler Village before there were a lot of other folks around. Glen and I had early starts (first was 8:03 am; Glen was 8:04 and I was 8:08) so we avoided having to weave around very many people unlike later starters.

Map 1:4000, 2.5 m ... SL 1.7km

Fun, had to keep looking for passageways and dead ends (but only had one tricky leg). I count the depression in a wooded spot (#4) as a non-spike because I could have entered the woods from the side I approached, but I looped around instead.

9th of 23, about where I should be, given that I wasn't pushing harder because of my knee. Did speed up a bit on the leg downhill to the Olympic rings that I could see. :-) 4:23 behind first W55.

Took the Whistler Gondola up to the Roundhouse lodge, where the HPP fund raiser was supposed to start. I decided not to run it, but took my map anyway since it was paid for. While Glen ran the course my brother Ed and I took the next lift up to the summit for the fabulous views!!! almost 360 degrees... and then hiked down the road from the top to the lodge. That was also one terminus of the Peak 2 Peak Gondola that goes across the valley to Blackcomb Mtn, which we all took when Ed and I finally reached the lodge.

AOWN: one marmot and one ferret/weasel like creature, maybe a mountain weasel.

Later, walking in Whistler Village after dinner, we saw a dark-eyed junco, very distinctive with a dark colored head compared to its brown body.

Sprint W55 - Splits