Training Log Archive: chinghua

Event: Western Mass 5-Day
 

Warming up on an orange was a good start to the weekend. This is the first time EVER that I've completed an orange course in under an hour!

Lessons from mistakes:

Overall: I felt like I was correcting myself sooner, in general. I guess maybe I'm developing a better intuition.

4 - Felt too "safe" with the water as a reference ran too far along the edge. In hindsight I should have used the stream nearby as a reference. It would have pointed me in the right direction.

5 - Need to pay more attention to precise center of circle so I know which side of the attackpoint the control is on!

6 - Running a bit further so that I can leave one trail at notable curve/kink will help gauge at which point I meet an adjacent trail that may not have any notable curves/kinks.

My first green since middlesex fells, at which I had taken 3 hours and found probably half the controls. Therefore, very satisfying to have found all the controls this time!

Lessons learned:

Overall - Takes more than 24 hours for prior lessons learned to be applied.

1 - actually, I didn't apply my lesson learned from the orange course earlier on. Reminder, when hopping from trail to trail, need to take note of where I expect to land. This time, I thought I landed right of where I wanted to go, but really, i had landed left.

10 - same deal on the way to 10! For this leg, I should have run back to control point 4 and used that as a point of reference to head to 10. Is that kind of cheating?

I guess this was my best showing this weekend, and a very pleasant surprise. I do believe that the sprint training Neil provided at Purchase and FDR made a difference. The training at Purchase helped with being familiar with the different look and feel that campus maps have. Both sites were helpful with discovering that it was possible to run pretty hard without stopping to read the map.

When I had reached the 7th control and hadn't gotten 'lost' yet, I started to worry about how many more opportunities there were for this to happen. It was quite a relief when I looked at 10 and saw it was the last one (I guess I should have noted this earlier) and that I knew how to get there. For these sprints, I can start to appreciate being able to plan a couple of controls ahead.

Event 1 - Middle Orange - Splits

Event 2 - Middle Green Y - Splits

Event 3 - UMass Short - Splits

A damp evening at westmoreand sanctuary. Ropes, wires, swings, and almost lost the light.

At the Cliffs with Peter, Pat and Susan. Lots of laps. Was happy that I still seemed able to keep up with Pat. Means that I didn't much by focusing so much on bouldering. I was expecting to be cruising the 5.11s, but unfortunately, was not. In fact, didn't manage a single 5.11 clean, to my disappointment. Still, I fit in several routes and had a good time catching up with the others. Always new moves to learn and muscles to build.

West Point. Laura "discovered" a new route that we had never paid attention to before, called Perfect Face. I led it with just one fall. I forget it's rating....5.7+? What it was was a perfect reminder of why the poison ivy wall builds character. Almost every move is a test of my faith in my abilities. This wall scares me more than any other. So I'll keep coming back.

I also managed to pull the crux of Drill Strike (a 5.10!).

Fahnestock SP.

Did the orange route. The terrain was really green (compared to the Fall/Winter season, when I first started O). Good thing is that most of the green was thorn free and pretty pliable. So, I just pretty much just bashed through stuff. Although it took me a while, I was never lost, and found the navigational aspects of the route to be quite easy. Lots of lines to follow. It definitely helps that I trained here earlier this year, and was familiar with the landmarks in the area that the route was set in.

Perhaps I need to work on smarter route choices so that I am moving faster. Well, I also need to spend less time map reading. I have such a lack of confidence when it comes to stone walls that I'm usually triple checking my orientation with respect to them.

I managed to miss the last control point because when I saw "GO" on the clue sheet I assumed that was at the finish (also, since it was the last row in the table). So, I lost another 7 minutes going back to get it.