Training Log Archive: cedarcreek

Event: OCIN Indian Creek / TROL Series #7
 

Green Course at Indian Creek Preserve, set by Mike Minium.

OCIN_Indian_Creek_Jan_2013_Green - Splits

Event: Sierra Ski-O Tour 2013
 

Driving around (mostly) Franklin County Indiana planning an extra-hilly, long bike ride. The idea is to simulate a one-day Tour Divide type route. It's almost all paved, so it isn't representative there, but what I'm really trying to get is over 1.5 miles vertical per 100 miles. From the looks of this track, that won't be a problem. Also checking a few things for OpenStreetMap, which might turn into an addiction. I need to start spending my winter indoor time on finishing the orienteering maps I've already started rather than the new shiny bright stuff I never seem to escape.

The most scary part of this was on the old IN-1 Southgate Hill. It was unplowed, but there had been traffic, and I figured going up it was reasonably safe. I got past what I thought was the hard part, but maybe I didn't have enough momentum, because I couldn't get all the way to the top. I had to turn around and go really slow down this narrow and scary hill that has seen a lot of wrecks and deaths before it was bypassed by modern highway engineering. I didn't slide even a little bit. (I took it at idle in first gear, which is literally walking speed.)

Walking across the frozen Pipe Creek (?) at the Pine Rd wet crossing. I've been planning this ride, and one online map shows it not connected, and yet some do. None of the aerials I've seen shows a bridge. The 1986 USGS 1:100K map shows it connected. Well---it is connected, but there never was a bridge. It's a wet crossing, say 30m that varied (today) from 3 inches to 7 inches. Except it was frozen, and something, maybe a truck, broke through, so I didn't even consider driving across it. But I did walk on the ice. (Stopped my GPS watch after driving away.)

The last time I was on Stone Church Rd, it was gravel. That was about 15 years ago. Now it's all paved. Now I know. I started the GPS on IN-1N to Blooming Grove, west on Stone Church Rd to Little Duck Creek Rd to eastbound on Duck Creek Rd back towards IN-1, but there is a shortcut called Crossover Rd. Since I had the GPS running, I took Causeway Rd to the Fairfield Marina, which was closed, and unplowed; and I almost got stuck trying to get back up this tiny tiny hill. Then I went to Egypt Hollow Ramp and back to Everton, IN on a comically zig-zaggy combination of roads.

Egypt Hollow Ramp was absolutely beautiful in the calm air and full moon rising across the lake. I have no comment about any yellow stains on the snow-covered ramp itself and whether or not my track shows evidence of doughnuts on the ramp. Also, speaking hypothetically, you technically can't do doughnuts in a front-wheel drive car, but it is possible to drive in a circle and pull the handbrake; and again, I have no comment about whether any such actions occurred tonight.

After a long stop, I checked out the defunct River Rd closure; but didn't have time (or light) to walk it for passability; and the Treaty Line Ramp, which was gated closed, and earns a "Balls!", because I was thinking it would be a good parking spot for certain winter MTB rides.

GreenY-Day2 - Splits

Event: 2013 Georgia Navigator Cup & Extreme-O
 

GreenY-Day1 - Splits

5 different shoulder physical therapy exercises at the gym with a pulley-tower weight machine.

I can do the exercises easily (except for one where my technique might be faulty). I did both shoulders because I'm sure my good shoulder needs it too.

But the best it feels is when I'm done exercising it. There is a muscle pump effect and it seems to stabilize the joint or something.

Yesterday (Thursday night) it was very unstable and 'clunky'---the most unstable it's been since I injured it.

I'm just getting by on sleep. Last night I actually slept well, but when I woke up, I was in a stress position and my shoulder really hurt. I can't decide whether it's better to sleep a lot of short periods where the pain wakes me up quickly or to take some melatonin and sleep longer but risk having it held in a painful position for longer. Right now I'm leaning towards the former, although the lack of sleep is taking its toll.

It doesn't hurt much through the day. But when I lie down, it aches enough to keep me awake, pretty much regardless of position. About ten percent of the time, it doesn't hurt when I wake up. Maybe eighty percent of the time, I wake up with serious pain. The other ten percent is basically the only time I have actual "scary painful" pain. (It's this last ten percent where I think I might be making the injury worse. The other ninety percent I think is benign.)

