Training Log Archive: bishop22

A great trail set by Fetch from Powder Mills, across from the ski hill - I had to start by doing the hill on the road, twice, because I couldn't see the washed out flour the first time up.

Included probably a mile down a creek, mostly in it, sometimes next to it. Water was flowing too quickly for even Fetch to send us thru the small-ish culverts that he had planned.

Event: ROC - Webster Park
 

ROC Score-O at Webster Park. I made just enough errors to not be able to clear the course, and had to leave 2 controls alone on the way in. I went:
86 (then tried in vain to find a relatively dry crossing point) - 87 - 85 - 84 (there seemed to be water everywhere except in the "pond") - 81 - 82 - 83 - 96 - 95 (surrounded by unmapped green, so I came in too high) - 93 - 90 (tried to attack from the pointy clearing, but ended up bailing to the e-w trail anyway) - 89 - 91 (a very poorly mapped area, from a vegetation standpoint, at least at this time of year; also, I could not really see the broad spur as mapped) - 92 - 99 - 94 - 97 (another spot where I had trouble reading the map due to the darkness and my aging eyes; and it was hell getting out of there towards the finish, despite the map making it look like you can stay "white" to a creek crossing and the trail - I actually would have had time to grab 98 if I wasn't afraid of the trails in that section of the park) - in.

Kenny, Chelsea and Clare all competed, and I think had fun.

ROC Sprint at Webster Park. This was one of my least favorite Sprint courses ever, and not just because I sucked.

First, the map was 1:10, which I consider unacceptable for a Sprint, especially on an overcast evening (I started around 7:30). Next, the vegetation mapping near the first 4 controls is awful, so navigating from 1-2 and 2-3 had more to do with luck than map-reading. Finally, the clues were printed on the back of the map - no idea why that was necessary, since the course can be easily covered by a 3x3 post it note and the paper was 8.5x11.

That said, I was as bad as the course. I overran #1 by a ton, and tried to use the only apparent feature (the pine tree boundary) to relocate, before giving up, going past C4 and circling the swamp. I probably lost about 5 minutes - I was almost 9 minutes in when I got to the 2nd control - that should have been under 3 minutes. C3-5 went fine. C6 looked like it was on the edge of the green patch, so I ran along that, but it was actually on a small trail a bit to the east (needed a 1:5 map with proper vegetation mapping). C7 was a place I've been MANY times. I messed up a bit on C8 - it was too dark for me to read the fence on the map, but I saw the control was at the tip of the spur, but when I got to the hilltop, there were two spurs and I ended up going between them and past the flag. C9 was OK. The run to the finish was not. The map showed a shortcut thru a clearing, but the clearing must be divided in two now, with big piles of brush blocking the way, so I had to retreat and run around.

C • "Sprint" course 2

Managed a bit of warm-up between checking whether Walt and Patty were going to make the start on time.

And I needed a bit of jogging before the Sprint because I was freezing.

Nate had a rough outing at O-Ringen yesterday, losing over 20 minutes on the first control and over 10 more on the second, according to Winsplits (he is in Class H16-2), finishing back in 133rd place. He did win the sprint to the last control by 3 seconds, in 1:03, which is pretty impressive, especially since it not only matches up well with the 16-year-olds, but it even beat the top Elite Male, who was 1:04! After losing an additional 7 minutes on control 5, he was pretty solid - he also had legs where he was 3rd and 14th, so he can certainly run with these guys.

He bounced back nicely today, finishing in 52nd place (and moving up to 105 after Etapp 2) - it will be interesting to see those splits.

XC Camp. I ran with the almost-advanced group (Brianna and Christina, Brad and Jason, all from Thomas). We went 16 minutes easy, then did a fartlek workout - 9 minutes hard in all. I gave each runner a chance to call out the # of seconds for a surge, right before it started, choosing from 30, 45, 60, 75 or 90, with twice the time running easy after each. I think the kids all chose 45 or 60 (perhaps there was one 30 in there) - I had to call 90 on the 5th one, then we still had 45 seconds to do on a 10th pickup.

Finished up with about 17 minutes easy. Overall, much harder than I would've liked to have run ahead of tomorrow's O-Meet. I haven't had the chance to run many local meets this year - it looks like I've missed the last 5 local meets.

