Training Log Archive: cmorse

to starts, then jogged back afterwards with Greg B.

A good day in the woods, not fast and probably twice the time running than I've done since Team Trials, but only 5-6 minutes of real errors and I managed to run steadily with very little walking for the entire time. Quite happy with the venture - though I don't have splits and haven't seen results. Will write more when I have details on time lost etc... Plus its time to get the kids in bed...

19th of 36 in M45

Errors via winsplits:

#4 -6:45 - felt like vegetation was pushing me L so I corrected R and wound up in small clearing NW of control - took a few minutes to make sense of where I was along the trail - seemed like other unmapped trails in the area.
#5 -2:14 - wound up slight N, then slow picking my way through ferns to the correct area - nice herd path leaving the bag - wish I could have found one leading to it as well...
#13 -1:49 - should have headed directly to road, but instead tried to go just L of line and got sucked through the marshes and then up the bigger hill - hit the stonewall corner and clean from there - but too much wandering/thrashing when I could have been running on the road
#14 -4:21 - got L of the line and hit a bag on a small marsh - didn't see the one hidden in the index contour NW of control and incorrectly convinced myself I was at the narrow marsh NE of control - so wandered in the wrong direction for a bit before figuring it all out.

Rest ok with (7) top ten splits...

Raining steadily at the start, with no sign of letting up (and it didn't). Another day to try and stay in constant contact. Slightly high to #1, corrected readily, 10s lost. Decided to slow down and try to read the larger features, following an obvious reentrant and then up the hill but misinterpreted the contour spacing and wound up on the ridge S of control before coming back to the proper spur - probably 2 minutes lost - glasses useless already and took them off. Slow and steady hit #3 ok, then L of line to #4 to keep pond in view to L as a handrail, hit trail then R and around marsh - a bunch of folks higher up the hill pulled me slightly R - I couldn't see the terrain so got suckered into drifting - but then it didn't feel right and I came back down to hit the bag just about where I had been heading. Not good... Cleanly around marsh to trail, picked up smallish trail but misread the feature as being in a reentrant sloping down to a flat area, not going up to a flat plateau - probably went right by bag without seeing it and hunted for a long, long time (over 15 mintues) well S of bag before finally heading E to marsh and all teh way up to the N corner where it was completely obvious where I was. Straight, slow compass bearing to control ignoring all features around me (since I couldn't see them in the rain anyway) and right into bag. To #6 I took the trails around and looked for the major reentrant headed up the hill, didn't see it and went past to the next reentrant and spent a good bit of time in the paralell reentrant system to the S before figuring it out and carefully following a straight bearing to the flag. Rest of course was pretty much a slow walk following straight bearings and trying to count the ups/downs and hoping I wound up in the circle. Worked ok for the most part. On #10 I opted to go out to trail and attacked from #14 which I could see from the trail. On #13 I miscounted my ups/downs and spent a couple minutes searching in the green one reentrant system too early before venturing over the small spur to find it in the next one over. Rest ok, but the entire venture was very slow with about a half hour worth of errors mostly due to trying to read terrain when I couldn't see it... 27th out of 32 in M45

Winsplits

ran pretty briskly to starts, then just jogged around real slow to stay warm in the rain.

Event: North American Championships
 

running around the parking area before each of the sprints

Light rain so decided not to push too hard and instead focus on reading well and maintaining map contact throughout. A good run on those counts. First error was on #6, was looking for a distinct trail to turn down but looked like more of a mown strip on the edge of a field to me and I ran past it, then decided to run around on the trail and follow fence - but crappy veg that way cost me 20s probably. Left #7 cleanly with a preordained plan to head S on trial and cut into woods and look for boulder in the light green - came through darker green headed straight for a bag - but there was no boulder, it was in white woods and seemed too close to field right behind it, so I pulled up about 10 feet short and turned around and ventured up into the green on the slope and bashed around for probably 75-90 seconds before coming back down and finding that the flag I had been about to spike was indeed mine after all - and the 0.5m boulder was all of maybe 6" tall... damn... Rest of run just fine.... not fast, but I wasn't planning on being fast after the past couple months.

9th in M45 in preliminary heat. Winsplits

Same plan as before - run clean - because fast wasn't in the cards this weekend. A loop went just fine, maybe a 10s hesitation on 5 when I slowed to look for signs of a spur in the woods before hitting the parking area, then realizing the spur was actually part of the embankment 'in' the parking area. Took the trail to 6, rest just fine

B loop - had to walk the hill up to 12 slightly R of line, got about a line too high before turning into reentrant, hit 15 just fine, but got slowed in a train leaving the control in the thick vegetation - lost 25s trying to get around the traffic jam.

C loop - ok until 21, opted to cut in at the light green and turn W to control, once there it was obvious that there was a sizable gap in the dark green that faster runners went right through (gap probably should have been mapped as such), probably 10s lost on route choice there, then lost my hat coming into 22, maybe 5s to retrieve it. Up into the dark woods to 25 I hit the bag just fine, but it was too dark to see map, so I just beelined to the parking lot where it was light enough to read map, then cut through woods to hit field just E of flag - route choice probably cost 10s, but if you can't see the map to make the right choice.... Sweet, hard run from there to 27 and then in - 19s in the chute, fastest on M45 in the chute (where it counts for exactly nuthin...)

Moved up to 6th overall in M45 Winsplits

Actually studying the splits in Winsplits is pretty revealing - I was in 3rd place in the prelim through control #7 and subtracting my Winsplits calculated errors on #6 & #8 puts my time as good enough for 3rd place overall - so perhaps my 'speed' wasn't really so bad after all. And my overall place improved a couple spots in the last loop in the final. Not as fast as I usually am, but if I ran clean, I could have been in contention.

more riding squeezed in between getting home and bus time.

Slept really lousy last night - woke up around 11:30pm, too much work crap going through my head, never fell back to sleep, got up at 5 and went in.

Got home just before Anna's bus, pulled the bike out for a little bit (very little). Going to try and do this every day when I get home - even if its not even 10 minutes, at least it gets my legs moving, heart rate up a little and something to put on the log.