Training Log Archive: TomN

Afternoon run in the neighborhood. Not feeling too good, coming down with something.

On the sloppy roads and sidewalks, on a ridiculously warm day. A pretty thick sheet of ice had formed over everything during the night, but it was gone by noon. Probably would have been a fine day for orienteering, but the campus where we planned to park was closed until 1 p.m., so it was just as well we postponed.

Long run today. Started out just as the snow began, and it was up to nearly an inch by the time I got back. Saw 2 runners and 2 cyclists on Beach Dr. Seems like rough conditions for cycling. It was just great going up Old Spring Road, no wind, no traffic, only the sound of falling snow and crunchy footsteps. Past that point I started to see cars having trouble with traction, and I was getting a little tired in the legs and sore in the ankle.

Road run around the neighborhood on a rather chilly morning, 4 deg.F. Not much wind, although there was a wind chill advisory. I just read about the hiker who died in the Presidentials in NH. Minus 30 and 100-mph wind, now that's some wind chill. The place she died, Star Lake, I've been to many times, including one time when I was attempting a similar traverse, but turned back right there. (In summer, and it was too rough for my equipment. I went back the next year and did it.)

From a gray morning, the afternoon turned brilliant. Blue sky and bright sun, temperature going up to around 30F. So I felt like running was my duty, but I had eaten a big lunch and it was resting there, so needed to delay the run as long as possible. I went out around 4 p.m. for 30 min. Comfortable on the surface, not so much inside.

Setting out controls for next Sunday's Patapsco/Glen Artney meet. 11 controls in 3 groups (4-4-3) working out of the Hilton area, about 1 hour for each group. Some pretty rugged terrain, covered with a half-inch of snow, it was hard going even on the trails (and the trails were hard to see in some places). I walked the whole time, controls in a backpack, stayed warm enough except when fumbling with knots. This looked like the best day in the near term. Snow in the forecast tonight, then bitterly cold for the rest of the week.

A dining room sprint designed by Boris G. Pinned down by high winds, cold temperatures, and no electricity, we each created a map of the dining room, copied the 12-control course onto the map, then shuffled and grabbed random maps. Valerie heroically set up electronic punching. Starts on 15-sec intervals from a quarantine area in the kitchen.

I ran to 8 instead of 6, realized my mistake, backtracked and re-punched in the correct order, but the damage was done. A minute behind the amazing Hannah C., who must have levitated through the whole thing. Good entertainment on a crummy morning, after which we packed up and left in a hurry on park officials' orders.

Dining Hall - Sprint - Splits

Morning exercise at the Prince William Training Camp. A course designed by Thierry Gueorgiou (!) involving a corridor, a control-picking scramble, a couple of blank compass bearings, some contour-only controls, and some finishing legs. Pretty good overall. We need to do more of these isolation exercises.

I took a long time on the corridor. I had to backtrack twice to get back to a place I knew was on the map. The other things went fine. No mistakes on the control pick, which is odd, maybe I had too much caution left over from the corridor. Good results on the compass, ended up in the wrong reentrant on the second control, but easily recognized the error. The contour-only controls were fun, there was a fair bit of single-contour navigation, which I'm getting better at managing.

Afternoon training session at PWF. This was a route choice exercise with paired runners. I was paired with Ben, one of the two FUMA cadets that self-seeded into the long advanced. We were instructed to plan all of our legs beforehand, and then go out and execute. The first to arrive at each control would wait for the second. That way, there would be a leg-by-leg comparison of the two routes.

This worked out a lot better than I had thought. The meet-up at each control was key, because it injected competition on every leg, erased past mistakes, and forced you to commit to your route choice.

I won the first 4 legs, but I had to work at it. My original route choices worked out well, and Ben had some trouble executing. Kudos to him for good recoveries, but I think my choices were safer, and safety can clearly add to speed.

At #4, it was getting late, and we decided do 5-6 and skip 7-8. I went over my route to #5, then proceeded to navigate straight to 6. No Ben in sight, so I sat down and waited. And waited. Began to look at the map. Gradually came to the reailzation that I was at the wrong control, ran back to 5, apologized to a patient Ben, then tried to retrace my route back to 6, but he beat me there too. Good on him, bad on me, and we jogged back to the finish together.

Later that night, Addie took Ben on an adventurous Night-O run wading through Quantico Creek while I stayed back in the lodge and enjoyed good food and a beer. She alertly recognized the symptoms of hypothermia (which included lots of verbalizations of extreme cold feelings) and brought them both back without incident.

Noontime run around the Drumm Av. loop. Snowflakes in the air, but nothing sticking. One thing about running longer yesterday, the regular distance seemed short. I guess that's a variation on the "feels so good when I stop" excuse.

At home in the afternoon, so I went for a run in the neighborhood. Time to start stretching out the long run, and this was my longest road run so far this year. Down through McKenney Hills Park, then around the Forest Glen Metro, then back up parallel to Georgia Ave. Felt pretty good.

Another run in the neighborhood. Yesterday I brought my stuff to work, but the promised warming never happened and I didn't really have the right clothes. Today it was run in the morning or not gonna do it, so I did it. I slid the whole way down the driveway on a sheet of ice, but the roads were o.k. The car was encased in ice. As I was sliding downhill I thought about going back and exchanging my running shoes for icebugs, but by that time it was easier to keep going than try to come back up the driveway.

Drumm Ave. loop. Some tiredness in the legs from yesterday's exertions. Somewhere around 50F, on the way to 60 this afternoon.

The QOC Bumble, rapidly becoming an annual tradition. One course, 5 windows, mass start. Handicap/course level determines how many windows you can skip, you choose which ones. Then if everyone has self-handicapped correctly, it's a mass finish too.

It turns out Morven Park was a good place to hold this event. I skipped the forest window, but in retrospect I think it would have been better if I had skipped the open field window at the far eastern end of the course. That one was kind of fun, but a lot of cross-country running, and the skip would have cut off a big chunk of distance. I was all alone at that point, but got in with some others on the next window with the weird rock mounds, and finished together with a few of the blue and green runners, so the handicapping worked out pretty well.

Morning run around the usual neighborhood loop. Fairly wide divergence in the temperature estimates, but I think it's safe to say it started in the teens, and on the rise. Nice conditions, comfortable running.

Around the Goddard perimeter road. Fine day, high 40s and sunny.

Easy run around the GSFC perimeter road. There was a break between the rain stopping and the wind coming up, and I took it. Turns out a bunch of other runners did too. Warm enough for shorts.

Another trip around the regular neighborhood loop. At least I think that's what I did. The problem is I have absolutely no memory of the middle section of it. I remember running up the hill towards the stairs, and wondering whether there was going to be ice on the path by the tennis courts, but no memory of climbing the stairs, or going by the tennis courts, or the condition of the path, or passing the playground equipment, or where I went after that. Coming back down the hill and turning left on Fernwood is the next memory I have. Probably 10 minutes are missing.

I know this has happened before, in road races. It's a nifty trick, helps the miles go by and probably delivers more oxygen to the legs, since it's not going to the brain. But I can report from personal experience that temporary amnesia during an orienteering race is not helpful at all.