Training Log Archive: Sandy

Day 1 at the US Champs. Two major errors and lots of little ones. An extra 9-10 minutes on #4 and an extra 5-6 minutes on 11 plus several 30 second to 1 minutes errors on #3, #9, #12 and #13. I'm not sure what happened on #4; I was slightly to the right of the control and then I just couldn't sort it out for a long time. I knew I was close, and I was, but it took forever to settle myself down and reason out what I was seeing. For some reason I kept thinking I could "luck" into the control instead of read my way in. Did the same thing on #11 after several good legs where I could have screwed up but kept myself in check. Excellent course and I really enjoyed it; not sure why I couldn't focus.

Green X - Splits

Model Event at US Champs. I have no idea how long I was out so I'll just say an hour. Had lots of fun randomly running around looking at the terrain and getting a feel for the map. Very enjoyable. Got off course at one point and ran into Jeff Watson who was streamering an alternate route around an out of bounds area. I really wasn't anywhere I wasn't supposed to be, but I wasn't where I thought I was either!

3rd leg of the relay at Lava Butte; on a team with Gail Gagarin and valerie Meyer. We were the Golden Ladies of the Night-O - we all had won gold at the night-o champs in Colorado a few weeks earlier. Absolutely no pressure as we were all doing this for fun. Still, I was pleased to see I pulled up several places when all was said and done. I had about a 4 minute error on #9 (got pulled off by other people; stupid - I was headed right to the control and got sucked off line), but other than that was clean until the spectator control at which point it was about an hour into the race and my brain shut down. Big error on #16 and small one on #19. I don't know how much time I lost since I also forgot to clear my ecard and the last 5 controls don't have splits. I was lucky the previous course only had 15 controls so that all of of my punches were recorded!

Walked home from where I usually transfer buses. It's where the Wissahickon Creek connects to the Schuylkill River - probably about 6 miles. More effort than the walks I did a few weeks ago since I had a full backpack including laptop.

Wow! Did the Cranky Monkey mountain bike race in Fountainhead Park, VA this morning. (Valerie was working results and got me an entry - pays to have friends in high places!) Fantastic place to bike - very few rocks, but lots of roots, lots of narrow track on sides of hills, bridges, up and down and, thankfully, the occasional "easy" section. Really, really fun. Rode in the beginner female class, came in 2nd (not as good as it sounds - only 4 finishers). Meant only one loop as opposed to two or three. Heart pounding, hard breathing the whole way. Total wuss on the downhills; but reasonably strong on the uphills. Jumped a few logs and rode up and over a couple of built up piles. Definitely would like to ride there again. Oh, wait, I will! That's where the AR in September starts.

C • 2