Django Unchained (1): Wow. Very rated R. Sometimes very difficult to watch. Amazing, though. A wonderfully put-together movie. A lot to think about, although it might cause a few nightmares.

I'm just gonna put this here. Might contain spoilers. Might not: Brynhildr

C • django 1

Physical Therapy session for my shoulder (30 minutes).

I'm still getting some clunking of the humerus in the rotator cuff, but it is really amazing how much better the shoulder feels when I do these strengthening exercises. From what I understand, these exercises just strengthen the rotator cuff and some of the other various muscles. The very specific rotator cuff exercises seem to turn on muscles that hadn't been active since the fall. This week was less of an improvement, but still a big change for the better.

I'm going to attempt them at the gym on Tuesday night. (At least one of the exercises is difficult at home.)

Event: OCIN England Idlewild / TROL #6
 

Green Course (5.4km) at England-Idlewild Park, set by Benjamin Hart.

The day was so beautiful. It's like a Florida vacation for a day. Back to normal on Monday---below freezing Monday morning.

Really fun course. It was much more difficult than you'd guess after looking at the map for a few minutes. Some really interesting legs. My plan after being on the trails was to stay off the trails as much as possible. You wouldn't guess that from looking at my track.) Only major problem was 11-12. I was at 11, but my eye went to 12-13 and I started navigating from 11 as if I was at 12. Did a full stop half a minute later when I couldn't see the bike path, the clearing wasn't right, and there was a house to my left (that isn't on the map near 11 either) and figured it out pretty quickly. Basically did 11-12 on the line, and messed it up badly, missing to the left. Overshot. I need to look at the map in OCAD and see if a few depressions I found are mapped. I didn't see them on the map, but I wasn't anywhere near where I thought I was.

Another notable spot was 9-10 (10 is the L-shaped clearing on the hillside). I thought I hopped on a little trail-ride thing west of 9, but apparently not, so I fought through to the big clearing and wasn't 100% sure where I was. Went left of a nose of forest---figured the odds were 3/4 in my favor. Got it. Noticed the distinctive single tree along the trail---very odd mapping, but Vladimir totally nailed it---the tree is much smaller than you'd expect. I was reading the vegetation today much better than I normally do---it was freaking me out how I was seeing everything like Vladimir did.

I did a lot of walking, although my HR was pretty high. One very minor fall, but no apparent damage to my shoulder. I had my first physical therapy session with SD on Monday, and it has really helped. I haven't been able to do the prescribed exercises every day though. Tuesday it was still too sore. Since then I can do them sometimes, but other times this one spot just cramps instantly and I just stop. It has definitely improved.

OCIN_EI_Jan_2013_Green - Splits

Event: OCIN Harbin Park / TROL Series #5
 

Brown course at Harbin Park, set by Orunner.

I loved this course. I told Pat it was amazing. Every leg fully matched my expectations of a fun, interesting leg. There were no "gimme" legs. The easiest leg on the course was 20-21 (72-69) and even it required that you recognize its simplicity and just put the map away and go. (I was second fastest on this leg after a Boy Scout team on yellow, and I think they passed 69 on the way to 72). And even this leg set up a cool route choice (go backwards and use a bridge, or go forward and do a semi-nasty descent and climb).

Even the doglegs on this course were awesome.

Claire didn't like the zig-zag section 3-8 (33 to 38). She said it was just back-and-forth using the same elephant tracks. That was not my experience at all. I'd dogleg a bit, but I was just trying to optimize my time and invariably would veer off. And almost without exception, I'd not hit what I was aiming for. (The trails are pretty well mapped, but they're not perfect. I think they've changed. Pat said he didn't update this section.) Still, I loved the orienteering. Also, this might be a good way to do compass training legs for advanced orienteers. I really appreciated the minimal climb through this section. If it had been just a bit hotter, gully crossings would have been nasty.

