Training Log Archive: GlenT

Event: Susquehanna Stumble @ Patuxent River Park (QOC)
 

Susquehanna Stumble at Patuxent River Park near Upper Marlboro, MD. Spur and reentrant terrain, with flattish stuff in between. Lots of light green woods, but not as scratchy as I was expecting. With leaves mostly off the trees, visibility was good. Dry leaves on the steep slopes were slippery. Some wet areas, mostly in the stream bottoms, were mucky (which I managed to fall into a couple of times).

An OK run, but the navigation and woods were quite enjoyable. With a crowd through the first window and then with a group including Peggy and Tom N for 6, 7 and part way to 8. Lost contact with Peggy and Tom on the road to 8 and was then more or less on my own for the rest of the race. Flip-flopped quite a bit with two guys I didn’t recognize who seemed to be moving faster than me but taking more circuitous routes. We were apart mostly, only seeming to meet near controls, so none of us were really helping the others with navigation.

Unacceptable navigation on 8, F, 15 and S. On 8 I got to the correct big reentrant but took a minute to figure out where the side reentrant with the control was. The other three were all parallel errors, going into an adjacent reentrant and then going too far before admitting that I needed to be elsewhere. Probably lost about 10 minutes total. Happy with my choices on the window controls, except the 4th (QRSTU) where I missed seeing that a simple ccw loop resulted in a road run to the next control. Plus, had I done the ccw loop, the attack to S was much better and I would have likely avoided my error there.

I liked the course design by Matt Stout. Thanks to him and all of the other volunteers who spent several hours outside at 40 degrees with a breeze and no sun to let us enjoy the woods.

Window orders: ACBDE, GHIJF, LMPKON, RTUSQ, YXZWV.

Route Gadget. http://routes.qocweb.org/cgi-bin/reitti.pl?act=map...

Long - Splits

Walking Purchase Park in Salisbury Township. I knew that these trails were a stretch for my current ability, so there was a bunch of walking the bike, mostly through leaf covered uphill rock gardens. Rode through a lot of rock too. Started at Dobson Park, which is the high point of the area, so there was a lot of uphill in the second half. Today was also a test of cooler weather riding, since it was in the upper 40s - one layer on the legs (plus shorts over) was fine. A bit overdressed on the torso with LS, SS shirts plus a windbreaker. Will need full-fingered gloves for colder than this.

Winter arrived. High for the day was about 34F, but mostly sunny. Out to the end of West Hopewell and back.