Training Log Archive: syd

2/L8

Top-roped most of the time. So close on the 5.12- I've been working on for a while! Ended with a little bouldering.

Early morning trot with W4J around ILRA yellow and blue trails. Glad she invited me along! Great weather and nice views with the fall colors. Feet and hips were sore toward the end, but my legs felt good, better than expected.

Ran/hiked the Poto trail with full pack. Ran flats and downs, and walked most of the ups. Felt pretty good for most of it, the last 3 miles or so were rough. My calves were very tight/tired. Nice weather, the rain that was forecasted never arrived. Saw a couple other runners and more mountain bikers than I expected on such a grey day.

C • You're crazy when I'm gone 1

Sent a new V3. Made progress on a couple other V3s and V4s.

Hill circuit at the Arb. Ran loop x3 and then finished by walking back up to where we started.

C • Coincidence 2

Started with bouldering [V3]
Switched to top rope [5.11 (only made it half way - lots of falls), 5.11+, 5.11-]

Event: SMOC Island Lake
 

Started off well. Navigation was pretty straightforward in the badlands, with some of the controls in open areas that were easy to spot from a distance. The hill to #8 was quite steep, but the re-entrant I took up led me right to the control. My navigation got a little sloppy after this point. Some of the wooded sections were so thick I had trouble keeping my bearing. Hit #9-#13 without any major troubles, did have to do some searching for the control on few. Would have been faster to take the road to #10 but I trudged through the woods. Biggest error was #14. Had to reattack from the road twice (ugh) before I was successful. To #15 I crossed the stream a little early and had to fight through the marsh for a bit. Fun course :)

Biked out Huron River Dr. and around Hudson Mills. Saw some fall colors but it was a very grey day so they weren't very vibrant. Temp was in the high 40's. My toes got cold, but I was fine otherwise.

Bouldering: V3 x 3

Half trail (should've brought a better headlamp!) and half road

Bouldered (V3)
Top-roping (New 5.11-)

Event: SMOC Waterloo HQ
 

Only big error was overshooting 10, but I quickly realized my mistake and corrected. Overall the navigation went really well. I had no trouble using the landscape features. I would like to believe my nav skills are improving, but it helped that most of the features were pretty large :) There were times I think I could have picked a more efficient route, especially toward the end when I was getting tired. Getting better at jogging through the woods while navigating! Really happy with how I did. BF beat me by about 30 sec, I was so close!! He definitely had the advantage with the fair amount of road running though.

Event: Michigan Adventure Race: ArtPrize Edition
 

We knew before race day that there was going to be a foot section and a bike section and had decided we wanted to start on foot. Got our maps and made a plan. BF took the lead on navigation since he had done an urban orienteering meet before.

We started with all the co-ed teams and it seemed a majority headed to the bikes first, only one other team chose the same first checkpoint as we did. We were worried about lines at the challenges, but they were all laid out really well and we never had to wait. The first one I had to describe to BF a piece of art and he had to go find it in the gallery...my describing skills weren't that great, but he eventually found the right one! The second challenge we had to write down all the market stalls with leaves on their signs, we found 9 and there were only supposed to be 7...everything looked like a leaf. Those were our worst challenges, the rest were very quick. Starting out our plan was to run a much as we could and we ended up running nearly the entire section. Was about 7 miles in total. A couple minor navigation blunders, but overall the foot section went really well.

Hopped on our bikes to head to the second half of the course. Biking in the city was frustrating, we had to wait for so many lights. Hit the first few points without trouble. Then our biggest mistake of the race. We had been navigating based on road names and one of the names didn't match the maps. Ended up biking quite a ways past it before BF recognized the mistake and we turned back around. All the challenges on this section went really quickly. There was about a mile of two track that was a little rough, but we made it through with no crashes!

Near the end of our bike route was a quick foot orienteering section. Still had the energy left to jog most of this section. The first 4 points we found with no trouble. Wandered around a bit on the last point before realizing we had walked within 10 feet of it on the way in...not sure how we missed that. On the way back to the bikes I smashed my knee pretty hard, but luckily I was able to walk it off.

All we had left was the bike to the finish with 3 check points along the way. Made it back with no trouble, again had to stop at a few lights. Finished with time to spare! Placed 5/100 co-ed and 7/185 overall. Very happy with how we did. Definitely had a very different feel than more traditional races. I had a great time, but prefer woodland races :)

Bouldered for a while. Finished 1 V3, close on 2 others. Switched to top roping. Solid attempt at a new 5.11+, made it about 3/4 but my arms were shot. Finished with a super crimpy 5.10.

Trails around home

Out Joy Rd. Legs were a little tired from yesterday.

Night run down to campus and back up Green.

Half top roping, half bouldering.