Training Log Archive: cedarcreek

ARDF 2m at Sharon Woods, set by Dick Arnett. A really nice short course. Not much waiting around. Some trouble with transmitters probably due to low batteries.

Event: OLOU Sprint #12 2015
 

Waterfront Sprint (OLOU), set by Chris Gerstle. A really fun sprint with nice difficulty. The map was a long, arrow slice of riverfront with madmade hill features and even an Ohio River pedestrian bridge! The course zigzagged from road to river repeatedly, and that made mispunching a real possibility because of the many controls split between out and back, and because of the crossing lines of the course on the map.

A wonderful outdoor dinner afterwards at Garage Bar. I'm craving wood-fired pizza right now. I ordered a Gimlet, a featured cocktail, made with gin, fresh-squeezed lime juice (apparently sweetened, but not mentioned on the menu), and a basil leaf (a nice floral touch). It's a real trick to make a good Gimlet without using Rose's lime juice (a heavily-sweetened lime juice product). I really enjoyed it. Raymond Chandler wrote in The Long Goodbye(1953) that "a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else", which is why I keep a bottle of Rose's around. I use 2:1 gin:Rose's to taste the gin better. Garage Bar's is more like Chandler's, that is, the sweetness hiding the gin, but I respect the chutzpah to not use Rose's. It tasted more natural.

Changing subjects: If you click the blue globe and look at my GPS track, notice how the number 1, 2, 15, and 16 (finish) don't line up with direction changes. 5 is off the "other way"---maybe. This shows the SI units aren't synced to GPS time (which reminds me that I haven't synced our SI Time Master recently). I sync at least once-a-month for longer events, but sprints can get you in trouble---I'd recommend having sync'd within a week before a sprint.

C • They have not been synched for a while 5

Waterfront Park Sprint - Splits

Event: Sheltowee Extreme - SXT 7
 

ARDF 2m at Garr Hill, near Brookville, Indiana, using the south part of the map. Kinda wet, so plenty of reflections. Really hot. The heat did me in. Normally a layout like this (close to a road) is really difficult (and somewhat unfair) because you're normally moving so fast that different people have completely different experiences on the course---if it comes on and you're close, you tend to get it right away---if you're a minute or two before or past, it's much harder. The out-and-back made it nice because you know you can get ones you passed on the way back, and you're in a good position to know where to wait for it to come on.

I had the most trouble with my first control, number 5, which took three cycles. I got off the trail early, then back onto the road. Then I walked by the control twice when it wasn't on maybe 10m and 20m away before I finally got it. Number 1 (the next T) took two cycles once I was close. I got the last three without delay---basically one cycle each.

Picking up all five transmitters so Brian and Marji could go boating and because it really didn't make sense for two people to go get them---two big hill climbs instead of one.

I had plenty of cold water with me, so I was well hydrated. I hope I'm just a little under the weather or something. The heat just killed me. I wasn't sweating as much as I normally do (despite having drunk 1L before the race and another 1.5L in between the race and pickup, and another 0.5L under the trees sitting at a picnic table in the circle. I was sweating at a pretty normal rate for normal people, but not for freaks like me. My friends call it a Matt Sweat, and it just wasn't there. Normally the sweat drips off my pinkie fingers and it just wasn't doing that. I'll mention it to my doctor next time I'm there. It might be my blood pressure medicine---I'm not sure I used the same stuff last summer. I might have to switch to the old stuff for the heat.

Two movies:

1. Kill the Messenger (0), Jeremy Renner. About a journalist from the San Jose Mercury News who broke a story connecting the CIA to the crack epidemic in the US back in the 90s (?). An okay movie, especially in the first half, but sort of a fizzle in the second.

2. Unfinished Business (0), Vince Vaughn, Sienna Miller, Nick Frost, Tom Wilkinson. A businessman with struggling start-up goes against his former boss's company while his wife and kids need his time. Slightly raunchy, with a fun cast and plenty of really cool and interesting setups, but it just didn't deliver as a solid, satisfying movie.

Inherent Vice, based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, might be the best hippie movie I have ever seen. It's very slightly similar to The Big Lebowski, but in my opinion, it holds truer to the hippie vibe. I've said too much. It's rated R for language, sex, and drug use, but the violence is pretty tame. Again, I've said too much.

Riding Red Bikes with Katie. Really fun ride around OTR, Covington, Newport, and the Riverfront. Started GPS about 1/3 of the way in. Rode from the Washington Park to the Suspension Bridge. Along the riverfront in Covington and then up to the Licking River Bridge and along the levee to Newport on the Levee.

Before we got the Red Bikes, we ate at Bakersfields, a really cool place with amazing tacos. Chips and Queso highly recommended.

In Newport, we stopped at the Hofbrauhaus to see an old school friend of mine. Then the gps track starts.

An old running route. Haven't done it in years. I believe I call this the "One-hill route with a loop around the rec center". I did a lot of run-walk, but Katie was pushing me pretty hard.

Katie is leaving to start her first real job in a few days and wanted to do it. Doing lots of old restaurants and other fun stuff to see her off. Kinda emotional about it.