Training Log Archive: PG

Event: 2019 CMOUSA Corn Maze Champs
 

A good workout for the legs but easy on the lungs, no heavy breathing. And continuing a stretch of fine weather, mid to upper 60s, sunny, minimal wind, low humidity.

Continuing my taper....

Corn maze time! :-)

Had a wonderful time despite lots of butt pain, having a lapse** or two or three, feeling exhausted almost immediately during every running attempt, and feeling rather battered the next morning.

Steve outdid himself with the courses, including the totally brilliant ARDF event. JJ was smooth as could be with all the computer stuff, 4 races, so four times he led us through the cycle of anticipation, despair, resignation, and then joy as each time our dibbler downloads seemed to vanish into cyberspace and then after while miraculously reappear.

Though, personally, I would have been happier if the results from the Classic had just vanished forever....

First up was the Sprint. The maze design looked not particularly difficult, but Steve added a couple of mazes within the maze, and that flummoxed me just about every time. This time it scrambled my brain enough that I headed straight from #1 to #7, realized it just as 7 was coming into view and I was looking at my map to see where 3 was, and, well, what was I doing at 7?

The rest was OK, except for just moving. My last running was a year ago, maybe that has something to do with it. It seemed that I was good to run for about 50 yards at a time, at which point my butt was killing me, and I was exhausted. So I'd walk 20 or 30 yards, and then repeat and repeat and repeat, the joy of being out orienteering being offset, and then some, but the physical distress.

But at least it was a sprint, and in 8 minutes it was over. :-)

* had a lapse -- a term my mother would use to avoid the reality of severely declining mental abilities, used after the fact to explain away some action, such as the excursion to Buffalo.

The Classic.

Physically the same negative experience as the Sprint, only it went on a lot longer. Mentally I navigated mostly OK, except I had a lapse at #1, didn't punch. Not the first time I've done that -- I remember at some event where the first control was a gimme, just run down the trail a ways to get people away from the start, and I cruised right past the control without it ever occurring to me to stop and punch.

Anyway, I did remember to pick up my map at #1, but the punching requirement just escaped me.

So I got the well-deserved DNF (and I was not the only one), with the added penalty, as if that was not enough, of being labelled a pariah for the Night. :-(

The ARDF. WTF, ARDF? I figured we'd had enough years of making fun of trail-O, time to make fun of something else, but ARDF? So I was not enthusiastic about doing this, and in fact, given how battered I was already feeling, and it was going to be a relay, and seemed like it would drag on for a long time, so I had decided to bag it.

But I asked Steve how long the courses were, and he thought for a moment and then said he thought the winning time (with people running normally with a map) would be about a minute and a half.

That got me a bit interested. Steve said there was a separate maze around the corner and I was curious to see what he had set up. So I recruited Charlie for a partner and we all marched off around the corner to find....

Another real-life corn maze. This was really WTF. A second real maze? Yup. Turns out there's been a second maze the last couple of years but no one knew. Well, none of us. It was for the beer weekend at Mike's, and all the beer was served in maze #2 (a good bit smaller than the main maze), so all the drunks would trash it instead of the main maze.

But for us, this was nirvana, and suddenly corn-maze ARDF was cool. Except the electronic gizmos were just cell phones, so just minor-league nerdiness unlike ARDF which is real major-league. Teams of 2, one directing the other where to go. A course of 3 controls, then change roles and a different course of 3 controls.

Charlie and I had moments of brilliance and moments of confusion, not bad overall and good enough for 5th place. And I think we beat Alex and Ed. And since I think I nipped Alex in the sprint, and we both DNF'd in the Classic, it seemed I didn't even have to do the Night to win for the day. Not that I'm competitive anymore, unless, it seems, if I'm ahead. :-)

Though I may have my facts wrong....

And then off to Bub's to carbo-load for the Night (though the term "carbo-load" must surely date me?).

And finally the Night. I got 5 skips, could have used about 5 more. I was one of several pariahs, so penalized a bit at the start. Another case of mental overload, discovered on the way to #1 that I still had my regular shorts on over my running shorts (the coins in one pocket were making a racket), discovered on the way to #3 that I hadn't started my Garmin. Oh, well....

But me skips were pretty good -- 6, 11, 12, 15, 16 -- and my orienteering was fine, except now I remember it sucked right at the end. I was with Pia and one of her boys for the last few controls, and trying to keep up with them, and had my plan for the last mini-maze, and it was a really good plan (entrance on the right, turn left, left again, hug the edge of the corn, first left when out of the mini-maze. Except I didn't see another little opening in the mini-maze.

I was fast, but I was exiting in the wrong direction. Looked back and Pia was about to go out of sight and there was no catching back. And when I did get back on track there was Kristen now just ahead of me and there was no catching her either. Oh, well.

But my pulse did it 163, max these days is 170. So it's not like I wasn't trying. I guess running just once a year, well, you pay the price.

Hung around for quite a while afterwards. Talked with Mike's son Dave for a while, helped clean up a little (fortunately the young ones were out retrieving controls), and eventually off to the car for the drive home, a very enjoyable 1.4 miles.

And a full 365 days to recover for the next one, 2020 being a leap year... :-)

Sprint - Splits

Classic - Splits

Night - Splits

Lake Wyola - Shutesbury loop, done quite a few times over the years. Hard effort all the way. Didn't quite pace myself right on the long climb, feeling quite wasted on the steep sections after the turn at Lake Wyola. But overall pleased with the effort and the pace.

Plan now is a 24-hour taper and I should be sharp for the corn maze tomorrow. :-)

South Sugarloaf on the road.

South Sugarloaf, up lower trail?

Out with Walter. Conversational pace, just perfect.

Roads below Bookmill.

No ambition, just out enjoying a nice day plus a stop at JJ's for corn. Elderly effort for the first few miles, then ratcheted it up to easy and then a little more to gentle. Or is it gentle first and then easy? NW breeze, mid-70s, sunny.

C • Kelly Brush ride 3

One-way trip from Bernardston to home, pretty much south, and the breeze was pretty much out of the south, so hard work all the way. A couple miles of dirt.

Another perfect day. Upper 60s, pertly cloudy, very light breeze from the south. Nice steady effort.

Mt. Warner loop trail.

Amazing day for August, low 70s, sunny, dewpoint upper 40s, light breeze from the NE. To the bike shop in Hadley for a new saddlebag, the old one needing to be retired after decades of service. And then JJ's for corn. UMass was deserted, but that will change in a few days.