Training Log Archive: neon

This day was a lot better for me. I was, on the whole, faster and cleaner than yesterday (although maybe it had something to do with being stuck just behind Evalin Brautigam for half the course). I think having other competitors around me, within sight, tends to motivate me to work harder, and also having a second very good navigator to keep me on track probably helped a lot too.

That's not to say that I didn't do any of my own navigation. I thought the navigation was more straightforward on this course, because the terrain was less bland and there were more big features (almost similar to QOC's ridge and reentrant terrain) to navigate by. The woods were less runnable, though, so it was slower going. Besides some stupid mixups with the trails on the way to number 10, and some general hesitation and dillydallying in the control circle on a few controls, I didn't have any big mistakes of note.

Unfortunately, this really good run wasn't enough to overcome my deficit of the previous day, so I didn't win third place. Fourth place is pretty okay, though.

Also random note: I had almost the exact same time today as I did yesterday! weird :P

Hay Creek - Day 2 Green Y - Splits

First day of racing at French Creek! It was a really lovely day to be out in the woods: dry, warm, and sunny, and the woods were open and had good visibility--so great to run in, too! And I did pretty well. Near the beginning of the course I had some good splits (I think I had a number one time for one of the longer legs), and I didn't find any of the navigation too confusing.

I actually thought they were very nice in setting the long legs for my course because for all of them we had some kind of handrail or big catching feature behind the control. Even if I was running to a point feature, if I missed it by a little bit, I knew there'd be a river or a stream or trail right behind me to catch me, so that took a lot of the hard thinking and route planning out of the equation for me. And the features caught me even as I went the wrong way! I 180'd out of number 8, but as soon as I ran 100m in the wrong direction there was a trail right there that caught me, and even though I felt like an idiot, my mistake wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

In addition to the 180, I found myself getting a little bit more stupid and error-prone as I neared the end of the course. I think it was a combination of confidence (because I haven't felt confident on a course in such a long time!), oxygen deprivation, and just being tired that got to me at the end, and as a result I was pretty sloppy with my navigation. Other than that, though, I had a clean race that I was happy with. I think the most important thing to take away from this race is endurance training and making sure to keep my focus, even when I'm tired.

French Creek - Day 1 GreenY - Splits

Plantations run. It was really dark by the time I got back but when I checked the time it was only 5:15.... :( no more long late sunny afternoons I guess

No practice this week so I got in a quick core strength session for today. I'm probably not going to do much this week because I have a lot of work right now.