Training Log Archive: Kat

Will, Boris, and I climbed Mt.Princeton today. We started at about 9,000 feet and went up to the very summit of 14,197 feet. There are two trails to the summit, and we took the harder (but shorter) one of the two. By the looks of it, this trail has not been used for some time before we came along. We started off by following a stream up along a canyon. I went first, brushing past the nettles as quickly as possible. Then we were out in the open, following a rocky gulch up to the treeline. Then came one of the hardest parts, which was climbing up a very steep grassy and rocky ridge. The rest of the time we were contouring around the ridge and then clambering on the rocks at the top of it. One of the hardest parts mentally was climbing up the false peak, and then climbing down the other side of it. We couldn't contour around it because there were very steep and rocky drops on both sides, so we had to go across it to get to the summit point.
It took us about 3:50 to get up there (including 20-30 minutes total of breaks). We decided to go down using the other trail, which was indeed easier but less interesting. It took us about 2+ hours to get down to the Radio Tower, where we managed to hitch a ride from some nice folks to our car. The first stop was the Mt.Princeton hot springs.

EVENT: US Classic Champs, Day 2
COURSE: F21 (Red), 8.29 km, 295m climb, 15 controls
MAP: The Big Sandy (Buena Vista)
TERRAIN: Mostly semi-open terrain with intense rock detail everywhere. Many reentrants and stream beds. Definitely not flat, but not very steep either.
MY RUN: After running hills for an extra 20 minutes yesterday, I felt like I was at a disadvantage before I even started my course. However, being tired meant that I was moving slower and therefore had more time to look at my map. This helped right from the start, when I started going down the wrong trail. After going down the trail for 30 meters, I felt the direction wasn't right and headed back to the trail junction after checking my map and compass. I made some more small mistakes throughout the course, most notable of which was #10 (where I went a bit right of my bearing and climbed around a huge and tall rock feature to get to the control) and the last control (which I approached by running down the finish chute in the opposite direction...) So I probably could have been 5-6 minutes faster (cleaner), but it was still a very good race for me.
RESULTS: 8th on Red and 2nd in F21 today, behind Pavlina. Fourth overall in US Champs.

Will Hawkins, Boris, and I drove down to the Great Sand Dunes after the races. It was raining quite hard when we got there, but luckily there was no lightning on the dunes themselves so we decided to go climb on them. Even though wet sand is easier to deal with than dry sand, it still required effort to climb the tall dunes wearing Tevas. If Will had not given me one of his walking poles, I don't think I could have made it up because my shoes were sliding down at each step. We were out for about 1.5 hours and managed to climb a dune that was somewhere over 600 feet tall. By the time we got up there, the rain had mostly stopped and the fog had lifted, so we could actually see the mountains behind the dunes. This place is absolutely amazing.

Event: US Classic Champs
 

EVENT: US Classic Champs Day 1
COURSE: F21 (Red), 7.17 km, 390m climb, 13 controls
MAP: Buena Vista (San Isabel National Forest)
TERRAIN: Mix of terrain - open forest, alpine meadows, large rock formations. The open areas were very runnable, but the southwestern part of the map, which was covered in black dots, was quite slow.
MY RUN: Terrible. Perhaps because yesterday was a rest day, I had a lot of energy and started out quite fast. I almost immediately made a mistake (on #3) partly because I couldn't see the pit and partly because I wasn't being careful enough. Then I made big mistakes on #5 and #6, both caused by not going down far enough in a big reentrant and not having enough confidence in myself to keep going down. Besides this, I had no major mistakes, but I was so exhausted from running up and down the hills searching for those two controls, that I didn't have much left for the second half of the course.
RESULTS: 38th finisher on Red, 7th female

In the morning, Boris, Anna, John F., and I all did the US Champs model event. I tried very hard to understand how the rocks were mapped, but had to conclude that they could be mapped in many different ways and I'd just have to rely more on other types of features (contours, vegetation, etc.) to navigate.
The model event went down a long reentrant, and afterward we had to climb back up to where our car was parked. This was tiring.

Boris, Anna, and I went rafting after the model event. When we got back to Buena Vista after the trip, we were wearing wet clothing and did not have much to change into. Also, it was chilly and windy and the campsite was over a mile away down the road. Boris had enough dry clothing that he could walk back, but Anna and I decided to jog to warm up (literally).

