Training Log Archive: ndobbs

Alex wimped out of Skyline running this morning, so so did I. It did mean there was time for packing, bananagrams and snatch, so that was good. Plus I got a tour of Boston on the way to the airport.

And they let me and my cookie dough through security!

C • phew 1

Sprints@Tufts. Two courses, first one seemed trickier than the second, perhaps in part due to familiarity.

Fun. Knee hurt for a minute or two of the second one.

To/from Tufts. On pavement. Ugh. I've been spoilt.

Apparently 59% of my running training so far this year has been orienteering (and 33% trail run), with (only) 85 hours...

Which is good, except it means I haven't been doing enough warmups/warm-downs.

Flight cancelled.

Automated message from US Airways, after calling up and giving booking details:
We are receiving more calls than our system can deal with. Please hang up.

Oh, that's better. Got through, now leaving on Wednesday.

WCOC Long, Huntington SP, CT

Becky-planned course. Longest legs weren't super long, but it might just be how the terrain is. It was fun orienteering, anyhow.

1 - decided speed and simplicity would be good, down the trail, around the spur, up the channel... probably a bit far off the straight line, but I didn't know how nice the woods were

2 - ok. Clearly I wasn't racing, as Joe jogged passed me here.
3 - around to the left, straight would have been better.
4 - there was a band of vegetation on the way, rather distinctive, but wasn't on the map. I stopped and thought for a bit, then continued on my merry way. Def not racing.
5 - out to the road, didn't have a good enough understanding of the circle when I came in, but turned the head and saw the control no prob.
6 - almost straight line.
7 - a bit messy, some veg killed any flow I nearly had, nice control location.
8 - weaved a little, big boulder en route made it easy
9 - easy
10 - trail leaving 9 seemed to go not in the direction I expected, but it straightened out, or I did. Hesitant in the circle, partly because the control cliff was slightly lower than the one to the ssw, and the shapes didn't quite fit my picture. Not great on my part.
11 - easy peasy
12 -do
13 - nice quarry
14 - I probably stayed on the trail a fraction too long, should have manned up and gone straighter.
15 - took the channel to the west, easy enough. slight drafting issue with the two contours coinciding in the re-entrant at the control.
16 - didn't have enough energy to run properly, following the stream SE to the trail. Any racing in me was totally gone at this stage. Climbed up the light green, and the map made no sense to me. Got control fine, the boulder was prominent and conspicuous.
17 - eastern route. Came out on the trail further west than intended, map-reading failure. Then trail along the big marsh, and next trail through the chasm :)
18 - slow and weaving, into the green, around most of the marsh... control was easier than executing the route
19 - a teeny bit left of straight. Getting sloppy.
20 - nice, better. Nice woods, little uphill, fun :)
21 - right of straight, not hard.
22 - woah, serious weaving going on here.
23 - crossed the stream too high, hadn't dropped.
24 - pretty
25, 26...

Hadn't eaten enough the day before. Diner food afterwards hit the spot, and had lovely company for the drive to Framingham, followed by another 45 minutes into Boston. Weather was unpleasant but not dreadfully so.

Blue - Splits

Event: WCOC Fall orienteering weekend - morning sprints
 

Bethel Sprints, Course A

Fun! Good map, choices and decisions all the way. No real mistakes, but a few hesitations, probably chose the incorrect (right) route to 4...

No zip, but steady. Beat Mike S, but a Brazilian took two minutes out of me, ouch!

Bethel Sprint, Course B.

Slightly easier than the one before, except that it was after the one before. Clean again, but not fast enough so Mike slipped ahead.

Cookies, cereal bars and apples followed, not quite enough to get me around a middle.

WCOC Middle at Paugussett

No issues, except a 20 s mistake at 8, and a big slow down towards the end as the bruises accumulated on the feet and the stony downhills combined with lack of sugar reduced me to a potter. Was leading by 4 minutes at the 7th control, lost it all...

Blue - Splits

Course A - Splits

Course B - Splits

Blue Mtn, the non-control-pick part of the NAOC training.

Was out for two hours (from car park past the lodge), beautiful, wasn't moving fast and fannied about some, pretty good on the nav side. Looking forward to throwing out the shoes, annoyed I didn't get replacements last weekend.

Thanks, Dr. Granovskiy!

Haircut and flights! If I weren't so damn productive I'd call it a rest day.

C • Yes, but... 6

Rest day :)

Surebridge/Hogencamp control pick, part of the naoc training camp.

Woods were beautiful in the rain, and in theory this should have been loads of fun, but I never got into a rhythm.

