Training Log Archive: bl

Am DP, slate gray, stuff on the way. Dogs glad to see me.
Turned out to be a fairly miserable day - mid-30s with snow & accompanying chill.

Some Flying Pig photos
"Yeah, we know, Sharon!"



"If only I had..."



"Tim, if only you had..."



"Come on, Boris - it's not that bad!"



Three guys from Carlisle (USOC UL champs) - it's from longstanding mosquito exposure (Meg also won a gold but had better things to do:-))



Miami U is a most impressive campus



Rural Ohio is a sea of corn



A long, straight road but not one travelled

C • Captions 3

Event: CSU Rocky Woods
 

warmup

Green middle, Sunday. Good wx for it! Was game enough but fairly bent out of shape by time I'd found #3. First 2 fine, #3 a trivial 130m, white woods cp but used blue border of map as N/S line (right 50% of the time; do I disike blk MN lines or MN lines that love to be invisible) but not this time. So ran off 90 deg off but it looked ok, up gradually, there was a runner that had just departed same 2 so I thot ok even tho it felt funny. Go 130m or so to reent but no cp. Circle L, another reent nearby, ditto. Big circle bk to 2 & start again, now knowing what i did. Still missed, circled L & found maybe 50m at most away. Now rather annoyed, a good set up for disgust & diminishing sense of self-worth:-). Charge fm 3 toward 4, cross stream but not exactly sure where & knowing exactly where would have been of gt help as cp was in vague reent in more horrid green on gradual slope - circling wouldn't do. Was a band of conifers I took for a green line & felt I needed a certain distance fm - finally dist more than ran out - there were 2 runners nearby & I looked & voila, a cp higher than I would have thot.

Plowed down hill to 5, on a O suicide mission, came to contours, suspected I needed to go rt, did so & cp within 30m - could have been disastrous. ok all way to 9, 10 must have been a 5-6' disaster, splits will tell. After road, needed utmost knowledge of where one was - hunches & shooting fm hip don't work. I was latter, continuing my suicide mission. On a path NE, not picking it out - then noise & openness opening; ah, the slopes we walked up to start & reloc. almost 200m fm control & only now, typing this, do I see the lg open area by the road. No wonder it didn't look like what I saw...it wasn't it! Had I known that, I might have hit it considerably sooner. 11 around as much as poss on road & bring it on home. How nice to ensure good runs, self-satisfaction (success!) - it just takes keeping the head screwed on tightly with a dash of common sense, open eyes & good performance might even beget better performance as the race evolves. Maybe next time. A half-decent 10 would have put me in decent company.

Nice meet, well organized. A bit too scratchy for me however. Got familiar w/ Miami U, a small light of knowledge in a sea of cornfields. Not all was academic learning: college kids on a Sat eve - not a few girls in skirts to mid-thigh, walking in high heels (many carrying & walking barefoot), dates in tow or towing...to be young...once upon time...where did time go? It had no choice but to race away on its winged chariot.

Arrived at Dayton airport w/ plenty of time. Pleasant discovery: my plane left at 5:10, not 6p. It goes thru Cleveland, not Newark. tp would shake his head about that. I guess O with one's eyes closed is "Orange alert" for disastrous results!

C • I can empathize with the &q... 2

Sunday Green - Splits

UL Brown USOC champs race. Cilly, clouds & sun, perfect for running. 13c & a reasonable race thru #12 which I lost maybe 9' on! Sharon C was 7' faster. Some very scratchy areas as well as white woods with big reentrants & gullies as would be expected. No mud or wet feet to speak of.

First control looked ok going st (a white spur in middle of 250m leg but it was one of the scratchiest, ie, blood-letter. Energy was ok, wearing 305 will allow some analytical viewing on my part. #12 spent alot of time & circling to the south of the point & finally convinced myself of that by taking a rough backbearing on the lodge front facade some 250 m to the west & could then see that I was too far south.

