Training Log Archive: dgrove

Need a day off after throttling yesterday.

Setup and Chase today. Placement goals:
- Finish top 10 (done, 8th)
- Gain ground in the chase (done, passed 1, passed by 0)
- Spike 90% or greater today
- Always have the next control ahead planned out (not during the Chase)

Got some good footage with the GoPro chest mount. Unfortunately, the only run I got in its entirety during the weekend was my run at Lonsdale Quay. Greenwood Park and the Farsta relay the battery died, and I forgot to start the Setup and Chase films until on my way to control #1 & control #4. Still, should have some good stuff to help me review and see what needs to be improved. There's a constant process in getting better; there's always something to be improved both long-term and short-term.

The Map (I had the other form of forking)
Setup race at Queen Elizabeth Park. Ran pretty clean, flowed well. Lost maybe 6 s at #4 because I was confused by the Pitch n' Putt complex (out of bounds). Then lost probably 20 seconds eat #18 because I interpreted the terrain to be white where the control was and not lone trees, but once I realized my mistake it was smooth into the finish. Got pulled behind Erin on route to #19 which no doubt saved me 10 seconds by taking the pond crossing I would've surely missed. Overall though a great run and I was flying through.

The Map (Did not have this butterfly forking either)
Started 12 seconds behind Graeme and Ian so I booked it up to the start triangle from the map site to catch them. Ian and I took a bad microroute to #1, missing the small trail and instead going around on the paved segment. That was probably 15 seconds right there. We ended up having the same forking so I didn't see much of Graeme after #4 or so, but Ian and I were glued together for most of the race. He was in front probably 70% of the time, and it seemed like each time I passed him it wouldn't last long because I hadn't planned far enough ahead to make my move. Made another mistake when I went by him at #7 but didn't see exactly which path it was located on. We were going so fast control descriptions were barely used. Meanwhile, Graeme was catching Eric, Erin, and Adam in front of us and it seemed like there was a big gap between them and us and everyone after. Ultimately we came into the last 3 controls and they were easy enough, I had enough juice left and I had planned enough ahead that I was able to turn out the afterburners and get 2 seconds on him. It probably helped me in that he had an extra two races from Friday on his legs and didn't particularly care about beating a 17 year old kid at the end. Not as many positives to take away from this as in the Setup since I got pulled along for a lot of the race and didn't have to navigate, but I did some things well. Actually felt pretty crappy about getting him at the end like that since he was the workhorse of us two. He was super cool about the whole thing and I believe he beat me in every other race so it was probably a footnote for him :). Somehow I ended up with the 4th fastest time overall in the chase (which was fortunate), and this translated to 6th overall.

The Map
Cool down exercise/course at BC Children's hospital. Pin flags but I took some splits.

Logging run mileage - VSC Sunday (Events #8, #9, #10)

Event: Vancouver Sprint Camp
 

Big day ahead today...

The Map
Probably my worst race of the weekend. Just was very very confused with the multi-level stuff. I'd like to think the reason for this clunker was that this was my first sprint O' race with anywhere close to this much complexity and once I made mistakes early on, I was a little freaked out. Did much better as the camp went on but this one was ugly. Speed management was the root of almost all my problems here. I've been doing it well recently but not this time.

My Map
Partner exercise at Capilano University. I thought it went really well. Had some issues flowing but this didn't seem to happen when I was picking up at the start of my section, more just interspersed throughout the run. Erin said he noticed I was a bit hesitant even when I knew where I was going, so that's something to work on too. Only bobble was at #8 because I wasn't sure if it would be at the top or bottom of the wall when approaching and guessed wrong. Overall we did pretty good on this one.

The Map
Had a pretty good run and beat a few people who are really good in this one. I think I took the right approach to the 3-4-5-6 segment: open enough, small enough, and close enough that heading off in the general direction of the control was a good idea. This worked very well for me only losing maybe 10 sec. at #6 because I wasn't west enough when I hit the vegetation boundary. Could have taken a better route from #2-#3, I took the way back up the ridge instead of to the right and through the yellow. Lost maybe 10 seconds there because going to the right involves no elevation gain, all downhill. Took the high road to #2 and that ended up being some time loss as well because it involved more gain and a change of direction. Also took the road around on #7 and I think there was a faster way through the woods. I'll go ahead and call the rest pretty much spikes. (#2, #3, #7 lost time)

A O'tervals map
O'tervals with Will and Erin at Grand Boulevard. Not very technical so these were all about running real hard and flowing through.

The Master Map
Farsta relay. With so many controls in such a small area, this one was tough. Made countless mistakes that I won't painstakingly go through on AP, but most were brought about by getting sucked into the wrong control. I settled down after all the elites were out of range and I did my own navigating entirely, but since the controls were so close and I had to carefully watch my footing I did a poor job of flowing through controls. Didn't end up with a miserable time but it should have been oh so much better being that I'm in pretty darn good shape.

Logging run mileage - VSC Saturday (Events #3, #4, #5, #6, & #7)

More run mileage Race #7 (Farsta) was done with my Supra studded O' shoes. All the rest in the Brooks Launch.

Just a quick tune-up run to keep legs fresh for tomorrow. Probably didn't need to run today but I was able to get a quick one in right before we dashed off to Vancouver.

Up-tempo workout. Not quite a mid-season tempo speed, but upped the pace on this one. Was probably doing close to 6:30 for the first 3 and cranked it to the 5:53-6:00 range for the last 2 mi. Ankle pain I was having seems to be gone entirely and for now no L (or R) hamsting/glut pain that I was getting when sprinting/doing intervals/tempo stuff before.

Should've slept more but realized late last night I needed to do some stuff for AP Lang so I woke up early to finish.

Met up and ran with Dad and Erin after school. Talked about JST stuff, college running etc. Continued the discussion for quite some time at DQ afterwards. It was great talking to Erin, he is a great guy and we had a really stiumulating talk about commitments and everything running/O' related. He was at Fire Mtn. and we'll see him again this weekend at VSC.

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