Training Log Archive: Mr Wonderful

Event: 11th Annual December Chill
 

Opening jog for the 2012 December Chill. Jeff carried paddles. I carried a giant dry bag with both packs. We were wearing pfds. Transitions are usually binned to the end of the previous activity.

Everyone took off really fast. Either they would blow up, or we were about to get dumped on.

Paddle down the Huron from the dam at Kent Lake to the Riverbend area. Punch was hanging from the pedestrian bridge by Kensington Road. It was Jeff's finest canoe punch ever.

I feared that the short run would leave the canoe really bunched and awful, but it was spread out a bit.

Ouch. I was not having my best day. I dropped the passport, but luckily someone saw it right away. Then I bungled #5, veering too far east. I was clearly spoiled by two months of SMOC. Fortunately, we quickly bailed and got it on crack #2. The others weren't too bad. My biggest frustration was that you would fight through some crummy woods for awhile, get to the point, and then see some giant unmapped trail they used to set it.

C • trails 2

C • CP#5 3

Canoe back up to the dam.

We did well, passing some teams. Only one team passed us, and they had a nice boat and were very good about reading the river so they have clearly done this before.

We had one incident - we caught a kayaker, and Jeff chose to hold our line. He didn't give the kayaker much room, and the kayaker drifted across us while slowing a little, so he got spun. Then another canoe was catching us as we checked up a bit to not bump the kayak, so when the kayak really got spun across the current, and the third boat hit them, the kayak nearly went over, but the third boat guy grabbed him and stopped it. Nice reaction. So really, a lot of mistakes. Jeff probably should've given more room, and kayaker could've eased off to the right, and third boat could have tried going, you know, straight.

Jog/mostly walk up to HQ and this includes the transition to bikes.

Park roads to blue by the train bridge/powerline, then blue over to Island Lake proper. I still think the reroute by Spring Mill is not in character.

Oddly, Tony passed us here, which was also out of character. It turns out he also struggled at #5 earlier.

C • 5!!!!! 2

Trivial o section. Shame we were not running at this point as there was no risk of navigational error.

I guess I'm not a sports guy, not that I was ever worried about that. The clue for one control was "left field". I thought that was pretty arbitrary, since how do they know from which direction you will attack. It turned out to be in a baseball field.

I did this section in my bike shoes. It turns out they are sufficiently hikable - no issues.

C • bike shoes 3

Blue to yellow and then park roads/path from the Riverbend access road.

No issues other than I lost two minutes taking the shortcut from yellow to Riverbend, then not finding the control, before realizing they meant the actual spot yellow crossed the Riverbend dirt road. Ooops!

Although I thought we should easily be able to clear the course in the remaining three hours, I still chose to go west for the six control loop so we would have very easy drop options on the eastern controls - very easy to manage time with that route.

24 - this was difficult just because the walking looked soooo much nicer on the other side of the fence! We aimed off and got it.

26 - straightforward, go west and follow it down

27 - trivial

31 - makes me think there are parts of Island Lake that should never be o mapped. There was very thick fight. I had hoped we aimed off. I misread a reentrant as the mapped one - it was not, so we quickly decided to go west from where we hit the swamp line. The swamp was not an option - thick reeds and muddy. The bank also sucked. Eventually I saw it. Fight leaving 31 in the general direction of 32 was just awful. I crawled repeatedly. If there's an easy game trail in or out of there, I never saw it.

32 - trivial

28 - argh, gps shows we tripped through the circle. Lots of fight just below the top of the spur, so we couldn't see the spur proper and thought we might be on it, so we didn't fall off as much as we should have. I figured I went too far north, but it always seemed like we might drop off. Awful fight getting back along the river again. Then finally saw the spur with slightly better visibility from the north AND THERE WAS A DAMNED TRAIL LEADING RIGHT TO IT ALONG THE SPUR. So we took that unmarked trail back to the dam. Edit: hiking trail was probably on the park map we got, which I didn't think to look at much. Not a good move.

29 - trivial

25 - trivial

30 - some fight as well, but slightly more passable than 31 and west and north of 28. Almost went wrong way up the powerline since I didn't know if we succeeded in aiming off, but a kindly racer who'd just punch pointed me back.

Tried to talk Jeff into a sprint finish, no luck. We walked it in, barely beating coworkers Crissy and Jeff, who are shown one minute after us. They have really done well, as this is only their third race.

C • CP #31 4

GPS track. I haven't found a good splitting tool that keeps heart rate so AP can read it. :(

I was disappointed with our 18th place. We didn't seem too far off our Smartblast performance; I guess there were many faster teams.

I wonder if Jeff needs to figure out why his heartrate is 155 bpm when we are walking at 4 mph.

C • Wow, many familiar names in... 7

I am wondering about where to host in the spring. I originally thought Peach Mountain, because I love it and it is close. But then I thought it gets used twice yearly, and we had a few maps that didn't get used twice. So maybe I should pick one of those, because none are terribly far away, and I think with my 2.5 meet experience I will be somewhat more efficient in scouting.

Also, Beer in the Shower might be willing to cohost, so maybe going to something on M59 to encourage them into being stand alone hosts would be ideal. Haven Hill or the dog park? Neither have been used much lately.

It was good to finally get out. Didn't bother with the headlamp, so the swamp trek was interesting and slow.

Around the block. 305 loses charge relatively quickly in off, so 'twas dead by mile one. Not too cold. Snow kept things soft.

Removed boats from pond.