Training Log Archive: bgallup

Cemetery Hill Short Sprint -
I was conflicted about what course to do from registration to the start line. I had no idea how much gas I'd have for the second through fifth events. I was feeling decent but wanted to upgrade to the medium farsta, so i stuck with short. Given how knackered I was after the farsta, it was the right call.

1) dove in too soon, (10s)
2) dove in too soon, again, didn't pay attention to the contours (5s)
3) nailed it. up the clearish middle was another option, but i didn't know what white-mottled yellow actually runs like on this map
4) smash!
5) pretty good, looking a little to the north, though
6) found this pit the hard way. at speed. avoided getting skewered by the control, which was nice
7) started to dive into the thick, but noticed the trail that got real close and took that
8) control was further east down the break than i thought from the map, apparently a rightwise route would've bene decenet
9) went high - was a little out of touch here (5s)
10) went in too early - it was tough for me to read veggie boundaries (30s)
11) following someone i shouldn't. but i realized the mistake before they did (15s)
12) little turned around in the circle. too many disc golf tees right next to boulders. (30s)
13) bounced off the green trying to find the break (10s)
14) nailed it
15) tried to reel in some guy finishing up the long. failed to, but we both saved maybe 10s

1:45 total. maybe 30s of that would've been an easy save.

Mt Tom medium length farsta. ooooh boy was I cooked by the end of this

1) dumbass decision in the mass-start excitement to take the faster, longer route. straight at it would've been better, as would the northbound trail to the east. a little walky in the middle while rethinking (45s+)
2) more dumbassery - followed someone who took the right heading and the right turn out of 1, and missed a small trail while i was reading the map (1:00+)
3) good
4) good. i need to look at the map to make sure, but i think i'm happy with this one - did well in vague terrain at a decent clip, for the most part
5) good
6) good, with a bit of uphill trudge
7) pretty good, little hesitant toward the control
8) zoom!
9) dumbass choice to pick a fight with mud, should've hit the road immediately (30s) little trundley up the hill
10) drifted a little north, came back a little late. went straight over the cliff. the pile of shale chips under it were.. fun? (45s+)
11) good
12) good
13) a little hesitant, stayed too high (15s+)
14) happy-ish. thought i was coming out the same break in the cliff that i went through from 1 to 2 - consequently ended up a bit north. bounced off some green, hit the road, then zeroed right in. (1:00)
15) planned on going back past one, saw the sign that said 'goat peak' and reread the contours. was 50m behind katia for the last 50% - but picked up 2:00 on her by hitting the road for the first 50%
16) wanted to reel katia in so badly, but i was gassed. just happy to keep running. missed a little trail that would've cut 5s off.

Event 4 - Cemetery Hill Short Sprint - Splits

Event 5 - Medium DE: Mount Tom - Splits

Event: Western Mass 5-Day
 

trying my actual age class, rather than letting time bring it to me. a good race would've been 45 minutes, a great one maybe 40

turns out it was Clem and Andy Strat with the tow rope out through 7, and Ken who I failed to follow out of 14.


1) easy enough
2) apparently screwed the bearing, and was trying to navigate by the terrain, unsuccessfully. got there just in time to get a tow though 7 by ken walker and balter
8) meh. ugly, two hesitations, but no catastrophe
9) crushed it. fifth best split, even with the big boys
10) pretty decent, could've been a little better at the ends, though.
11) got confused by a trail i wasn't expecting
12) slow and wandery
13) felt good about this one, kept moving up the hill and slicing off switchbacks, homed right into it
14) should've gone direct, instead of the trail
15) and boom. tried staying in contact with a faster runner and paid for it by losing contact with the map. thought i was in the wrong trail junction and what do you know, i couldn't make it work. found a spring eventually and put the leg to bed. surprised i only dropped two places.
16) with a 10 minute rest for my legs, i killed this one
17) and this one

My original plan was to do red for the first event, and green for the second - I was pretty tired after the first upgrade, so I stuck with the second half of the plan. Probably the best race I've had, and a solid sign to move up to red if I can keep it up. 56s behind tp and 34s behind BP - no wonder he left for MN.

