Training Log Archive: PG

My route from the night-O'.

Green course. Wasn't even sure I was up for that, feling very tired. But it looked like a nice course and I thought I should at least give it a try. And I got around pretty well, ran a fair bit, only 2 or 3 minutes of errors, so quite pleased, and certainly glad I'd gone out.

No 305 track for this one. Guess I'll have to be old-fashioned and draw in my route. It's bound to be more accurate that way. :-)

Very pleasant weekend, good company, good orienteering, and I'm still upright. Though I remembered only at the end that I had forgotten about my general desire to try to meet someone new at O' weekends. Got to get back to that.

Also got a number of nice comments about the write-ups I was posting during WOC about how the Team was doing. Nice to se some were reading them. And maybe they helped in their purpose, to make people in the federation feel a little more connected to the Team.

And speaking of the Team, there is a need for a person with a special duty, which is to check Ali every time she is leaving wherever she is and make sure she isn't leaving anything behind. Because she seems to do that quite often (the worst example I heard was arriving at a ski race only to discover she had forgotten her skis). And because it seems to be a family trait. So it is hard-wired. Perhaps we need an intervention.... :-)

C • green course 2

Green 2 - Splits

Event: UNO Pawtuckaway State Park Camping Weekend
 

Camping weekend at Pawtuckaway. (Short) Blue course.

Decent run. Tried a thumb compass. I think that I am going to find that I like having a little sharp end as a pointer, but not so much actually using the compass to determine direction. But will have to try it a few times before knowing for sure.

Got a good poke in the right eye about 10 minutes before the finish, in the white part of the eye. Vision was blurry/foggy, wiped my eye and it would clear up a little but then go foggy again, got better after a few minutes. I think it was just blood getting in the way, even though the world didn't have that nice rosy hue like it did when I became Cyclops for a week. Left a rather nasty looking bloody spot.

Dr Lex took a look and was inclined to send me off to the ER, since it seemed there was a tear in the iris and she was concerned that that the fluid inside the eye might be leaking out. I was (of course) inclined to do nothing. We compromised and agreed she would check it an hour later to see if it had changed.

An hour (or two?) later, and it seemed no worse, still looked quite bad but no fluid leaking to be seen, so no ER. Of course there was still a night-O' to be done, so that was just as good.

JJ's Wicked Hard Night O'. Not sure how many years he's had it, but I haven't missed one yet and wasn't intending to DNS this one. Though I must say that afterwards I was having thoughts along the line, You are getting too old and frail for this foolishness.

A decent walk, with a scattering of little bits of jogging in the first half, and then lots of stumbling in the last 45 minutes or so. One bad control, #4, guess 5 minutes lost, maybe a little more, GPS will say, and one a little bit bad, #5, a minute or two, wandering with Will, who had almost no light. A good pair, the blind and the lame. He hung with me until 9 (picked him up on the way to 5), but then he couldn't go slow enough and was soon gone.

Otherwise mostly by myself. Was thinking I was doing quite well and almost done when I got to 11, only three more to go, but then I took a look at the next couple and decided I had quite a long ways to go. Ended up right on my predicted time of 2:15. The only casualty was my 305, no permanent injury, just ran out of juice with about 20 minutes still to go.

Beautiful evening, clear, full moon (not that it helped), nice course. I didn't finish last, but not by much.

C • how many 8

Blue 1 - Splits

WHNO - Splits

Visited Mike's Maze today to check out the possibilities. Stay tuned....

GPS tracks, which are way off in places where I knew where I was, so not much help when I didn't know. Sprint 2 (hanging streamers) and sprint 1.

At Earl's trails. First did a loop over the two main hills, then at the end 4 x 1 minute up the bottom part of the old lift line. Trails were in remarkably fine condition after all the rain we've had, just a few small puddles, no mud, no erosion.

Will any luck we'll have an O' map of the area by the end of the fall.

Also, detoured on the way home to check out a possible site for the USA Roller Ski Orienteering Champs. Not as good as I'd hoped, will have to go look at option B.

C • USA Rollerski orienteering champs 16

Regular Wednesday evening renegade O- session, this time in Forest Park in Springfield, joined by Charlie and Clint and Ken Sr. Did two sprints that Phil set for a NEOC meet a couple of summers ago.

So first I did sprint 2, hanging streamers. Think I got them all in the right place, but sure was doing some bad O' in the process -- made a mess of 1 and 12, and a real mess of 10 (where a compass would have help, but still, 5 minutes on a 100-meter leg in good woods! Here's the map with my route from two years ago.

Had rained all day, so every was wet and muddy and the woods were getting dark. Very good fun.

131/1200

And then sprint 1, which Phil had streamered. A good bit better, though still not doing a good job of planning ahead enough. Was a little trickier because the map for me was locked in Phil's car, and he was still in the woods. But then Ali came in after her first sprint and she had the two maps back to back in her map case. So I copied the controls for sprint 1 onto my sprint 2 map. Except controls 5 and 6 weren't there, the sprint 2 map was cropped differently, so did those by memory.

Pretty solid effort. Course and route from last time.

And then drying off and changing and putting on warm clothes because it was getting chilly, and then, of course, food! Stopped at the first place we saw, Antonio's in the south end, pizza/pasta. Training and then food just seems like a natural pairing. :-)

Of course I forgot to call Gail and say I was all set for dinner. But then Alex showed up, hungry, and my dinner was available, so everything worked out just fine.

141/1200

Sprint 1 - Splits

Sprint 2 - Splits

At the Eaglebrook track. Same as last week, 8 x 200 (200 jog), but I decided there was no need to try to run the fast ones as fast as I could, that anything under 50 was faster than I can race at now and would do some good. So I did those a little slower, and the slow laps a little faster. And certainly suffered less. :-)

Quite pleasant out, 60s and light rain, a lot better being cooler.

And a mile before and after.

And despite what the 305's map shows, I did it all in lane 1.