Training Log Archive: syd

Took about a mile for my legs to warm up, but after that they felt pretty good. Mixed in 4x60s at a faster pace.

Stopped at the gym on my way home from work. It's almost on the way and avoided the terrible traffic I usually hit when I come home from this site, so I might make this my usual Wednesday. All bouldering. Finished a couple V3-5.

Short spin along the trail. There was a strong headwind on the way back. And some sprinkles. Legs felt surprisingly good.

* Actual distance travelled was farther - Kevin’s watch dropped satellites a few times.

Event: Nitrogaine IV
 

Nitrogaine IV
Team Topo the Mountain with Kevin

Made the drive up to Michigan on Saturday morning and relaxed at the recreation area for a few hours before the race. The forecast earlier in the week had called for rain, but it turned into a nice afternoon/evening with just a chance of showers overnight. We got our maps at 8 p.m. and planned a generally clockwise route. Based on the distances it looked like we wouldn’t have any problem clearing the course.

Started off at 10 p.m. and I was so excited! The course looked fun and it had been a while since we had done a longer race. We started off well, steadily checking off CPs in an area with high point density. First mistake was on 75. I had planned to follow the re-entrant right up to the saddle, but we missed the flag and hit the trail. Took us a bit to figure out where we were on the trail before we could reattack. Finished up the SE area of the map about 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Next up was a long out and back to 82. Our route was not the most efficient, but it minimized the potential for errors. I was pretty worried about this flag, but we found it without too much trouble.

Next up was the rest of the map W of Teggerdine. Lots of mistakes in here. Bobbled 66. We didn’t have a good attackpoint and were not confident as we neared the circle even though we were in the right place. Planned to stay in the woods to 57, but I was having trouble reading the contours and we ended up near the road, so cut out and back in from the water stop. Another bobble on 78. Somehow ended up W of the pond instead of the marsh. Kevin realized what we had done, so that was a quick correction. Drifted on our bearing to 69, but we hit the dry stream and followed that to the flag. The next few flags went well and then we had our biggest error of the night on 63. Everything was looking good as we headed S from the road, but then we missed the spur we wanted and continued down the bulk of the marsh. I realized what we had done, so we attempted to correct, but we must have just walked in a circle and then done the same thing again… After realizing this the second time, we very deliberately reattacked and finally found the flag. I was so curious to look at our tracks here, but Kevin’s watch lost satellites. We then took a terrible route out to the road and wasted more time there getting through thick stuff. At this point we were still on time to clear the course, but well behind our initial time estimates.

The race had been a lot of off trail up to this point, but the rest of our route involved a lot of trail running. We refocused after our plethora of errors on the W portion of the map and headed E, picking up the points N of the park road. Things went pretty smoothly through that section. Started raining around 4:30 a.m. I don’t think I have ever raced in the dark while it was raining before. It was kind of fun, although it did make it more difficult to see and I was glad it didn’t rain the entire night.

After finishing that section, we had over an hour remaining and just a few points left to get as we headed S back toward the finish. Small error on 71, we dropped down into the wrong depression. Terrible exit out of 49. Got a little turned on the trails headed to 79. Took the wrong fork of the trail headed to 31. I am not sure how we missed the correct fork, but we cut through the woods and eventually figured out where we were. Clean through the rest and finished with ~15 minutes to spare.

Overall, it was a great race. The navigation was more challenging than last year and there was a lot more off trail travel. I also enjoyed the change of venue. Thanks Mr. W!! My navigation was pretty terrible, I made so many mistakes. Disappointed that we didn’t do it as fast as we could have, but it was still good enough to secure the win! First time we have ever cleared a Nitrogaine course. Finished 1st OA.

C • Congrats on the win! 3

I've never seen the creek so high. A decent amount of debris on the trail from the flooding yesterday. Didn't feel my quad at all :)

Bouldering.

Exploring down one branch of the Panhandle trail. It was all paved. Not very exciting on a mountain bike, but it would be great for my road bike.

Bouldering. It's been a while!

So humid.

Exploring a new part of the trail. It was nice - all gravel, very few road crossings. Quite a nice day for a bike ride.

Easy trot along the trail. It's still mostly gravel - they only paved a couple short segments. L quad is down to a very minor ache. Will hopefully be able to start running fast again soon!

Combination of the white and red/white loops at South Park. My legs felt decent, but I just had no energy. Probably dehydrated. It was good mental training. Lots of hills. And mud.

Rail trail after work.

Event: WPOC Deer Lakes Orienteering
 

WPOC meet at Deer Lakes. Red: 7.0 km (240)

Turned out to be pretty nice weather for orienteering. It rained all morning, so the woods were really wet, but it didn't rain while we were running and it wasn't too hot! My run was pretty smooth, just had a few small mistakes. Got a little turned around on the trails to 3. A lot of hesitation on 8, it was farther than I was expecting. More hesitation on the way to 10. Got stuck in some very thick vegetation on the way to 12. The map was misleading about the amount of green in that area. And a poor route to 15. I didn't want to bash down the stream, but I got pushed pretty far N by green on the way to the trail. Kevin beat me by 1s!

Fun bike ride. Legs felt much better than last weekend. Checked out a house on the way out.

'Flat' loop at South Park. Pushed the pace a bit to use this as a baseline. Not sure where I lost so much distance to Kevin? Will have to compare routes.

Rock rings and core.

Planned to run the trail at the end of the road, but I got partway out and there was a road crew paving the perfectly good gravel trail! Lame.

Drove down the road a bit and ran from there instead.

Full white loop at South Park. So much mud. There isn't much rain in the forecast this week, so hopefully it will dry out soon. Legs felt good.

All top-roping today. It's been a long time, so all the routes were new.

Nice morning for a ride. No crashes or flats, so it was a good day! My legs were so tired.

Met Kevin on the trail after work. Nice to have our mountain bikes back! Kevin got a flat a few miles from the end of our ride and we didn't have a co2 cartridge, so he ran back.