Training Log Archive: Sandy

Second outing on the Shickshinny map and it was like night and day from Tuesday. This course stayed in great, open terrain almost the whole time with only a couple legs where you had to go through laurel. I figured there was no way I'd be able to do the whole 6.7 km course if it was like the other day but I got through it in 3:17:50 which included a huge error at #21 - maybe 20 or 25 minutes. (The additional time is the walk to start and back from finish. I can't be bothered to stop and start my watch and wait for it to regain signal.)

I was cruising along and got to #15 in 1:46. My original plan was to stop at #15 and take the trail back if I had been out for 3 hours or was tired. I was stunned that I was under 2 hours so decided to keep going. Got to #20 in 2:19 still with no real errors. And then I was almost 40 minutes to #21. And then another 20 minutes to finish. Argh!

I don't know why I had so much trouble at #21. I thought I knew where I was but I kept searching around about 100 meters short of where I needed to be. I guess I was more tired than I realized at that point. I had also broken my glasses with the reading inserts earlier in the course but luckily had a pair of reading glasses with me to use in an emergency. I would carry them in my hand and then put them on when I needed to see more than just direction on the map and perhaps that had an impact. But I kept searching behind me and not in front of me when I know that my most common error is to just not go far enough. Anyway, I finally gave up and asked UsynligO for a hint and then was fine.

Another great outing on one of Greg's maps. Having the freedom to pick whatever day has the best weather and go when I want has been really great. But hunting season is starting and so it will be back to Sundays only for a while and then not even those will be safe. :(

Thanks, Greg!

C • Sunday Hunting 2

Session with Kelly.

Moved my workout space down to my basement (from my living room). It wouldn't work for many people since it has low ceilings but being short occasionally has some advantage.

Around the neighborhood.

Shickshinny usynligO course on one of Greg's maps.

Took me about half an hour to understand the map. There are these huge negative features that were initially very confusing - giant rock-lined gullies that you had to plan ahead to get around - and the up/down on the big ridges wasn't always immediately obvious and required a second careful look to be sure I understood.

I have mixed feelings about the map - most of the course was in this fantastic super fun detailed area that was wide open and clean but a bunch of legs were in trashier woods with prickers or lots of rock underfoot or ferns or laurel or downed trees. It was such a contrast to the nice stuff that it probably made it seem worse than it was but I found those legs really brutal.

The course went ok. I initially headed the wrong way out of #1 (it was also #17 and I headed to #16) and when I realized my error and corrected towards #2 I ended up facing one of the big gullies and having to go a ways to get around it so lost quite a bit of time there. (The straight route out of #1 to #2 would have avoided it naturally.) And UsynligO was not as good as it's been on the Sandy Run map - several times I was at the right feature and had to walk around for a while before it would agree I was there. Several other times it would tell me I was there well before I reached the feature so not sure what was going on.

Still super fun to be able to get out on new maps. I will probably design myself some courses that stay in the good stuff as enticement to go back.

C • Forest 5

Took a planned rest day, but did my "morning stuff" just to see if I still could.