Training Log Archive: j-man

Event: Middlesex Fells Skyline Scramble
 

US Champs
Plymouth, WI

Skyline Scramble, 10AM

A very good warmup, including some active stretching and faster running.

US Champs, Day 1 Blue.

Blue Day 1 US Champs - Splits

Event: US Individual Champs 2009
 

Warmup event. Time is from the hut (start) to the finish (finish circle.)

Felt good running. Took it easy except for one leg after about 50% down.

Made a few mistakes, but found it possible to navigate there without too much trouble.

Did not sleep too much. Went to bed at after 1:30 and got up at 4:45.

Took a nap on the plane and later (about 1 hour) in the parking lot.

Easy run with 4 x 1 minute on (10.5), 1 minute off at around 20 minutes.

This was late in the evening (11ish?)

Easy bike.

Basic circuit.

To the track. Felt so-so. But, it was a nice day.

A nice plyometrics set. The grass was damp and very cold.

Strides. Random detritus on random lanes of the track. Mostly hurdles.

1600 @ 5K pace
1000 x 3 @ 5K/3K/5K pace (400/200/400, surge the middle 200)
600 x 2 @ 3K pace

400 rest after the 1600, 200 rest after that.

527
320

321
149

323
151

324
153

159
154

158

Average laps:
81.75
80.40
81.20
81.60
79.33
78.67

and (unweighted) average of 80.49.

I've signed up for winter track and am pretty excited about it.

Terry made the comment that older guys like him (and me too!) need to work to hold onto their speed. I wish I had some of his 44 year-old speed.

Home, but stopped by MIT and met up with the CSU crowd who were doing circuit training. Cool rendezvous. I'd log the break, but then I'd have to measure the distance for each segment, in my OC manner.

Only 1.5 more events to put on this year.

Next year I swear I am cutting back. Nothing besides the DVOA HR Training Weekend and the HR A Meet sprint.

Too much this year.

Level 8 hills. Took it up at 12 minutes left to temp speed, and to 10mph at 4 minutes left. Felt extremely good the whole time, especially the legs.

I think a little bit of faster running is a good thing the day before intervals.

Event: NEOC 2009 Club Championship
 

Went to the NEOC club Champs today. Not a good idea. More later, probably as a rant.

Promised discursive rant.

I set off for the NEOC club champs at Wrentham. It was raining fairly hard, and cold. I don't know why I went. Probably, the main reason was that my car had to be moved to the garage, and that meant that I had to go outside anyway.

My car is falling apart. Aside from the admonition to go visit Hans at the workshop to attend to the battery, it also informed me that the left license plate lamp is out. I do have to say, the level of feedback about the state of the vehicle is pretty obsessive. Nice, though.

Anyway, the GPS takes me by Gillette Stadium, despite my desire to avoid it. But, still early, so no big deal.

(minor, minor rant--perhaps don't schedule a meet at Wrentham on a Patriot's home day?)

Get to the parking and drive into the muddy, rutty field. Anticipate getting stuck later.

Register. Pay $20 because I am not a club member and because I am running two courses--one of which is a sprint. While the $4 WCOC/DVOA member fee (which incidentally is extended to all contiguous clubs) fee might be kind of ridiculously low, it is even more so when you consider the disparity in quality. And, I'm getting to that.

Anyway, decide to do the sprint first so I can get it out of the way and so I can start. (It would be a little after 1 when I finish the sprint.)

Surprisingly, it was not a bad course. In fact, I kind of liked it. I wonder if MLC was the designer? I might have varied leg length and direction a bit, but whatever. A little annoying it wasn't epunch. I was carrying the paper card.

Anyway, I had both maps with me, and upon finishing the sprint, went immediately into the red.

Here is the rant:
I am not sure what sport they do in NEOC, but it is not orienteering. It is crap. Terrain is one thing (not great, but whatever) but the map is god-awful, the course setting, kind of OK on paper, marred by control placements (with descriptions) not supported by the map. And, then good luck trying to navigate between controls. It was an Easter egg hunt, in pouring rain at 40 degrees.

My main complaint is the map. It is bad in all respects. Actually, it reminds me of a NEOC map from the 1980s. I used to think that NEOC maps from the 1980s were just a reflection of the time, but now I realize they were bad then, too. And that makes them really bad today.

Geometry is wrong, drafting is suspect, and of course, trails don't make any sense. If you are going to use maps like this, you need to dumb down the control placements, not go crazy with them. This is antithetical to the way I've been taught to produce an event.

Anyway, time to end on a positive note. Things I liked:
• Big props to their volunteers for putting on an event in such crappy conditions and being of good cheer. That is awesome.
• Epunching and controls on stands
• All controls were in the correct locations.
• The sprint course was good, even conditional on the state of the map. The regular course could have been good if it was overlayed on a real map.

NEOC Club Champs Sprint.

No warmup. Not taking it too seriously.

Good run until 12 where I really came apart.



I had a decent time on this course. The map (while very bad) was readable and the control locations were appropriate.

NEOC Club Champs Red. Not much more to say.

I'm not bothering to draw in my routes as I don't know where to put the line on the "map."