3:53/7:44
1:28,27,28,28,27,28
3:24,21,17

Got a new suit, replacing the old one that had become quite baggy - looks like I saved almost 1 second per length. The second half of the 500 was benefited by someone in the next lane that I swam faster than, but caught me on the turns, who kept me working.

Ran the Seneca Park Zoo Jungle Jog with Zach - his first 5K, ever. It took us about 13 seconds to get to the starting line, so I backed that out of the time - the official time was 26:11. We started out conservatively, and the first mile was uphill, so we went thru in 9:03 (8:50 for the mile). There was no 2 mile mark (one of several problems I had with this race), so we didn't know where we were, but Brenna (and Anne) went by us, so after we got out of the zoo, Zach ran hard down the hill and caught and got some space on Brenna. She closed most of the gap, and Zach's shoe was about to fall off (it had been untied since just after the mile mark), so I tied it for him with about a half to go - losing about 10 seconds in the process. He caught Brenna again at the 3 mile mark (25:30, so averaged 8:13 for those 2 miles), but had used up too much and Brenna had a surprisingly strong kick and ran away.

I haven't run many road races lately, and am quite unlikely to do so if this is the current state of road race management. This was a Rochester Runner of the Year race - I expected competence, at least. Where do I begin? Thunderstorm? OK, they don't control the weather, and I know it's important to start the race on time (more on this in a minute), but if I was on the hook for 600(?) or so lives, I would have considered delaying the start. Perhaps I am just a wuss that was exposed to multiple high school track delays this spring. Course? It was a free-for-all thru the zoo parking lot. There were NO markings, so some people took a near beeline from the entrance to the lot, some people zig-zagged thru some parked cars, some people stayed wider - closer to the perimeter of the lot, and many people (Zach and I included) ran around some random car that was parked in the lot. Was the course certified?

Start times? OK, delaying the start of a race is a bad thing, and they chose not to delay the 5K start for lightning; however, accelerating the start of a race is UNACCEPTABLE, especially with no announcement! They just blew the air horn 7 minutes before the scheduled start of the kids 1-mile fun run and Luke was around the corner staying out of the rain, so he lost 23 seconds at the start. It was a mess.

Timing? OK, go with the fancy wire-in-the-number timing system - but make sure you have a foolproof backup system. 90 minutes after the start of the race, less than half of the finishers had been posted, and there were people missing from that half, including Patty. When I looked at the paper this AM, there's Patty in 4th place overall, in 19 minutes and change. I have no idea where they got that from, but use common sense - if a near-US age group record (?) shows up in the results, double-check something.

Well, at least I got to run thru the zoo - the first time I've been in it during the 23 years I've lived in Rochester (in the interim, I've been to at least 5 other zoos - off the top of my head).

C • Patty's time 2

C • Sweet timing 1

C • Backup Timing Check System 1

Ran the Jungle Jog One Mile Fun Run with Luke - his first race of this sort. He ran surprisingly even splits overall - he was 4:21 at the turnaround, and there was more than 15 seconds from back past the starting line, to the finish line, so he had a slight negative split. Since he started 23 seconds late, he had people to pass the whole way. He passed a couple of kids and I heard a "hey Luke", and a kid caught back up to Luke - it turned out to be a classmate named Royce, who tried to move back ahead of Luke, but didn't have quite enough left.

The course started right near the XC mile mark and ran out like the XC course, so it was nice and muddy from the rain - Luke had fun with that, running straight thru some of the puddles.

Various warm-up time, some alone, some with Walt and Patty, some with Zach.

I think this was only my second Saturday AM round of the year (although it apparently was my 20th round of the year!). I hit the ball well off of the tee most of the time, but was very sloppy after that. My putting was better (34 putts), but I only made a couple that were over 4' - most holes finished with a tap-in.

It became quite warm and humid as noon came and went (I was over there just after 7:30, but didn't get off until 8:25), so I spent some time at the range.

4:02/8:10
1:31,33,34,33,33,34
3:27,24

Went pretty easy, as I was still hoping to run the 5K tomorrow, but now I am leaning towards running with Zach, since my calf is still tender and feeling vulnerable. That reminds me, where's my ice and vitamin I?

I ran an easy 3, mostly on grass around Basket Rd - the soccer fields plus the various nearby businesses, etc.

Zach's team played a full 60 minutes this time. Zach started the play for the only first half goal, by keeping it in from his defensive position, and took over goalie duties in the second half, making some good saves while it was 2-1 and they went on to win, 4-1.