Good course, good placements but needed a 60' or so race. Was first M65 but not w/ a decent performance. Boris G 53' & a woman (b. '55) was 63'.

C • Woman born '55 2

Saturday UL Brown - Splits

Event: OCIN Flying Pig XV & US ULtralong Champs
 

Middle distance, more like a sprint. B run, may 2.5’ errors, lack of concentration tho cannot claim that day’s travel events led to distraction - just preventable loss of concentration. Rain held off til about the last control. Very tired at end but glad I could run the whole way when possible. 34’ might have been max, today anyway.

#2 was under a bridge, did not know symbol.
#3 higher than I was looking (right at brook lvl)
#10 man-made obj by fence, came to fence, look r & l, don't see, wander a bit beyond, look back & finally see
#11 unaccountably drifted L, worst control
#17 bit L

Nice course, decent woods, no scratches, one tete-a-tete with a sizable branch. Sharon C & Bill Pullman at the finish as the fact that it was finally rainy/cold made its self known.

OOB at 0404 (well ahead of alarm), on Rte 93 at 0435, snowing hard, literally no southbound traffic for first 5 miles. Departure at 0658 (scheduled for 0615)...wait & de-icing and wait some more. So relieved when we lifted off, getting stuck in Manchester would have been depressing. Lifted away from a landscape of white-gray; maybe 10’ later later, we topped the clouds. The far vision and blue lifted spirits. Next sight was literally a tug on an inlet in the NY-NJ waterway. My belief was that I’d missed my connecting flt to Dayton which I thought departed at 0725 (but that was boarding, departing was 0800). Hadn’t slept, wasn’t on top of things - some things have been weighing rather heavily. Much to my surprise, upon exiting to speak with customer service re another flight, I noted Dayton on the very plane I had just departed with a new departure time of 0835! Wasn’t the original flight plan, don’t believe it was the same gate and did not look ahead to see adjacent gates and no mention before getting off about those continuing on to Dayton. But away again, this time into a rainy sky. Why o why Ohio... It will certainly do for this particular weekend, rain or shine.... a reprieve from an April Fool’s snow storm.

Sat in Newark for 90’ extra & had to get off plane will they fixed a bulb! Got to Oxford around 11:30. Tried motel from airport, someone answered, hung up (foreign). Went to Expedia, paid 140+ for 2 nights, got a car, finally figured out the way to “San Jose” and beat a hasty path out of Dodge but really didn’t know how far, just not too far. Finally found the place. locked lobby, WiFI would not work, dump of a place, real cost should have been about 55/night. Called lobby 2x, no ans, both times door locked. Being tired, i was no-bones-about-it irritable! Not in a let's-go-orienteering mind frame. Couldn’t easily locate Sat start but finally arrived after fumbling. Was 10.5 hrs from house to motal. Guess I was glad I could orienteer at all considering frame of mind. Sunny/blue on arrival but clouded over. Oxford is nice-enough a town in the middle of nowhere teeming with college kids. Miami U has many nice buildings.

Friday Green - Splits

Expected to run a bit today but too many storms circling the OK Corral.
Tomorrow dawns a WSW, flying from MCH into it, in the direction of Phily. What will the day's adventures bring...? A lucky escape or just plain frustration.


Zoe early '02 playing "catch me if you can". Certainly hope to catch a timely flt out of Phily to make tomorrow's race possible.

C • Zoe 2

Bright, sunny continued. PL walk w/o any snow/ice to deal with.

Local loop, again perfect weather, one lap on CHS track near end. Saw a man in a field with a gun on his hip...the featured flower of this particular NH spring. Thousands at the State House tomorrow noon protesting the Republican finance committee budget. These Republicans recently passed a law allowing the carrying of concealed weapons & one need not even apply for a license. Cars & your dog yes but not to purchase & carry a gun. Maybe there will be some shooting of bullets into the sky as done in various Middle East countries.

Added Langley to Fisk-Little Pond loop. Bright/sunny.

Mind definitely elsewhere today.

Weights etc