At the first control (well, 50m before) there was a flag, clearly not where my control should have been. I decided to stop and think a bit and work out exactly where I was and where the control would be --- description said re-entrant, circle was centred on knoll. Before continuing on, I turned around, and saw someone up a tree. Woah! How weird. Wondered if it was an orienteer, but that didn't make sense, and I didn't recognise him. He also wasn't 70 years old, before you ask. As I was leaving, he jumped down from the tree, moved a few metres, and stopped.

Got one, left in the wrong direction, corrected, got 2, went to three and the badness began. The hilltop before the control was terrible. Almost flat in reality, the knoll atop form-line hill together protruded a whopping metre. This kind of thing goes on in various parts of Surebridge, and I don't know which bits of the map are reliable and which are not. By control 18 (I think) apart from being wrong, one contour just disappears for a while.

Since I'm ranting, I'm going to say that Surebridge is too poor a map to be worth doing middle-type training on without vetting the courses first. In too many places the contours over-emphasise terrain features and the terrain contrasts too much with any reasonable preconception one may make looking at the map.

By number 14 I crossed tree-man again, and he was orienteering, so I introduced myself. He was a Chris from Edmonton. And I think he may have been up the tree for a while, scared of a bear, although that didn't click immediately when he said he'd seen something black going back and forth for almost half an hour. Haha.

Having given up running at 18 in order to think about how one could repair the map, by 20 I was done, and on the verge of being upset, but then I reminded myself I was in beautiful, glorious woods, and smiled :)

C • Agreed on course-setting at... 6

Control pick at BM. Thanks, Boris!

By the time Marek arrived, it was getting dark, and this quickly turned into nighto. Yay. Many streamers were there, but not all, afaics.

Pulled pork at Birdsall after.

to/from the control pick.

I didn't take the camera with me today, but Harriman was lovely, esp by the lakes. I think the rain may enhance the loveliness.

Woodbury Commons

Map was decent. Made a few mistakes, lack of respect. Fun. The Polo Lauren building has grown.


And inspired by Ross and Sam and the prospect of Finland, I bought a NF waterproof duffel bag, which also doubles as a large carry-on bag for my upcoming flights, wherever they may go.

How long before there'll be an A-meet sprint here?

C • Fun course 1

NAOC Sprint.

21st, 802 wre points. Didn't feel like I lost much time. I guess I was just slow. A month of training isn't enough to run three races in a weekend. Also didn't sleep enough. Seemed like a good sprint. I was a bit worried before the start - the warm-up map had a bunch of green-briar that didn't make it onto the race terrain, thankfully.

Had to be in quarantine at 7:30, still very cold... sun was slowly coming up...


After the race, ate, socialised, boggled, showered, then went down to watch the relay. Great show by DVOA, hats off. Pics here.

Happy to see Izzy ran a great first leg.


And the senior girls showed how it was done.


This one isn't perfect, but it's still for Eddie -


Exit stage left, pursued by

C • Where was the bear?! 2

Blue - Sprint - Splits

NAOC Long

15th, 872 wre pts.

Solid race, according to ap only Brian May and I had clean runs on this course. Now there's clean and clean...

Anyway, no major balls, pretty good, but got very tired around 20. Decision-making ability slowed right down. Kept pushing as best I could, but dropped time towards the end. Sports gel/drink might have been wise.

Was running with Nick B and Vitek P for a bit in the middle (the technical part) but didn't get much help from them.

Fun race, went into it with good attitude, a bit of confidence, and I enjoyed it. Map was good again, just got stuck in one patch of man-eating green-briar. I was worried by control 8 or 9 that it was just going to be a long middle, but then the long legs hit. Great course.

Blue Long - Splits

Insufficient.

NAOC Middle

14th, 872 pts. Best placing of the weekend, and also the worst run for big mistakes (2 for 2 minutes).

But apart from the mistakes, which were induced by distraction, I was orienteering pretty well, felt in control all the way, reading the veg and the contours well. Map was great.

Good sensations, pissed about the mistakes. Oh well. At least I can do this. Just let me train for a year...

Middle - Blue - Splits

Event: 2012 North American Orienteering Championships
 

Great Falls, MD

No map, but beautiful training. Threw in a few sprints to get a bit of tension in the legs.



Good dinner later.


AOWN: Got within 5m of a deer before it finally decided a trail was not a good place to be. Then passed within 3m of a raccoon, first one I've seen. He looked scared.

C • Implication 4

See Monday's AOWN moment.

Blue Ridge Parkway from Buchanan north, plus part of Skyline. Tired, didn't have time to run before dinner.

Excellent lunch at Otters' Creek Lodge?

Great Smoky Mtns

Alum Cave trail to Leconte Lodge. Cool lodge with a beautiful dining room, kerosene lamps and all.

Needed the headlamp for the return trip. And the camelbak. Chatted with some Poles on the way up and a local at the lodge, out for 2h30 total? Didn't walk too much, but slow on the wet and not quite dangerous downhill.

