Training Log Archive: jjcote

Event: HVO A-Meet
 

Parked at Tiorati Circle, figuring that there would probably be no room down at the meet site. I had my mountain bike in the car, but on the way into the park, I saw the sign stipulating that bicyclists must wear helmets, and realized that I had forgotten to grab a helmet when I was packing. But the sign didn't say anything about unicyclists needing helmets, so no problem! Didn't quite make it to the top of the climb out of the circle, and had to walk it for a short stretch (too hard to get started on a steep slope), but on the way back after picking up my packet, I made it all the way without stopping, and that included a very substantial hill. Turned out there was adequate parking space, so I went down with the car after that.

Surebridge Mountain, Blue. Late start time, so I got the full brunt of the hot conditions, but I had a pretty clean run, just a bobble on the first control, and poor execution on the 11th. That tied me for 14th out of 41 finishers (plus a few DNFs), which is pretty good for me on Blue these days!

Under the stairs at the hotel, with PG spectating. Difficult hand position, so these were tough.

Blue, Day 1 - Splits

Breakheart Reservation, largely on trails. Distance is a guess, in part because I'm too lazy to measure it, and in part because I don't remember exactly where I went on the latter part. But it looks like I probably went at least 50% farther than the 6 km course that I'm looking at.

This would have been a fine evening to have done some navigation training, brushing up my skills before the A-meet, but I didn't have the foresight to bring a map with me today. Instead of having it be just trail running, I came up with a little exercise that at least has a vague relationship to orienteering. After having worked my way up to the north end of the map, I climbed the tallest hill that I could find, stood on the bald summit, and spotted two other bare rock hills out in the distance, one behind the other. Then, with no map and no compass, I took off into the valley between, and headed for the first hill, not knowing what I would encounter in terms of water, vegetation, cliffs, etc. So I at least got off-trail for a bit, and had to make micro route choice decisions. As well as keeping my general direction more or less straight. Got to the first hill, and repeated the process to the second (and ran into more of the abovementioned obstacles on that leg).

Watched Alen section of Disc 2 of the Bijelo Dugme DVD. With this crappy rainy weather, at least I managed to do something. I suppose I probably should have worn a tube top.

Click to enlarge.

C • photo 10

No, I'm not kidding. I was just going to see if I could get balanced at all in a doorway for long enough to have Nancy take a picture, and then photoshop it so that it looked like I was actually riding, so I could post it here as a prank. Didn't know if I'd even be able to get up onto the seat, because it seemed like, with the instabilities of the unicycle combined with those of the rollers, it might be like trying to stand on a ball that's on a sheet of wet ice. But I got seated okay, and when I pedaled, everything moved like it was supposed to, and I didn't have to cling to the doorway for dear life like I was expecting. In fact, I could ride just fiine with one hand on the doorframe to assist in balancing, and even more surprisingly, I could let go for several seconds at a time, and sometimes even felt like I was making stable corrections, not just "I haven't hit the floor yet". It would be a bit easier, I think, if the rollers had more of a load hooked up to them, because fore/aft stability is an issue, where sometimes I start tipping forward and can't pedal fast enough to correct. Managed to work up more of a sweat doing this than I would have expected.

Nancy arrived while I was riding, and all I could think of to say was, "This is so cool!".

C • Unicycle Rollers... 5

Event: UNO Sargent Camp
 

Despite the nasty weather (heavy wet snow), we had five entrants (including a group of two, so six people total) at the meet. Two of them did the Brown I had designed in advance, and the other three did courses that Bob Walsh and I made up on the spot, using the locations that I had streamered. We created an Orange this way (because I hadn't gotten to half of the intended Orange controls, and the bridges were probably way too hazardous in the conditions anyway), and a Ski-O course for Aims, who waited around for a while before starting in order to allow the snow depth to build up more. We'll reschedule the meet for later in the spring, and we have courses all ready to go. The drive up wasn't too bad, but the drive back was wicked dangerous, with one detour around what apeared to be a serious accident. Never got up to 4th gear, and rarely even got into 3rd. And I'm pleased as punch to be staying in for the rest of the day.

C • Wicked!!!!!!!!!! 3