Training Log Archive: TomN

Classic Champs Brown. Gorgeous day and a really nice area, from the assembly to the start to the forest itself. I started out kind of tentatively, taking a roundabout route to the first control (on the trail all the way to the stream crossing, then up the reentrant and up to the spur). It was safe, but it was a little slow. Then on #2, a parallel error and would have been a disaster but for the barbed wire fence. Better but not perfect on 3-5, tentative at the decision points. Then I got wind in the sails, taking the direct route to 6 and good running from there on in. I was pretty happy with the run.

Fastest time on Brown today, but only by about a minute. It could easily have gone another way.

Day 1 - Brown X - Splits

3rd person in the household to get this cold. It's going to keep me from running for fun, but not from the Q3 event, if it doesn't get any worse.

C • sick 1

Morning run in the neighborhood. Cloudy and 43 degrees, but no rain yet. There was one of those speed radar signs at one intersection. No cars around, and it picked me up from a long way away, a steady 7 on the sign, until I sped up and it went to 9.

DVOA Mt. Penn Brown. For a variety of reasons I didn't fancy my chances on this course (vague contours, downhill course, rain, or at least glasses-off weather, yada yada). But happily, things went much better than expected. There were lots of mapped features to navigate by, the visibility was great (the glasses stayed on all the way), and I found I could run fast and stay in control. What's better than that?

The leg from 1 to 2 was the technical crux of the course, although I didn't know it at the time, and I handled it o.k. I left the road where the big ditch crossed it, and on compass I was a little uphill of where I should have been, but I ran across the rocky stuff just north of the control, and I could see the thicket from there.

After #3 turned out easy, following the stone walls into the control, I decided I should speed up. On the long leg to 5 I went through some crud and came out at the swimming pool in the field, which worked out well. I left the road after the power line cut and attacked from the rocks at the top of the hill.

A small error on 6, when I got drawn into the wrong control, but I got back on course, losing a minute or so. Left the road to 7 a little early and found another wrong control at the top of the hill, but no time lost there.

First on BrownX by a wide margin.

C • ty 4

Mount Penn - Long BrownX - Splits