Sleeveless top was adequate, barely.

AOWN: Am fairly sure I won the day's AOWN competition. I was running along in the dark, not too far from the bottom, when a furry critter flew right into my face, hit me on the nose and mouth, did a one-eighty and flew away. BAT!

Wandered Chattanooga (CHOO CHOO) morning/early afternoon. Reputedly it's a good place to live.

Met a CS friend in Nashville after wandering town for a bit, lunched on bbq pork, listened to some not unpleasant country music at Tootsie's.



Time zone changed again en route to Chattanooga (CHOO CHOO), wasn't expecting that. Now I just have to head north, I guess.

C • Smoky Mountains 3

Fun day. Drove to Walmartland. Passed Home Office, had a lovely breakfast at the Station Cafe and checked out Walton's 5 and 10.

Then went to Mrs. W's gaffe at Crystal Bridges. Admired lots of wonderful and sometimes scary paintings,

then ran around the grounds, and on some mtb trails outside the grounds (including a wonderful banked downhill slalom thing).

Next en route, Eureka Springs, a little French or Swiss spa town in the arse end of nowhere, Arkansas. More good food.


Closing in on Memphis, the radio got a whole lot better. Found a station playing only Memphis-made music (incl Nancy Apple).

Arrived in Memphis a bit after 10, took a while to find parking. Walked onto Beale St. Jaw dropped.

Wow.

People, music, dancing, blues, funk, non-blues, so much going on, and half of it in the street. Wandered up and down for over two hours, listening to bits of music, doing lots of people-watching. At some point the was a circle and inside three frat white boys were doing frat boy dance, the exact same frat boy dance I saw in South Bend, IN. I turned away, turned back, and suddenly 50 blacks were line dancing (is what they were doing called line dancing?). There's some really excellent music going.

Drove an hour towards Nashville, sleep a bit after 2.

C • Memphis 2

Excellent breakfast in Tucumcari (chorizo scrambled eggs etc), then a long drive... stopped in TX for water. There wasa tornado shelter in the rest area. Tumbleweed blew across the interstate (today or yesterday?).

Stopped in Hinton, OK for gas, and drove 5 miles up the road to find the one and only Red Rock Canyon SP (at least, the only one in Hinton). Went for a gorgeous run in the rain.

TX and OK were pretty boring. No oil fields, no cowboys (although according to the radio I just missed a rodeo), dull terrain. But then I hit RRCSP.

The base of the canyon had a stream running through it, and a park road, and some grass along much of the road with a bunch of camping and picnic areas along the way. I started running north from where the road entered, along the Rough Horsetail trail, named after the primitive plant (not like redneck primitive, more related to stuff that turned into coal -primitive) growing in patches of the woods. A couple of pools and cliffs later and I was heading back past the car, down the grass and road towards the southern end, all lush and pleasant with deciduous (fall started) trees and green grass and still the rain. Down near the end (I presume), a sign appeared indicating a walking trail. Streamers were orange vetting tape, courtesy of the American Volkssports Association. I wasn't expecting much. Yet the vibrantly red trail wound its way out of the base of the canyon (gentle slopes down here), into drier (and often dead) fir (?) trees, feeling a bit more alpine on the higher slopes. There were patches of bare (red) rock and the trail meandered up, down and along all the way back to within, surprisingly, 50m of the car. Heavenly. Chasing the streamers I felt like a kid following the Pied Piper (as I did to a lesser extent with the cairns in the badlands).

Stopped in Tulsa for free hotdogs at Arnie's. There's a law against smoking in restaurants, or anywhere food is sold, but food can be given away... so Arnie's offers free hotdogs. Until 8pm. At 8.30 the hotdog company hadn't collected their hotdog shtuff so it got evicted to a bench outside the pub. I said hi to the bouncer at 9 (?) and asked if they were still serving. He said no, but said there were free hotdogs if I wanted. Yay. Had a couple, then wandered around town (saw a building that used to be a blimpport), came back had another hotdog, and headed on my merry way.

Continued on to the Arkansas border.

Spent the morning wandering the petrified forest,

then car to Gallup for stuffed sopadillas (hotter than NY Mexican, and I got the milder version), before making my way to El Malpais.



Fun running out on the lava beds, going from cairn to cairn along the natives trail... more hopping, this time basalt in place of granite. Sun was setting, so turned back early as it was important to spot the cairns... badlands indeed.

Put in a couple of hours of driving afterwards, motel in Tucumcari... 2/3 of a day behind schedule.

