Training Log Archive: Lori

Red course at the Halloween-O at Hale. Presto and I went dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, so our official time was actually 3 minutes shorter than this :-). It was pretty warm and humid, and I was wearing long sleeves and long pants as well as a bandanna, so I was seriously overheating. The course went pretty well for me. The biggest problem was just forcing myself through the mess that is Hale.

Controls 1 and 2 were fine. Leaving 2 I got stuck in some wait-a-minute vines and, well, I had to wait a minute or so. I finally got out of these but was somewhat thrown off my line, so I met the trail later than I expected to, which lead to some hesitation. I then attacked a bit low and had to climb back up to 3. Controls 4 was fine. Control 5 didn't have any navigation problems, I went what I felt looked to be the best way on the map, but in reality there were some pretty steep cliffs to climb (by which I mean slide) down that slowed me down a bit. Control 6 was fine, although I had some hesitation contouring along the side of the hill. Controls 7-11 were all fine, although by this point I was getting really hungry. Also, the clams from Thursday were really starting to make themselves felt, and my right hip was really bothering me. I considered grabbing some candy when I ran through the GO control, but the thought of eating chocolate while running without water was unpleasant, so I didn't. I had some hesitation on control 12 for no good reason that I can think of except that I was starting to fade. I started to go the wrong way around the marsh on 13 but corrected myself pretty quickly. I just wasn't moving very quickly at this point. 14 was fine. 15 was basically fine, but I somehow managed to miss a trail I was planning on taking by about 10 feet and had to meet up with it a bit later after going the other way around some cliffs. This wasn't much of a time cost and may have in fact been a better choice because of the cliffs. I just wasn't initially planning on it. Into the finish was fine.

Overall a pretty clean, if slow, race. Most of my navigation errors were minor or just hesitation. My legs just felt tired and pushing through the thigh to armpit high bush things mixed from time to time with thorns was difficult. I do wonder how much faster that last half would have been if I'd had a gu at the first water control. Probably not too much, but I was starting to get a headache (presumably from hunger and/or dehydration - at least it went away after eating and drinking when I was done) by control 11.

Red - Splits

Running with Presto from my apartment to lab to reseed cultures for the day, then down to the river to do the JFK-River St. loop and then back to my apartment. I did conditioning exercises at the end of the river loop on the esplanade. I was feeling uncomfortably hungry and dehydrated the entire time, which seems to be a general problem with these before breakfast runs. It's kind of strange because when I go on hungry runs later in the day I don't feel nearly as screwed up from it. Maybe it is primarily dehydration, although I do drink water before leaving. I will have to think about what to do that both won't slow me down too much in getting out the door and also won't make me feel too full while running.

Leg stuff down by the river and then core and clams back at my apartment.

CSU training at Cat Rock set by Pia and Mark. The goal of this training was to concentrate on the things to do around the control: getting in, checking codes, and getting out. I was doing ok with this (on the controls that I didn't completely screw up) for the first about 2/3rds of the course, and then I had to start slowing way down going into the control to actually have an exit plan on the way out. I started badly by completely screwing up control 1. I was quite close to the control and found a smaller, unmapped rock and then got confused when I couldn't find it on the map. Dean caught up to me at number 1 and we both wandered around in confusion for a while before finally finding it. I then was trying to get away from Dean and proceeded to screw up number 2 as well. There were two rock walls between 1 and 2 and instead of running to the second rock wall and then into the control, I got to the first rock wall, thought, wow, this seems early and went off to find the control. I finally realized what I did after following the rock wall to a break (the second rock wall had no breaks) and then ran off to the second rock wall. Amusingly, I found the control at the same time as Dean. We ran off to 3 together and managed not to screw it up. I had planned my exit from 3 on the way, so I took off to 4 with Dean a bit behind me. I found 4 before him and took off for 5. I was doing really well until 10. I saw Andy just as I was leaving 9. He had been looking for 10 for a long time and was really confused. He decided to follow me through the field. I got to my attackpoint and went into the woods but was in a hurry to find 10 with Andy right near me and went very close to 10 but didn't see it. I then saw Andy too far south, so I thought maybe the control was down there. I ended up needing to reattack twice before coming back to where I had been in the first place, looked over, and voila. I went off to 11 and 12, where I saw Andy again and then tried to keep with/ahead of him for the rest of the course, which actually worked pretty well. I wish Cat Rock was more accessible because it was a lot of fun and quite runnable in the dark! (Note: Time is approximate because I stopped my watch at one point and then realized later I hadn't started it again.)

C • On watches and strings 1

Absolutely gorgeous day to be out in the woods! Presto and I went out to set streamers for the meet in two weeks. The Fells are definitely more pleasant in the fall than the summer. I found a bunch of orange streamers out in the woods. I wonder if they are old orienteering streamers or if there is some other group of people setting streamers out in random locations. Maybe I should have taken them down, but I didn't want to ruin something for someone else if they were in fact not old orienteering streamers.

As an added bonus to this outing, I think I may have recruited a couple of people to come try orienteering. This couple came back from a trail run just as I was putting on my gaiters to go out, and they asked me what the gaiters were for. I told them, and they were like, That's even more hardcore than trail running! So it sounds like they are planning on coming to the meet in a couple of weeks, which would be cool.