1) second worst leg. left the final trail too early, and on a bad heading. luckily, two wrongs made a right, and eventually i got close enough to successfully match the terrain (1:00)
2) went tank-mode on the underbrush and aced this leg by 7s. going straight at it paid off with an early reveal 100m out.
3) clean
4) clean
5) clean
6) chose the brute-force-and-ignorance route over the top. seems to have been roughly equivalent to contouring.
7) decent - coulda been more precise on the initial approach
8) worst leg. still like the initial plan to take the trail around, but came off the trail waaaay too early. didn't realize how far i hadn't gone and looked north into a reentrant before turning south. when taking the bearing to 9 my intuition was off by 45 degrees, which was unusually high. (1:30
9) i thought i had done decently on this one, but AP says I lost 30s. must've had a case of the slows
10) nailed it
11) decent.
12) murdered this split. probably my best single split ever. aced it by 47s on some very competent competition. focus was anger-powered after the fustercluck on the analogous leg on blue. had a good plan, stayed in contact and kept the hammer down the entire time
13) kept it up for one more leg. then fumbled the punch. bah
14) and trotting on in.

control pickin'. orienteering's way easier when the controls are <100m and you're walking. except for trying to move with a bouquet of 10 controls and a bag of water station trash. especially on that last one that i pooched. at a walk. got good at rotating the compass bezel with my teeth

umass sprint - a little bit of a trundle for the longer ones, but consistent. first time i've felt like i've looked far enough ahead and moved through controls. one or two hiccups, though. indicated splits lag reality by 9-10s

1) sprint maps are small! 50s. seriously.
2) getting the hang of it
3) stairs and walls are tricky
4) and it takes some willpower to go down stairs before you're certain (20s)
5) easy enough
6) likewise
7) yup
8) read it as the wrong corner, but didn't commit to anything stupid before correcting. 15s
9) bam
10) bam
11) maybe shoulda come from the north?
12) yup
13) right next to the dumpster. on a hot day. thanks!
14) honestly, i forgot what white meant on the map. there were solid trails in there, though, which was nice. went way left, shooting at the wrong corner. (10s)
15) mmhmm
16) fun scooting down the alleyways. enough people went CCW around the building - i don't understand why. slightly more gradual elevation change, perhaps.
17) easy
18) into a wee pit
F) and home

i wonder if that lag accounts for the timing discrepancies. where's that thinking hat..
14)

Event 1 - Middle Blue - Splits

Event 2 - Middle Green X - Splits

Event 3 - UMass Long - Splits

Event: CSU Park-O 6: Cat Rock Park
 

some laid back yoga with alicia. nice and stretchy. and caaaalm. rather the opposite of this

couldn't make park-o this evening, so i got a morning-ish run in instead. went out with the fresh pond map from last week's park-o, too. got a little carried away pacewise while reading. also, was up stupid-late welding last night and wasn't looking forward to the run, but a few minutes in and i felt fine.

ran the CCW loop to have more time to look at the map, and reran the course in my head. it was course 3, and for the life of me, i couldn't pick which way to get from 1 to 2 (brendan v everybody else on that animation). 5-6 was the other tricky one - I hadn't noticed that all five of the people i could find tracks for did it differently.

anyway, it was surprisingly tough to plan a random detour into the trails while on the run. and i didn't even run what sketch of a plan I did have - figured the traintracks would be more fun. maybe it had something to do with not having a control to shoot at. definitely worthwhile, and i'll definitely do it again




2L20 recovery

up and down a few bouldering problems, then a 10-fest on toprope with keja. an unlabeled 9ish 5.10 (1 cheat), 5.10b (clean), 5.10c (clean), 5.10d (one hang), and then an unspecified 10 that was the hardest of the night (one hang). feelin' good. need a rematch with that 10 lead in the supercave before it gets cleaned, though.

i just want to say that i ballparked my 8:10 total error before i saw what AP thought. Coincidence, sure, but I'm still taking credit.

Now I just need to find that goddamn receipt with my stick number

C • Stick 2

i'm not entirely comfortable with saying this, but i'm happy i went slow? shooting for 152 ahr - 80% of a theoretical max of 190. - in hopes of figuring out an appropriate training pace. looks like i nailed it, but being water-cooled helped (any motorcyclists in the house? no? no? fine.)

for funsies, if 5:45/k is the right easy-long pace for me, then that's a vdot of 45.14 and a 5k timeof 21:45. i feel like doing it that way is a bit backhanded, but that 5k time feels right - i was going slightly slower while pushing pretty hard on the first runs i did, but definitely could've given more.

and a marathon time of 3:27:42 - so now i don't have to actually run one to find out, which is nice. of course, that estimate would only be anywhere near reasonable if i were actually a runner, and not some bizarre hybrid/transistional/pupae-form "athlete"

C • Distance 3