Training Log Archive: cmorse

Too tired to log much tonight, licking my wounds from todays pavement crash early in the ultra long. But got home and checked in and to my utter amazement, I still managed to come in third place, even though its more than 35 minutes back of Greg Balter in first. And doing it sans compass (destroyed enroute to #2 full story tomorrow) and by taking uber-conservative routes.

Medalled all three days - I guess that officially makes it a fine weekend indeed - along with most excellent company...

And of the totally useless, trivial facts - it looks like the only people that beat my 25s in the chute today were Andy Strat (22s), Samantha and Christina (24s). 25 seconds out of a 2+ hour race is pretty meaningless, but I pride myself on pushing it in the chute.... And since yesterday was a tie for 2nd, seconds in the chute can account for something.

Being an ultra long course I decided to throttle back any instinct to run fast early and just cruise the early part of the course in order to save something for later when I'd need it.

First control was fine, up to the campground loop and did the smart thing and began studying my whole course while running along the paved, flat campground road. Making great use of time right? Well, this particular campground loop was closed and there was a heavy chain hanging about 8 inches off the ground I certainly wasn't looking for that while engrossed in this exciting map I was reading.

Crash!! Serious heavy duty face plant to pavement, felt my head and right shoulder hit pretty hard but quickly felt my glasses and they were still in place. Whew... Lots of abrasion and blood on my left hand though, map case torn pretty good, but luckily in a spot the course didn't go through. But then looked closer at my right hand and didn't like what I saw. Remnants of thumb compass - the capsule and most of the plate shattered all over the road.

Briefly considered going back to the car and getting my baseplate, but said screw it and went off without. Nailed the 2nd control and then decided to take uber conservative routes and go slow enough to maintain map contact at ALL times.

Running with Ted Good off and on at times and afterwards he was commenting on how I was certainly running fast, but seemed to zig zag quite a bit in the woods and that was because I was zig zagging between solid intermediate attackpoints - lots of them. But I got around the course with little problem and enough oomph left to post one of the best finish chute splits of 25 seconds. But about 25 minutes back of, wait for it, Mark Voit (duh) and turning up in M45 for the first time this weekend, Greg Balter with an impressive 1:46, besting Mark Voit by 10 minutes..

But I'm totally fine with my time considering the extra mileage and effort needed to navigate this somewhat tricky map without a compass.

Totally out of the running, washed my wounds and hit the road back to Columbus with the Walkers and Samantha Saeger. Got home and logged into attackpoint only to find that everyone else on M45 ran slower times than I did allowing me to somehow grab a 3rd place spot. Totally cool - in the medals all three days... gotta like that....

Now I just have to figure out how to run as fast as Balter/Voit and company... probably not in this lifetime....

Routegadget

C • in this lifetime 3

Red - Ultra Long - Splits