Training Log Archive: JanetT

Event: 2010 US Team Trials for WOC
 

Walk to start of middle course, with a few jogging sections thrown in.

Ran the women's red course, open category at the Team Trials event. I was one of the first starters after the TT went out, meaning faster runners starting later had the chance of catching me. I tried not to think about them, but didn't always succeed. Linda K started 2 minutes back.

A lot of little errors mostly in map-reading, as I'd get into the circle but then bop around either looking in the wrong place (a lot of little similar features nearby) or not reading the descriptions carefully and looking at the wrong feature. I managed to do 6 controls cleanly by myself, and another 6 I had others around pinpointing the control location. The other 7 I managed to mess up all by myself.

AP split analysis gives my biggest errors at 3, 8, and 15. At 2 I was off to the left; at 4 I was about 6' away looking in the wrong direction; at 5 I was looking on nearby cliffs; at 6 I was about 5 meters north of it but Linda spotted the flag first. A lot of little mistakes that add up. After bobbling 8 Linda left me behind, so I was surprised to see her going in to 17 at the same time as me...she had bobbled the leg to 11 and lost several minutes. My mistake at 15 was not reading the map well; thinking the cliffs were on the east side of two little hills when really they were on the west--dumb. At 16 I picked up Charlie, and shortly thereafter Linda, Kissy, and Katia. Charlie disappeared and I managed to keep L, K, and K in sight til the end.

I suspect I was going too fast to read carefully. The ones I did better on I think I went slower.

FR distance was 4.22 km.

Walk back to parking from finish of middle course.

TT-women's sprint course north/northwest of Lake Welch Beach, 1:4000. We were able to watch the TT-ers visit a few controls that were visible from the parking lot, which helped (hey, use the information if it's available, right?). In particular, we could see both men and women visit one bare rock / cliff face at the far end of the lot. After I got my control descriptions I noted #3 was "bare rock, SE side", and once I flipped over my map I confirmed that was the one. Then I proceeded to flub the first control, a cliff, visiting the men's control (in a reentrant which had a rock face), but I quickly corrected. Went mostly smoothly from there, though several people with more speed passed me here and there. I overran the "white corridor" into 13 (a little corner at the E end of a thicket) and came around from the far end, so a little hesitation there. But I didn't skip any controls (yay! no mispunch), and didn't finish last, both of which were goals for this race. :-)

FR = 2.36 km

Red Middle - Splits

Red Sprint - Splits

Almost-typical rest day before racing tomorrow. Of course I'm not going to work as hard as those doing Sunday's races too. :-)

I'm volunteering at the finish Sunday. Should be great fun to see everyone racing in! And the weather report sounds just right for spectators. :-)

Using exercise balls. I got there early enough to get a correctly sized one. Hips extremely tight after hip exercises, probably a remnant of yesterday's long run. Did some extra hip stretches after the class.

In Chatham. "Circuits," in a way, alternating weights, step, and aerobics. Good stretching (which my hips/legs still need).

Long run, with "This American Life" for company. Listened to the whole of "The Bridge," and part of "Urban Myths." It sure made the run (in cool, damp weather -- 48 and drizzly at times) much more pleasant.

I was fascinated by one story in The Bridge, about a fellow who has a home in a space under a drawbridge. Not a bad place to be, until the drawbridge goes up!

At the Y, using rings for extra hip torture. :-)

"variety" program with inclines between .5 and 4.5.

In Chatham. Welcomed back one of the regulars who's moving to Calif. to help a sick daughter; she's back for a few weeks to pack up the house they sold in 3 weeks.

'Twould be nice to have more weekends where I have two (mostly) clean runs. This wasn't one of them.

Messed up to 1. Thought I was attacking from the spur due south; I even stopped before crossing the swamp to be sure I was going up the right reentrant. I was having a bit of trouble visualizing where things were going up, partly because the circle was obscuring contour lines...I think I walked right by it, perhaps a 1/2 contour too low (and didn't see the bag), and then checked a few other knolls in the area before heading back to the swamp to reattack. About a 6 min error.

Good to 2--straight route; kept track of features including the fact that I needed to go up a contour near the end to the form-line spur. 3 was a short leg. A bit sloppy on the route to 4, getting confused by some of the stone walls. Went beyond it rather than hugging the green which took you right to it.

Good route/attack to 5, except when I got in the circle; misread the hills at the top of the swamp (again, cutting the circle for the route in would have helped me) but corrected on the large boulder to the SSE. 3-4 min lost here.

Good route to 6, though a little slow (slower than Mary Jo); did well on the "long" leg to 7; hit mountain bike trail to 8. Out to MB trail to 9, but cut across reentrant to where MB trail loops back; around the bend, then cut down to run along the edge of the reentrants and counted them off. Score!

10 was my biggest error; I didn't want to climb straight up and intended to loop around/contour around the right (E) side but as I was passing a contour or two below the correct reentrant I looked up, wondered if that's where my control was, but didn't check because things in the flat area didn't look right to me. So I wandered in the rock NW of the control until going N to the trail to relocate, which I did successfully. But I lost ~9 minutes on this leg.

Clean the rest of the way in, though I was getting tired near the end. But not as tired as I thought I'd be! Climb was a bit less than typical for a 5.5 km green (which was just fine with me).

FR = 7.02 km

Also, walk to start 5 min from bus drop off to assembly area, 6 min from assembly area/finish to start.

Excellent meet by WCOC and the US Team! Thanks to all involved.

Green Day 2: Long - Splits