C • Tucumcari Tonite! 8

Granite Dell, Prescott, AZ

On Jagge's automap. The area is mad, was out for three hours just about, lots of standing around and head-scratching and walking and jogging and leaping. Plenty of crevasses, small boulders, large boulders, fins, granite everywhere, no end of fine rocks one could lay out on.

I'd printed the map at 11*17 on nice paper before leaving Kingman, don't know exactly what scale it was, but it seemed to work. The black was a little splodgy. Wow, spellcheck doesn't like splodgy! Took a few controls.

Contours weren't quite what I'd expected, and cliffs were a bit hit and miss. A couple of 10m ones missed the cut. Barely anything under 2m made the map, it seemed, be it knoll, boulder or cliff.

Thirsty.

Drove a bunch of route 66 in the morning. Had dinner in Sedona, but it was dark, so missed out on the pretty scenery. Saw lots of hippie shops.


Slept by the petrified forest afterwards. Would any biologists know can we petrify mice? Does it only work with plants?

Camped on Big Sur last night. I could happily have stayed on the west coast for a while, but the o was calling. The Bakersfield area of CA is pretty grim, but up towards AZ it gets pretty again (I set rubber on route 66).

Motel in Kingman, AZ, tonight - 23.68 seems cheap for a shower and a bed and a shower. Must run tomorrow. And won't hang around to see the gay firemen.

Half a day behind schedule so far.
---

Sunrise -


And a little further down the coast.


Loads more where they came from.

C • So at this rate 3

C • map 8

I met a couple of cool guys from Washington at Arches a couple of weeks back, one of them sent me a couple of pics.

Poison oak? Or a yellow jacket sting-induced rash not exactly where the sting was? Eurgh. Rubbed some Tecnu in, but we'll pretend it was the sting.

C • PO 2

My memory of the Streets of San Francisco was slightly different to...


I had lunch with the lovely Zan

here.


While google appears to have a thing for strange bikes, while taking this pic

I did get passed by a 'self-driving car'.

For balance, I did pass by Cupertino (not very exciting) on the way south to Big Sur. I felt at home on the beach.


Another sweet campsite:

Boggs Mtn Middle.

Two thirty second mistakes, and a couple of sub-optimal routes, but enough to win the course with Eric having an off-day. Actually, Joseph Doetsch won the course, another second place... http://baoc.org/wiki/Results/2012/Boggs_Mountain#R...

Fun orienteering.

Erin had put on some additional training for the juniors, so I had to do it. Three loops, it said memory, so I did each loop by memory... had to cheat on the first loop, after that sloooow but ok.

There were gazillions of yellow jackets (wasps) at the event. Later on I got buzzed by these guys -


- while driving across this:

Event: Boggs Mountain A-Meet
 

Boggs Mtn Long

2 minute mistake on 5, a couple of hesitations, couple of dodgy route choices, mostly good, but not enough power for the second half of the course, where most of the climb was. Four consecutive fastest splits coming up to halfway put me in the lead, but not for long. Happy with second.

The orienteering reminded of Czech style, not stuff I have any particular problem with, but one has to be diligent (and I wasn't at 5).

Funny the randoms that turn up - Clem, Celine (with a Trinity O-top!), Kat, Dean, Lou, Sharon...

It was nice having oxygen to breathe.

Trail and off-trail run around the top of Tahoe-Donner.

Beautiful out, good terrain, great views.

Poor Caol Ila 12yo. In glasses like that. My oh my.

Peekskill to California...

Rest day. Did an hour of 'mapping', teaching myself Ghettocad out in the woods. It's pretty cool. And mapping is tough.

Trying to decide whether to fly back east or to drive. Driving would be via Arizona, Albuquerque, Bentonville, Memphis, Nashville, maybe DC...

Seems like 8 days would be theoretically possible, so 10 should be doable.

Still have to head west though, got some proper route-choices on Saturday!

C • DC 5

Boreal East. Fun area, body would appear to be tired. Can't think why.

Out for 1h15, walked some.

Tahoe Donner XC
Wednesday evening training put on by Greg. I had to move 14 to the right place :)

Hill intervals with Greg and Jonas. 10*42s + 2*32s... downhill recovery.

Breathing is tough, even down at a lowly 6,000 ft, throat wanted to implode at the top of each lap.

You'd think all the training I did at 8-10,000 ft would have counted for something.

Woo, a comfy couch and internet. Started uploading photos and filling out recent ap entries.

Edit: Haha, done!! Time to go training again.

Borrowed Greg's MTB, which was big enough for me, and headed out for a quick spin to loosen up. Necessary after not yesterday's run/deydrate/walk/lake/no-stretch combo.

Fun.

Burton Creek, Tahoe

Fun woods, found the map a bit tough to read. It didn't get easier when I worked out the non-ISOM features, as by then it was getting well dark. It was also a little disconcerting being chased by a gorilla.