EVENT: Middle Distance "A" Day
COURSE: F21 (Red), 6.07 km, 16 controls
MAP: First With the Most, 1:10,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: Rolling to hilly granite terrain, with detailed rocks and contours, mixed meadow and ponderosa forest.
MY RUN: The few middle distance courses that I've done in the past have never gone well - more controls (especially technical ones) means more opportunities for me to make a mistake. So today I just wanted to avoid big mistakes and slow down when necessary, such as in the tricky rock areas. I started off well and was having a pretty good race through #12, but then made a huge mistake on #13 (15-20 minutes). I was heading on a bearing to the control, expecting to see a big green (forested) reentrant on my right. Unfortunately I was a big higher up than I thought I was (a bit left of the line) and did not see the reentrant. Hence, I kept going till I hit the next green reentrant, which was already past my control. Stuff did not quite match up, but I figured there was no way I could have misssed such a huge feature and decided this second reentrant was in fact the first one. Then I crossed it, climbed up to the meadow there, and was almost to #7 before I finally realized exactly where I was and decided to turn back. This mistake meant over a kilometer of extra running, not to mention a lot of time hesitating, being confused, and climbing extra hills. I was pretty bummed about this, since I'd been so careful the rest of the course, but this reminded me that it is important to be very careful all throughout the course, and not just most of it. Also, it showed me that even a big feature can be hidden from view and therefore I should not rely on just one thing when heading on a bearing, but look at other features as well.
RESULTS: 35th finisher on Red, 7th female

EVENT: Crystal Relay
TEAM: Ross Smith, me, Peter Gagarin, Boris Granovskiy (in that order)
MAP: Antenna Hill, 1:15,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: The start/finish was on a hilltop with relatively flat limestone/sandstone terrain, with sparse forest. There was a steep drop down from the hill to the surrounding grassy hills and forested reentrants.
MY RUN: I started off with a 3+ minute lead over everyone else due to a fantastic first leg by Ross. I knew my job was to be careful and not make any big mistakes. I did wind up making a small mistake on #3, which was a cliff in one of many close reentrants, but I figured it out quickly enough. Then, I also hesitated a bit going into #5 and #6, because both were different from what I was expecting. (In particular, #6 was mapped as a form-line hill, but when I was approaching it, all I could see was a tree with a control on it, which made me stop and check my map.) So, overall, I had no more than 1-2 minutes of hesitation/mistakes in total, which is quite good for me.
RESULTS: Our relay came in first, with both Peter and Boris keeping the lead. I had the second best time on my leg, with Marie-Cat beating me by 7 seconds. I believe this is my fastest per km time ever!

EVENT: US Team Sprint
COURSE: 2.91 km, 12 controls, 135m climb
MAP: The Gates of AMT Hell, 1:10,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: Rolling to moderately hilly terrain, with a few areas of technical rock detail. Sage meadows, sparse ponderosa forest, and aspen.
MY RUN: I started off really well, passing several people through control #5, but then I made a mistake on #6 (1.5-2.5 minutes) by going too far and a bigger mistake on #7 (4-6 minutes). Both mistakes happened in the tricky rock areas, which I had a tough time relocating in. The rest of the course was clean, but these two mistakes were enough to put me far back of the winning times.
RESULTS: 40th finisher, 7th female

EVENT: US Night O Championships
COURSE: F21 (Red), 8.78 km, 10 controls
MAP: The Lights of Cheyenne, 1:15,000, 5m contours
TERRAIN: Rolling hills of short prairie grass, with some areas of sage and some forested areas of ponderosa pine and aspen.
MY RUN: This was my first time running out west, and I was doing a long course at night, so basically I had no expectations and just hoped to finish. I spent fifteen minutes finding the first control - thought I had gone far enough when I didn't - and then made a few more errors throughout the course, always close to the control circle and almost always due to the darkness. On #6, for example, I was right on the line heading to the control (a big boulder) but since I couldn't see it, I thought I might have veered a bit too far left, and tried to correct by going right, where I saw some other people's lights. Shortly after, I looked back and saw the boulder with the control! This type of mistake would definitely not have happened in the daytime, when the boulder would have been visible from several hundred meters away.
RESULTS: 3rd in F21, behind Hillary and Pavlina.

After Erin's wedding, the guests were split up into several big teams and played games. I won't include throwing a frisbee or playing volleyball as training, but I'll count the orienteering I did around Erin's land.

Part of Erin's wedding weekend schedule was to go to the Sandwich Old Home Week Triathlon. It was really small - the swim was less than 100 meters (in fact, perhaps less than 50), the bike was 4-6 miles (don't know which), and the run was about 2.3-2.5 miles. Most of the participants joined up into teams of three, but I went out by myself just to see what it felt like. Really fun!

C • and... 1

Biking in Fort Tryon Park on Aleksey's bike. Basically, it was like doing hill intervals. I'd go down, then go back up in gear 3 or 2. It was tough.

Event: Rocky Mountain 1000 Day
 

Involuntary rest day - flight to NYC, with a stop in Philadelphia. I hate crossing the ocean...

Spinning session at Ekeby gym. I liked this instructor (Annie) better than yesterday's guy.