Training Log Archive: PG

Event: WCOC Gay City
 

WCOC local meet at Gay City SP.

Well, not so bad. Nice day, cooler, maybe 65-70?, and I hadn't run or biked for a couple of days so the legs felt OK, at least until they didn't. The plan was to jog at a mellow pace, no thrashing, and just try to keep moving, and that worked pretty well, walked only maybe half a dozen times, either a steeper uphill or a thickish area. So that was pretty good. Of course, Gay City has always been a relatively easy place to run.

Orienteering was straightforward, only mistake was at #9, spiked it very smoothly, except no control there, circled the knoll, rechecked the control description, then got lucky, happened to see it maybe 50 meters away at a knollish sort of thing. Had run right by it coming in, but hadn't been looking for a flag there. No big deal, about a minute and a half?

And only got my feet wet right at the end, crossing the marsh to the last control.

Very enjoyable. Which is very enjoyable to be able to say, because that's not always the case with O these day, sometimes it's just a slog. I'm sure having the cooler weather had a lot to do with it.

And then did the short ("Sprint") mountain Bike O course.

Last year, when they also offered foot O' and MTB O', I did the long bike course, and it beat me up pretty bad, plus I managed to skip a control. So this year I showed a bit more wisdom and did the short course, and a bit more skill and got them all.

Not that it was easy. The navigation was easy, of course, but not the getting there. Only really crashed once, and that wasn't a bad one, couldn't get up a little rocky pitch, came to a stop and rolled over on my right side, no problem, except my skills are so rusty, or non-existant, that I didn't get my right foot out in time.

I think after that, and that happened early in the course, I showed an (over?) abundance of caution. Quite a few hike-a-bikes, both up and down and even some flats where the trail was narrow and there were more rocks than I felt comfortable with. But no injuries, so I think the strategy was not so stupid. Just really slow.

On the other hand, slow as it was, I would guess I am now one of the 10?-20?-30? folks to have finished a MTBO course in the USA this year? I'm assuming that retroactively today's results will count in some sort of national ranking scheme, and hopefully also in the selection of future MTBO teams to the world champs. :-)

(A separate subject -- if we are going to send a team to a world championships, which is fine, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a few events in this country?)

Legs were feeling quite weary by the time I was done. But it was a fun outing.

C • MTB-O 8

Red - Splits

Novice MBO - Splits

Back from Greenfield, foggy and very humid, rather relaxed pace.

And back up to Greenfield. Fog was gone, now very hot, fortunately a good tailwind most of the way, but I was still wilting.

And then on the way home the check engine light comes on again. WTF.

Pleasant spot that it is, I think it might be useful to announce the cancelation of the A meet in Harriman in early November a little more widely than just in a comment on Biggins' log.

Or maybe it's just the way things are done nowadays, see Pawtuckaway (it's off, it's on, who knows?), or various episodes in GL's history?

C • cancel 2

Short, flat route around town. Heart monitor seemed to take a nap the last part.

Back from Greenfield, seemed hard work. Time to get a little more serious about a new car.

C • new car 2