Some notes:
2-3: Took the southern trail, then NE to the hairpin, then...stuff started going downhill. Saw Casey leaving 3, but didn't realize it, kept going west, but noticed I was too close to the end of the spur. Had to backtrack a bit going NE to the control.
3-4: Wanted to climb to the first trail, then take it contouring around the hill. Ended up on the main straight trail on the west edge of the map. Easy correction (some extra climb), but dang, I was being careful, I thought.
4-5: Plan: pure compass. Halfway: better count these frickin' trails. 90%: Where the heck is that big reentrant? Oops! I'm right (more than expected).
5-6: Just run same bearing backwards (S needle "in the house"), but go left when I can. Did a short trail section, but ended up about halfway between 4 and 6. Saw the tree, but realized the circle wasn't centered on it. Turned around, saw flag. Ughh.
6-7: Plan: hop to the trail that goes right to 7. Execution: Found trail about halfway there. Hesitated as I passed the top of the right ditch.
7-8: Possibly the shortest leg on the course. I ended up back at 6. Will look at track. Probably left on the trail to the west rather than southeast. The plan was to run S on the needle but go a bit east, but trails didn't make sense. GPS should be telling. (Last place split on Brown here: 11th of 11.)
8-9: Totally fun leg. Deceptive. All the action is in the first centimeter or so. First glance: Trail east, hop up one, wiggle, boom into the field. Actual: Trail east, hop up one, another to shorten kink---oh crap---I'm not on the right trail yet. Gotta go one more---Good spot right here. The end of this leg looked scary, but you could see the control from the ride.
9-10: Quick, better go fast. Lined up going across the open, but no easy way into the woods. Cut left 15 or 20m, found elephant tracks and control. Seemed way off, but acceptable---visible if I had busted through where I eyeballed it should have been. (And I may be wrong---I wasn't waiting around to check further.)
10-11: Went left of lake, by X and hopped trails at the obvious spot. Considered going around, but this looked way more fun. Probably was faster, too, although I wasn't sure when I started.
11-12: got on the trail south of "12" and saw the bag. Sprinty, a tiny bit tricky. (#1 on Brown, but dersu, Ben, and Spurlock beat me.)
12-13: sprint leg, quick, better go. (#1 on Brown)
13-14: Around---no way. Straight back to 12, normal to the big trail, reposition SE on the big trail, in to the little trail. (#1 here too.)
14-16: SW to reentrant edge, up to these two. Blazed Green trail here now, I think. Saw trail flagging as well.
16-17: SW to trail. Wasn't sure if this was fastest, but left seemed out-of-the-way with more climb.
17-18: Downhill, literally as fast as I ever run. Snow slowed me down a bit. I was aiming for the narrow gap two hedges south of 22 (99), but found a good spot 40m or so early and took it before I realized. No lost time---quick route. Ran towards the X, trail was a lot farther than expected past it.
18-19: I should have cut this line when I printed the maps for Pat---trail obscured. Not concerned, though--I usually don't check lines for local events---but I do cut the circles more than I probably should. (Interestingly, I don't think I got any benefit from cutting the circles. The course isn't visible. But if I had cut the lines, it probably would have been unfair.)
19-20: North out of 19, and took "bridge". Local knowledge = these little gullies are steep.
20-21: Saw that it was a sprint leg, and just ran. Fun. I got that sprint feeling. Love that.
21-22: Fast to full stop. Not crossing that. Going around. I love this as well---fast set up to significant route choice. Course setters = Sneaky bastards.
21-22: Weird map as I hit the clearing by the lake. Compass pointed me towards the shelter we've used for events. Checked three times, but was already aiming left where I thought the road gap was. Elephant tracks were all pointing towards finish, not 99. 99 was placed on the volleyball court. Saw the uprights. Most elephant tracks curved part way up the hill.
Go control: Ran hard. Had left most of it on the course, though.

So fun.

C • Glad you enjoyed it. 1

OCIN_Harbin_Jan_2013_Brown - Splits

These are Orunner's GPS mapping tracks for Harbin.

Just eyeballing them---They look really good.

Event: OCIN New Years Orienteering
 

OCIN_Timberhill_New_Years_Day_2013_Brown - Splits