Training Log Archive: PG

NEOC Club Champs at Townsend. Not so much energy today, but I kept plugging away ok except for 5-10 minutes through some crap and then uphill (to #6) where I just didn't have the necessary desire.

Was cold and wet after I finished. Took a while to get my shoe laces untied, but finally got changed into dry clothes. Didn't know who else had run Blue, and didn't really feel like waiting around, plus I was really hungry. So shortly I was partaking of a late (and large breakfast) -- eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, toast, juice, coffee. A bit of an overdose, which I'm still feeling, but sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do.

I can't remember the last time I left a meet without talking to someone else who had run the course. Routes/comments.

Running out to the start.

Blue - Splits

5K race in Northampton, though I'm not sure how long the course actually was and my gut feeling is that it was a little short. (It is very unlikely that it was measured carefully, since it was a loop with the start and finish at exactly the same point.) Splits (accuracy also unknown): 6:39 (up a little), 6:50 (pretty flat), 6:42 for 1.1 miles (down some). Felt like valid time would have been 20:20-20:30.

But still a decent effort, and legs didn't feel too bad from running in the woods yesterday.

Race was held to benefit a local charity and drew a good crowd, maybe 500 runners and a couple hundred walkers. We don't tend to do charity O' events, where the "charity" is something outside of orienteering. But I was talking to George Walker a year or two ago, and he said the Western Connecticut OC usually makes a donation, maybe $100-200, to the local group involved in running the park they have just used. It generates good will, and an invitation to come back. I wonder if other clubs do the same. Especially in places where access might be a problem, putting on an event every once in a while just to benefit the park should be something worth thinking about.

C • 1

Before and after.

Warm-up lap around Lake Bray.

Training at Mt. Tom (no hunting is allowed there) -- tried a line-O'. Not sure if I've ever done one before, but it was actually rather good fun and seemed to be good training in terms of constant map contact and reading ahead. Ran the whole way at a modest pace, and was on the line pretty well all the time except for a couple hundred meters traversing the slope above Lake Bray (an area with a lot of deadfall and only so-so visibility) -- I stayed a little too high after crossing the first trail and was a line or two above the double boulders just before the second trail.

Only annoying part was my watched stopped someplace in there, so the 50 minutes is a guess. Had 48 on the watch, plus however long it was stopped for.

C • line-o 4

Loop around town, mostly flat, all I felt like today.

With Phil on the west side of Quabbin Reservoir, all on old jeep roads and a nice place to go during deer season because no hunting is allowed except on a couple of days of controlled hunts -- there used to be no hunting at all, but the deer herd got way too big and was eating all the young vegetation, which may have been great for orienteering or off-trail running, but not what the forest managers wanted. But then it's managed in a strange way anyway. No mountain biking or XC skiing allowed, might pollute the watershed, but boats are allowed on the water. Shows where the political power has been.

We stuck to the trails because everything was pretty wet after more rain last night and neither of us felt inspired to head off trail. That didn't keep us from getting wet, since it was still raining and there was lots of standing water around that we gave up trying to avoid after a while. One bit of standing water that we did avoid was where our intended route crossed Gulf Brook. The beavers must have been busy, becasue the crossing seemed like it would have been about a 30-yard swim. We turned around without any hesitation.

The USGS maps don't show all the trails, and of course they also show some that don't exist, and in the few times I've run there I've never managed to remember to write down map corrections, so there is always a bit of uncertainty as to where our route will take us. Added to that is the fact that we were actually on terrain covered by four different USGS quads (three of them 1:25,000, the SE one 1:24,000). I had a bit of concern when we were still heading south on a trail that I didn't recall having been on before and therefore wasn't sure if it came out where the map said, and at the same time the map, which I had neglected to put in a map case, was threatening to disintigrate in the rain. But I treated it with some very tender loving care and it stayed just together enough to keep me entertained all the way back.

Another thing keeping me entertained was bits and pieces of Bach's violin concerto in E. Now I'm about as musically inept as it's possible to be, but this tune had been playing on NPR as I drove over. The only reason I remembered it was many years ago I'd listened to it probably 3 or 4 times on a long plane flight and it had served to soothe my fragile nerves, so when it appeared on the radio it was like an old friend. I mentioned it to Phil and it was apparently an old friend to him too, dating back to a summer backpacking trip to Europe at age 18. He will have to fill in the details....

Oh, and the run? Longer than intended (the shorter route via hill 971 didn't seem to exist), but we hung in there well, keeping a good pace up all the uphills on the way back (accompanied from time to time by Mr. Bach). A fine outing and not a hunter (or a deer) to be seen.

C • pollution 1

Around N. and S. Sugarloaf, mostly flat. It occured to me part way around that I had been thinking about going to the track, and then obviously forgotten about it, so I managed to work in 8x100 strides to get the legs moving a little faster. Also served to increase the pace a bit for the last couple miles. Which was good, because I'm planning on running with Phil tomorrow and he claims to be hurting and I don't want to feel too frisky.

Over to South Sugarloaf (15:23), up (9:56), down (6:53), back home (15:27). A real low energy day, but managed to make it up the hill by shifting to an even (s)lower gear. Mid-30s, fog, drizzle, a bit of ice/slush in Sugarloaf, but not enough to make much difference except get my feet wet. One of those days, I suppose, that makes other days seem so nice in comparison.