Training Log Archive: PG

With Gail, Whately, including up a few hills. Sunny and quite warm.

I'd been thinking about going to Jim Crawford's bike-O near Boston, done it once before, but I was tired enough after the orienteering yesterday that it was an easy decision to not go. When I got up this morning, not the slightest inclination to change my mind.

But yesterday was really fun, and I didn't seem to hurt anything. So maybe the WCOC meet at Huntington in two weeks.

C • I did the Foot-O version (3... 2

Event: US Corn Maze Champs
 

US Corn Maze Champs -- Sprint.

Remarkably good. Went to all the controls (and in the right order). No mistakes. Walked maybe 10 yards coming into each control to give my legs a rest and see where I was going next, but "ran" the rest. Very satisfying. First orienteering in almost a year (and that was a total failure), so nice to enjoy it.

C • Maps 1

US Corn Maze Champs -- Classic

Well, must have used up too much of my mental capacity on the sprint as there was not enough left to manage the Classic. A decent "run" except, having planned a nice route from 8 to 9, and then executed most of it well, I then seem to have decided that 10 was where I was heading. Not even a glimmer of concern that that wasn't where I should be going.

But I did spike 10.

Certainly was getting tired towards the end of this course. I guess for the time being I am pretty much just a sprint guy.

But still, in all honesty, delighted to be actually doing some running, and nothing hurt.

UC Corn Maze Champs -- See it, Find it

Hah, O' in the corn maze with climb! For real. Start with the climb up to the viewing platform to see about where the 3 controls might be, then go find them. A cool event by JJ, a modest mental eff-up by me, including not starting my Garmin, so no data. And then two wrong turns on the way to the control at the far end, where I guessed correctly and spiked it.

On to the middle one, possible it was on the outside of the maze. Got real close to the spot, no control, no windsock to be seen, Around to get real close on the other side, still no control, no windsock. Decided it must be only accessible from outside the maze, and only then did I spot the windsock. Yup, outside.

Off for the third control, guessed right on that one too, spiked. And then a long run/walk out and around to the back side of the maze, and then back to the finish. Rapidly running out of gas.

But a cool new event. And overall a fine day. Many thanks to JJ and also to Steve Richardson, who set the Sprint and the Classic courses but was unavoidably away on business. And, of course, thanks to Mike and Dave and Mike's Maze. Started doing these things in 2010, still going strong. 61 orienteers today, and lots of young ones too.

Note -- black circles are my guess as to where the control was. Red x's are where it actually was.

Sprint - Splits

Long - Splits

Platform-O - Splits

With Gail, to the south. First time that the first number of the time per mile is a 3. With some room to spare. :-)

I'm getting getting more exercise on our rides.

North Mountain up to Gunn and back. Mid 70s, low humidity.

With Gail, mostly. The Lower Road / Upper Road lollipop, new route for us, more hills. But a nice day, so why not.

Went just fine until Gail's electronic shifting ran out of juice when we had 5+ miles to go. A lowish gear, so she could get up any remaining hills, but not much help otherwise if you wanted to move along. Stopped to see if there was an obvious fix, but it seemed likely that any use of brute force might just make things worse.

So she moseyed home. I got the dumb idea of going up South Sugarloaf as I was going right by it. So 10:55 of slow suffering. But made it up.

A minute on, half a minute off. Old road on the north side of Quabbin. Dirt, almost flat. Upper 80s.