Training Log Archive: syd

Met up with W4J for a spin. Loop of Olsen and then dirt roads. Fun ride on a nice evening!

Sooo windy on the way back.

Legs felt surprisingly good on the hills. Convinced mom to bike along next to me.

Biked out to Panama Rocks. So many hills! The downs made the ups worth it though :) I think I set a new speed record on my mountain bike.

Met my family at Panama Rocks for a hike. We had pretty low expectations, but it turned out to be really neat. There were big rock formations/cliffs that had all sorts of crevices and caves you could explore.

Found a couple National Forests to explore. The Westside Overland Trail ran through both so I biked along that. It was surprisingly well maintained and marked. More of a hiking trail, but only a few sections that were really rocky/rooty. Pretty muddy. And then back across more massive hills. My climbing legs were shot. I'll definitely have to go back and explore more next time I'm out here. The trail runs for 25 miles total and there was some singletrack in one of the forests.

Quick out and back.

Biked into a rain storm and then back out. Steadily harder rain on the way out and our road wasn't even wet when we got back. Should've checked the radar and biked the other way!

Much better than last time.

5.9
5.10
5.11+
5.11
5.10+
5.10

C • Btw 2

Trot around Gallup / B2B. Quite humid.

Event: SMOC Monks Rd
 

SMOC Monks Road - Red

Wasn't sure how my legs were going to feel after Ludington yesterday, but they felt surprisingly good. Navigation was tough, I made quite a few errors.

2 - As I was headed to 2 the terrain wasn't quite matching. Saw KFish running off a little ways ahead, so just continued on and ended up at 3...oops. Easily found 2 from there and then right back to 3.

4 - Ended up right next to the water. Didn't mean to go down that far, but easily found the reentrant.

7 - Major error, on possibly the easiest control... Planned to cut in from the trail crossing, thought I was there so I headed in to the woods, but I hadn't actually made it to the trail crossing yet. Very silly error, should've been so obvious based on the terrain.

9 - Went around on the trail. Those woods looked thick.

13 - Went W around the lake. It was mapped as green, but it was quick to travel through and following the marsh led right to the reentrant.

14 - Climbed the hill leaving 13 on the indistinct trail. Oof. Sooo steep!

16 - Drifted quite far S and ended up on the edge of the big N-S depression. Relocated quickly and headed N to the correct little depression.

Really fun course. Poured rain for the first half, but it was warm and kept the mosquitos away, so it was kind of nice. Thanks Igor!

Flag pick-up.

Red - Splits

Event: Michigan Adventure Race: Ludington (6 or 12 hours)
 

Michigan Adventure Racing: Ludington 12 hr

Raced as a 4 person team (Topo the Mountain) with KFish, W4J and Andy Brown. Started with a bus ride to the start which was pretty cool, this was my first linear AR. First section was a point to point trek with some tricky navigation. Everyone started out in a big pack, but by the 3rd control only the top 6-7 teams were still going back and forth. We were with other teams for the majority of this trek, which isn't my favorite, but it was fine. No errors, got lucky with one when Andy spotted the flag as I was just stopping to study the map.

Got to the TA where they had dropped all the bikes. All ~150 bikes were laying upside down in a field and we had to find ours...only took a few frantic minutes. Headed out to grab one CP on our way to the paddle put in. After punching CP9 we took the southern route, which turned out to be quite a bit slower than going north. Oh well. Our way was more fun. Went back and forth with MRA on this section. They would miss a turn, we'd go the right way and a few minutes later they would pass us again.

At the paddle put-in we were given the location of 2 additional paddle points. Went a short ways upstream to grab those 2 and then the bulk of the paddle was downstream to the next TA with just 1 more point along the way. Paddling downstream with a tailwind was quite nice.

