Training Log Archive: possum

Last day of the Flying Pig. The venue was the Mounds SRA, just like yesterday, but this part of the map was much nicer woods. I only got hung up in briars a few times. The boohoo aspect was that the nut holding my magnifier onto my compass fell off. I happened to notice this before I lost the magnifier, but I couldn't use it for the race.

Today I managed to do some stupid stuff. I spent 28 minutes try to find four. This was because I wasn't focused on what I was doing--I saw some other course's control here (and also on one other control) and got sidetracked. Analyzing my mistake, I think I looked too much at the trees and not enough at the forest. I will try to not do this again. I got really tired going up and down hills during that 28 minutes and I'm sure that slowed me down for the rest of the course.

Except for the distractions noted above, my navigation was pretty good, and route choices acceptable. I am really bummed, however, by control 4.

OCIN_FP2014_Mounds_Sunday_Middle_6 Brown - Splits

The good news was that today we had separate clue description sheets, and some of the mud had dried out. The bad news was that the briars and forest were really bad in lots of places. We also had a creek crossing holding a rope, with rushing water up to our knees.

I spent too much time going from 1 to 2. This was poor route choice through lots of bad brush, briars, etc. Going from 6 to 7 was not good; I was too far east, after wandering a little, realized it and zeroed in on the control. Overshot a little from 9 to 10, but this was a long-time mistake like I frequently make and I immediately adjusted.

Overall map reading was not too bad, but ducking and diving through the brush and trying to avoid the briars caused me to have trouble following a bearing.

OCIN_FP2014_Mounds_Saturday_Long_6 Brown - Splits

Event: OCIN Flying Pig XVIII / US Interscholastic Champs
 

Flying Pig--today was the middle distance at Bear Creek. Lots of rain for several days, including this morning. They had to close a road because of flooding, which caused those coming from the south to detour. The courses had to be changed at the last minute to avoid crossing flooded streams. We still had one crossing that was fairly deep, and there was lots of mud throughout the course. It made the steep hillsides very slippery.

Overall, I didn't do anything really stupid. I went a little too far north on the first control, because another control was there in a similar feature. When I found out that the blazing fast Swiss guy had made the same mistake, I felt better about it. The difference was that he got a mispunch, and I saw it was incorrect and went a little SE to the correct one.

Then I went too far down the hill going from 4 to 5, but realized my mistake and walked up the gulley to the control. Lastly, I picked a bad route choice from 10 to 11, and took a long time with the briars and the mud.

Overall, the good part was staying on the map and mostly making decent decisions. I also was strong enough to chug up and down the hills.

OCIN_FP2014_Bear_Creek_Friday_Middle_6 - Brown - Splits

Lots of shoulder work today. Dripping in sweat, I came home and showered. I figured the boys would appreciate that when we drive to the Flying Pig together later today.

Workout with Jared. About 15 minutes of footwork agility drills, then lot of upper body stuff. Got to do some sled pushing, then finished off with balance. Good day.

Not sure why I got so out of breath this morning. We started with hopping on one foot across the gym, then hopping backwards to start. The do the same thing with the other foot and repeat for 3 minutes. After that, I was playing catch up. The last one was also tough, 10 plank jacks, 10 sit up with medicine ball, and repeat. Hope there is still something left for this afternoon with Jared.

Lots of leg work today. The exciting part was getting my Kick Butt t-shirt for my 50th session.

Took ElRay to Watkins Mill. We practiced "stay close" and I did some power walking. It all worked except for one squirrel where I got to get in th woods to take her off the tree. Fortunately, I have stated taking my Oral Ivy for the season.

Nice to get back to kickboxing after being off for four days. Only really hard thing today was the Russian twists with a medicine ball.

Even though I took yesterday off, I spent almost four hours tying up blackberry vines, and it was pretty physical.