Training Log Archive: ernst

Event: Billygoat 2017
 

Billygoat! My goal was to choose an even pace from the start, and try to prevent cramping up. I had 2 cliff-shot gels, one each at waterstop 2 and 3. That seem to work. On the long way to 1, I immediately settled into a comfortable pace, walked the ups like most everyone else, tried to "feed" off the pack but also checked for smarter shortcuts, stream crossing etc. Eventually was near Tony, Izzi (I believe), and then Ted and a whole bunch of pygmies which confused me because the repeatedly ran off into what seem to me to be the wrong directions from the controls.

Decided to skip 4 not noticing that 14 would have been better.
Was just behind Ted going high from 3 to 5, so changed my plan to go left around. Ended up passing him and just arrived at 5 as a large gaggle of frontrunners crashed down the reentrant coming out of 5 towards me.
Saw Ethan shortly but lost him soon.

After that, Ted and I pretty much traded places on and off, also chose different routes at times but always somehow merged again. Eventually Ted seemed a bit faster down from 15 to the last water stop and I did a bit more of the following.

We caught up with Ari afterwards on the last Saeger loop. Ari had a few minor boobles but he was much spryer than Ted or I. Ted solidly led the straightline W run down from the forked 22 to 23. Ari took the long trail around to 24, but Ted drifted too the left after the bridge. Ari caught up and took the lead. Meanwhile I took smaller steps since I had a minor leg cramp after a fall at 18, but managed to keep it at bay. So I continued steadily but cautiously uphill to 24 thinking long-legged Ted will fly by me any moment. Well, he did not. Apparently he faded after his little mistake. So I reached the finish in 20th place, one better than last year.
Pretty happy with my navigation and route choices. Especially since I have not orienteered much in the last 2 - 3 years. My running was good, no major pains. I was glad it was cool, otherwise I may have had real cramping issues as I have had in the last 5 or so goats.

Billygoat - Splits

NEOC meet at Upton State Forest. Nicely situated on the way to the BG. Came with Jim down from NH. Still intermittent showers - that front was supposed to be out by early morning. Fun course. The area is a bit limited for advanced courses due to the many linear features (stone walls and streams), and yet it was confusing. The rather bland contours made it difficult to keep the line especially since I was too casual in the compass use, so I drifted off the map out of 2 in the NE corner, bumping into a trail, but everything seem to be off by about 90 degrees.
Eventually relocated. Another slight mistake to 5 (ran over hill on the westerly trail, but knew exactly what I did. Then going into 6, I ran N along stream to find a good crossing, but then ignored that I had corrected by 20 m, so mistakenly took the 2 boulders to be the S pair. All in all lost about 8 minutes. Light and steady jogging otherwise on the day before the BG.

Around Littlejohn woods. Parked at Wiswall as usual. I took the Pound Ridge map from the BG 1992 with me. It was very difficult to get into this 1:15k map while running. Eventually just had to stop for long moments to read the details and memorize segments of the course. I try to simulate what I considered sustainable BG pace - mostly on trails, some off-trail running as well. Several hill repeats, but did not push hard, just tried to settle into a comfortable level of effort. 6 miles was enough. Needed to get back to work.

Run to work via Beech Hill. Nancy dropped me off at B-H road on our way home from dropping off the car. A couple of hill work outs thrown in.

Various errands. 1. Jog from bus stop (Shaws) to garage to pick up
car. 2) A light jog (trail) to get the dog out of the house 3). Ran over to Foggs to submit monthly payment (trail).