Training Log Archive: GlenT

Shaker Museum Rd. out and back. Overcast and about 60F with a breeze. No bears today.

C • bears 1

At Hand Hollow Preserve. Parked at Co. Rt. 9 and ran up the big hill on the East part then back past the car and up to the pond on the West part. Was going to run the little loop in the field on the way back but as I entered the field I spotted a good-sized black bear just about where the trail goes. So I stopped and watched him for a while until he (or she) spotted me and bounded off into the woods. No obvious cubs, but I decided not to venture any closer to check. Nice day weatherwise - 60's and sunny. Forgot my watch so time is an estimate and distance is a total guess.

Green X at CSU A-meet on south part of Pine Hill map.

Sunday Green X (raw) - Splits

Sunday Green X - Splits

Event: CSU Pine Hill A-meet
 

Green X at CSU A-meet on north part of Pine Hill map.

Saturday Green X - Splits

66S, Richmond, Reed and back. 48F, overcast and breezy. Gonna be a lot warmer this weekend.

66N, Pratt, Bacchus, 66S. Cloudy, upper 50's.

West Point A-meet Classic Distance Green Y course. A good run in a nice section of the Lake Popolopen map. Moderate climb for a West Point course. Several small errors and hesitations totaling 3 - 3.5 minutes. Biggest errors came near the end in the "spectator" section which had 6 sprint-like controls. I was running too fast and not taking time to read the map carefully. Overall course was OK but had several intermediate level controls and a long leg with too obvious an optimum route choice. I didn't particularly like the sprint loop at the end since there was so much terrain which could have been used to offer more advanced legs. Weather turned out nicer than predicted with temps in the 50's during the race and then warming up later as the sun came out. Was fastest for the day on M55 and about 7th overall on Green Y. Good job overall by the Cadets.

Classic: Green Y - Splits

Event: West Point A-Meet
 

Sprint Course 3 (Red/Blue) at West Point. Good run through 8 controls, but it was a 20 control course. Didn't finish last in M21. Great venue at Trophy Point on the West Point campus. Weather was a bit warm 70ish and sunny).

Middle Distance at Victor Constant Ski Slope. A much better run than the sprint this morning. More later....

Sprint: Red Blue - Splits

Middle: Green Y - Splits

66N, Albany Tpke, Howes, Pitts, 66S. 60F and sunny.

S on 66 and back. 60F and sunny.

Event: Salomon Giant's Rib Raid
 

Giant's Rib Raid near Milton, ON. On the "Roamin' Empire" team with Dave Levine and Ray Valeri. Start/Finish at Rocky Ridge Ranch, site of the 2006 NA Champs. This is an "adventure race" with a very heavy navigation component and no bikes, kayaks, ropes, etc. done in teams of three. Lots of orienteering with some fun variations including just written instructions (no map) to find control points, navigating to points on a base map, and using a map with trails removed (in area with a heavy trail network - but we could copy from a base map).

Area has lots of contour detail (2.5m contour interval on most maps), huge cliffs (the Giant's Rib escarpment), many marshes (which at this time of year are generally larger and deeper than mapped), and woods with very good visibility but enough small saplings to slow you down. Most of the detailed terrain is limestone pavement, which while it is indeed limestone, does not resemble what I think of as pavement. Eons of freeze-thaw cycles have churned the limestone into uneven rocky ground so going can be slow.

Out team finished 14th overall out of 40 teams and 4th of 9 masters teams. The course was a bit tougher than the organizers had anticipated, with the winning time (3:52) almost an hour longer than target and 18 DNF's. We had one misinterpretation of the instructions which cost us about 30 minutes and a few smaller navigation errors, but perseverance seemed to be the key. Weather was nearly perfect, sunny and upper 40's with some breeze in open areas.

Distance is an estimate. I may edit later if I measure it.

Edit: Measured distance at just a bit over 25km. Had to guess at actual distance for a few controls since we did some stuff that's not on maps.

C • Distance 2

Where did Spring go? 40F and overcast. 66N, Shaker Museum Rd. and back.

Flying Pig XIII - Long Pig - Mt Airy map. Long route choice legs but most controls had strong attack points off of fields so the navigation was pretty straightforward. Route Gadget. Lost a few seconds each on #4 and # 7 but pretty much an error free run. Was second on Green to the same M-18 who won Sprint 3 overall (he did 45:29 but probably would've been about 42 min without errors - yikes!). 1st on M55.

C • route gadget link 1

Sunday Long Green - Splits

Flying Pig XIII - Sprint 3 (Blue/Red). Running with the Big Dogs - M21. Urban park with some woods (where most of the controls were), open fields, roads, and trails. Two e-punch boxes weren't working which was a bit of a distraction. Bobbled a short leg which cost about 30 seconds and hesitated going to 11 and lost about 15 sec. 23rd out of 38 running this sprint. Winning time was 14:43 by an M-18.

Cool down run after the sprint - jogging around the park mostly on trails.

Flying Pig XIII - US Relay Champs Leg 4 (Green) on (not-eligible) 12 point team with two girls from Channelview/HOC. Mount Airy map. Fun course with a combination of short and longer legs with some route choice. Lots of trails and open fields so controls weren't real technical and I hit all but one of them cleanly. We were in 4th place of the 12 point teams when I started and I knew I had a chance to catch two of the teams (the first place team from ROC had a 20 minute lead with Nate Lyons running the leg). PTOC had a very promising 13-year-old who I caught up to by the first control but then he surprised me by taking 3 or 4 controls to drop. I caught the other team at about the 9th control so we ended up in 2nd place overall.

Saturday Green_12pt - Splits

Event: OCIN 25th Anniversary / Flying Pig XIII / Relay Champs
 

Flying Pig XIII - Middle Distance race at McFarlan Woods. A nice course with 9 short legs in relatively technical karst terrain after a couple of climb/descent controls to get you warmed up and in oxygen debt. Had a pretty good run but lost a minute by going to #11 before #10. Missed #12 by a bit for 30 sec of error and got caught in some deadfall coming out of #6 which cost about 30 sec. 2nd in M55, 3rd overall on Green. Route Gadget

Friday Middle Green - Splits

Shorts and T-shirt weather! 66N to Pitts Rd and back. ~64F.