Training Log Archive: Sandy

Event: DVOA Gould Run
 

Green course at Gould Run. Fabulous day and fabulous woods. Hickory Run is my favorite park for sure. Could of won the course today despite the ridiculously long time: Karl A in 1:37:xx, Mark Frank in 1:38:xx and then me. That isn't going to happen again any time soon.

1. Took a bearing and went on faith as the vague contours were tough to see and saw the very faded flag just as I was wondering if I was anywhere close.
2. Trail to the yellow. Went south of the rough open and then had to fight to stay on compass - every time I checked which was about every 10 seconds I was drifting left. But went right to the control.
3. On compass but got a little high. Didn't see the reentrant when my pace ran out but I looked around and could see it off to my right and so no big time loss.
4. Again fighting the compass but corrected after I guessed right which boulder I must be seeing and then up the spur and right to it.
5. Surprised the control was in the thicket but okay.
6. Headed south out of 5 to take the trail around and not have to climb any cliffs, then in off the clearing to the cliffs.
7. Around to the east since someone I had seen at the previous 5 controls was going around to the west, up over the hill and through the clearing.
8. My big mistake on a 150 meter control. Way too high and missed the control and never saw the humongous boulders and then lots of people all shouting at me and I didn't want to listen so I kept going only to find myself waaaayyyy past the control and eventually sorted out where I was and backtracked. Probably 8 minute error. GRRRRRR. It is mind boggling now as I look at the map that I map such a huge error on this control - it can't be more than 20 meters from a huge trail. Phooey, phooey, phooey.
9. Straight to 9 knowing the spur and then the big clearing would guide me in although I fumbled a bit at the very end.
10. Straightish for a while - my plan was just to go straight having no interest in running the big trails - until I hit the east-west trail but then didn't want to climb down the steep bank so went around to the left on the trail for a short while. Cut in at the clearings, by the swampy ground through the saddle and read the clearings and followed my compass and almost fell in the depression as it just appeared in front of me while I was looking ahead for more of a reentrant. The form lines faked me into thinking things would be more obvious.
11. Good thing I was pace counting or I would have stopped several clearings too early.
12. So I was pulling left all day and then on this control I pulled right. It seems I tend to drift uphill usually. Came out on the trail a little east of where I wanted, didn't really notice the trail was heading in not quite the expected direction, went into the woods and still didn't pick up on things when the reentrant was further from the trail then expected, was surprised not to see rough open on the far side of the reentrant and still did not sort it out, went further east and then suddenly it all clicked and I corrected and went where I needed to go.
13. Into the rough open and look for the streamers heading backwards from the finish.
F - Ran a few steps just because; had walked almost all the rest of the course.

C • nice! 1

Green - Splits

Course setting at FCN. Already the woods feel more open.

I bought some little fans: 4" or so, run on 2 AA batteries and have flimsy plastic blades that stop and it doesn't hurt at all if you stick your finger in the way. I attached one to the strap of my camelbak so it was pointing towards my face. It worked miraculously - the gnats were the worst I've seen them but the slight breeze kept them out of my face. So much nicer.

C • gnats 4

TNT - hike in Tyler Arboretum with Dasha and Ann.

Rewatched Marc's amazaing finish in the mountain race after dinner.

Hiked the short hill loop. It was very buggy, spiderwebby and humid - a great HTFU day!

C • HTFU? 7

DSR x 3 with 5' warmup up and down the stairs and 5' cooldown just walking in the house.

C • Not sure how.. 5

The google satellite maps seem new. You can now see both the new rerouted trail system and the old one, so maybe a year old?

Browsing logs again today - I know, I'm bored, I'm procrastinating, but hey, I'm on sabbatical! - I came across this via ndobbs log:
http://www.expat-finland.com/living_in_finland/fin...

The 2nd to last one - title Old Technology - had me in stitches. I still can't stop laughing.

Good mental discipline training - I was coming up with all sorts of excuses of why I didn't need to do this but I squashed them down and got out the door.

C • Nice! 2

RTP: upped the weight and reps on a few. Wore the heart monitor just to see.

TNT - intervals on the drive with Sandy while Bob and Karl ran the trails. I wanted to do a little bit of running but every time I've run recently my knees have had sharp pains that night and the next day or two. So decided to try 1 minute intervals of running and walking. Planned to do 8 but did 9 since I messed up and hit stop instead of lap for the first one and realized it after we had run for at least a minute. So restarted the workout and did 8 more.

Yummy eggplant and sausage ratatouille kind of thing Sandy made for dinner.

So far so good - no pain. Will see what the morning brings.

And the bit before I pushed stop by mistake.

Saw a link to this on a comment thread in Barb Bryant's log:
http://mobo.osport.ee/?l=en

Seems like this could also work for training: get a bunch of laminated QR codes to hang in the woods and then you use your phone to punch. Epunch without the epunch equipment.

Although I suppose you could also just hang anything that folks need to take a picture of and use cameras (phones) that time-stamp the photos.

C • Pretty cool 2

Quick morning hike. Am hoping to start these up again as I seem to have gained back 6+ of the 15 pounds I lost and this helped me before.

TM13 - treadmill workout at the gym, part of the Kilimanjaro training program:
5' warmup, 10' at 9% at 3mph, 20' at 11% at 3mph, 20' at 13% at 2.8mph, 5' cooldown.

Tried to work on not hunching over since I'm supposed to start adding a pack with weight soon for these workouts.