Training Log Archive: cedarcreek

It was about 14degF (-10C), and I *did not* want to run tonight. But I felt so good, I made myself do it. My face got really cold, and I'm really glad I only spent 20 minutes out there. It's cold even in the house, because I haven't put up the weatherstripping I got last week. I also finished my stuck-in-one-gear-20-minute loop in 19 minutes, which I'm calling my PR. Instead of the "Killer Bee Test Loop", I should call this my "OOSFM Loop", for "Out of shape fat man loop". I think the two races on Saturday (where I'd run as much as I could, and walk as little as possible) helped with getting my leg speed up some. After one solid week of cold weather training, my biggest surprise is how easily I'm able to handle the cold. One week ago, I almost stopped after 200 and 300m because of breathing the cold air. It still bugs me, but not nearly as much. I'm also figuring out how much to wear. I still need some work on this, because I'm planning some longer runs in a few weeks, and I want to be dressed right for them. Route: http://tinyurl.com/abfxv

MVOC Night-O in Dayton plus an OCIN Day-O at Friedlander

Brown Course at Camp Friedlander. (The clue sheet says 2.79, so that would be 13.3min/km.) I ran the Pig Sprint there in the spring, and I didn't realize the sprint map was just a small part of a bigger 1:10,000 map. There was a red course with 6+km, but I was planning to run the MVOC night O', so I chose Brown. It was just as steep as the Pig, but with a lot more grip (and some snow and ice). It was an event organized by a JrROTC program as a local JrROTC Championships, and OCIN handles the maps, courses, and most of the volunteers, so I was a typist at the Excel spreadsheet for 2 or so hours. Had a blast.

MVOC Night O' at Cricket Holler Scout Camp near Dayton. I wasn't able to finish my headlamp, so I ran (again) with my Scuba light with 8-C batteries. Night-O is a lot more fun with a freakin' big light. And without vampires and without scrooges to steal your punchcard. (I don't get to do night-O enough to make that fun.) This one did have an interesting twist, though. You could get them all, and finish normally, if you took less than 60 minutes. If you took longer, that was okay, because...After the director blew a big air horn 4 times (at the 60 minute point), you could "Search and Destroy" by collecting controls. This is the best part: The two events are scored separately. If you bring back a punched card, you get them as your score (I guess without the time, only the number of controls punched). You also get a separate score for the number of actual controls you collect. The only problem with this was that one group of competitors (interestingly) (and apparently, because we're not sure) was untying the markers and hiding them *and* collecting them before the 60 minute mark. I found them all, even though 3 had been thrown or otherwise tampered with. Others were not as lucky. I placed one on the ground at the right spot, and tied another to a branch. The third was tied, but not in a normal way, sort of hidden, so---I don't know. One group I know spent ten minutes looking for one of the controls that was "collected" early. (We suspect one particular group because they were walking (we're sure), and they somehow managed to collect two distant controls separated by 500m, and complained about another one 300m away from either of those two. It didn't affect me (well maybe 2 minutes), but we still felt violated, and mad. In Orienteering, there are some things you just don't do. I got second. Mike Minium beat me. He was affected about 4 minutes. His light is a really tight spot, but it seems pretty weak to me, so I probably had an advantage on him because of that. He normally beats me by a much bigger margin. The placements were mostly easy, and there were mostly trails, so the few times I had to go off-trail, I was pretty sloppy. I was pretty lucky, though, and I had only a few minutes of issues due to sloppiness. The first time, I ran right into a big cliff, and was stuck going right when left would've been better. In this case, though, I swear the map was off, and I spiked it, if you can claim that when you're still 50m from where you think it is. The other time I got right and didn't notice it. This one is where I lost the 2 minutes, maybe even 3.

Postscript: After thinking about it for a day, I think the group that collected the controls early must be different from the group (or campers) who tampered with the controls. I need to rethink my comments...

PIcking up two controls during the search-and-destroy.