Next section was a longer bike back to the park with 2 sections of singletrack. Large sections were pavement with a strong tailwind and we were flying. W4J did a great job out front. Hit the first section of single track and we were just told there were 2 flags in there somewhere. The first was near the entrance and it sounded like the trail would be easy to follow, so we just zoomed off along the blue marked bike trail. Turned out there were a few different colored loops. We did the wrong one twice, then a hiking trail? before finally figuring out the loop thing. So frustrating. Should've stopped to look at a posted map earlier, that was my fault. Only complaint was lack of instruction here - without a map of the trails it would have been nice if we had been told which color trails to ride. Headed to the next section of single track which had 2 CPs. Stopped to look at the map this time. Hit the first one and then Andy got a flat... stopped to fix it and his spare tube also had a hole... I gave him my tube which worked. Whew. Somehow during this process his disk brake bent, so it was clicking for the rest of the bike. Luckily we just had a short section of single track to finish and a quick bike into the park.

Last section was a score-o style foot section. Points made a nice loop so it was just deciding which direction to go. I picked CW to do most of the off trail points on the way out and then have an easy trail run on the way back. Navigation was smooth throughout, saw Mr. W's team about half way through so we pushed it in on the way back.

Overall, our transition times were awesome. Navigation was pretty solid. I did a great job eating/drinking, I've never felt so good during/after a race. Looking at our time we lost 15? min taking the southern bike route, 20 min at the singletrack and another 20 min for the bike mechanical...so considering all that we could've been about an hour faster, which is pretty awesome. Just wasn't our day. One day we will have the perfect race :)

Finished 6th overall. 3rd 3-4 person co-ed.

Spin over to Olsen for some last minute gear checks. I think everything is ready for this weekend!!

Started with bouldering and then switched to top rope.

Nice trot around the neighborhood. Trails were all dry.

Met up with W4J and Andy to practice our single blade canoeing. It was quite windy out on Kent Lake.

Single track at Yankee Springs with Brenda and Joe. Biked from our campsite and hopped on the trail where it neared the road. Fun ride. Lots of different terrain and good practice for steep ups with roots/rocks. Brenda gave us a few good biking tips. Forgot to restart my watch for a short section.

SMOC Yankee Springs Score-O

Planned a CW route that hit all the CPs, but I didn't think I would clear so marked a few points as optional. Started off headed to 49 with a lot of other people. It cleared out pretty quickly after that and I hit my next couple CPs with no trouble. Then made a pretty big error headed to 77. I was looking for a hill - should have checked my clue sheet because it was in a depression... As I was marching along, I decided I had overshot the flag because I could see the marsh to my right. Backtracked, dallied about, and then finally stumbled on the flag. Silly. Probably lost about 10 minutes there. After that I was more diligent about checking the clue sheet.

The rest of the race went pretty smoothly. No more navigation errors. Wasn't feeling overly speedy, but tried to keep up a good pace. Ended up dropping quite a few points N of the start as I was running out of time. Headed from 66 to the finish, I thought I would make a dash for 76, but I couldn't see it from the top of the hill and only had 3 minutes left, so bailed and sprinted for the finish. Squeaked in with <1 min to spare. Fun course!

Leisurely flag pick up with KFish. Bobbled the last flag even though we were moving quite slow. Ha.

Yankee Springs Nearly Night-O

Mr. W was nice enough to set an o-course the night before the meet. Wasn't quite dark yet, but I had my head lamp on anyway. Was way faster than I was expecting - basically a sprint. Tried to stick with the front pack for the first few, but after following the train to the wrong flag after 2, decided I should look at my map at little more closely. Couldn't quite keep up with Tim/Tom/Kevin. Went back and forth with Brenda/Tizoc for a while. Super fun! Thanks Mr. W!

Nearly-Night-O - Splits

The usual dirt road loop.

Planned to start at Bandameer, but traffic was ridiculous so just parked off Barton and ran to the trail instead. In the future we should just park at Leslie... Did a loop of Leslie, Bird Hills, random other trail and back up the boardwalk. Nice night for a run, weather is finally warming back up!

5.9
5.10
5.11
5.11
5.10

Biked out to ILRA. Was a little chilly biking into the wind, but the sun was nice and warm. Hopped on the singletrack and did the yellow/blue loop. And then biked home. Tried a different route back that had less traffic, so thumbs up. Also had a nice tail wind on the return trip. Fun ride.

Rainy.

Back and forth a couple times with some random guy on the way out. There weren't enough climbs for me to keep up with him though. A little chilly, but nice evening for a ride. Not looking forward to rain for the next few days.

Windy and cold.