Training Log Archive: AliC

Holy moly sore legs from the past two days. But I was far from the only one - an intense weekend of racing, that's for sure!

This wasn't my best sprinting, I was caught out by #2, but then upset from losing that time ran fast and pretty cleanly through the rest of the race. But much better sprint flow to be achieved...

Trying out a grade-system for my legs (no grade inflation, B = good):

1 - B - Starting alongside Addison, found the start quickly and immediately clear what to do.
2 - F - Thought I was so clever for finding the passageway diagnoling right to #2, but then got to the end and no way through. Noooooo. Addison was there too, also not happy. I didn't even recover well, just panicked and went the very first way I saw, back around to the W of the building, but from there clearly going E would have been faster. Not good damage control.
3 - B - Frustrated and channeling energy into trying to get as much time back as possible.
4 - B - Used the left little passageway.
5 - C - Tori was coming at me as I went over the bridge, I correctly gauged she was more than the 2 minutes ahead of me that she started. Argh! Still need to catch time up. I think based on thoughts like these, I lost focus and almost went around the wrong side of the pond, losing some seconds.
6 - B - Tumble down the hill. Ouchie legs.
7 - B - Focusing on running fast.
8- 9- 10 -11 - A - Control pick around the finish field. I feel like I did this well, I was reading a head, knew where I was going next, kept good flow!!
12 - B - Took the correct (earlier) bridge.
13 - C - Not excellently read ahead. Now looking at the map, I should have been more suspicious of the bridge-wall apparent blocking on the map, that you could in reality easily get through. I think the symbols are separate and just even harder to tell because of a red line over the mini-gap? But I should have read that ahead. Also could have done more cutting to 13 directly after bridge.
14 - ? - I can't even remember which way around I went for this one...
15 - B - Slightly stuttery on reading enough to choose a route, but not bad.
16 - A - Had read this ahead, had motivation in passing Viktoria, everything worked as planned.
17 - B - Slight hesitation looking for stairs down too early. Should have realized they were nearly at the building corner.
18 - B - I'm now less sure of my route, which was right. I kinda like the stairs + diagnol up from road now. Because I had to climb steep through loose dirt + blocked by trees...
19 - B - Contemplated going up and around, but too much climb, even for 2.5m contours- the woods just aren't bad here. Almost an A, but wish I had read that ahead.
20 - D - Simplified as 'easy' in my head, 'just go the clear way'. That should have meant go over the bridge immediately downhill, instead I started pounding down the diagnol paved path, which was *not* the right direction!.
21 - B - Sprinty times.

A lot of ok legs, few really good ones. I guess that's not surprising given not having done really any sprint training since sometime in the fall. But more reading ahead just has to happen at sprint. It's so often a binary choice early on in the leg...

Sprint Red - Splits

Sprint Relay Variant H - Splits

Black Diamond TT Red - Long

1st for the team-trials, but 2nd overall to Magnus J. by 34s and a few minutes in front of Sergey G. today. So good. All my AP-quantified error on the silliest of mistakes, running too high on the shortest leg out there. Bah. Still some rust to shake off of the o-skills!

In general, it was a runner's course and I ran well. We didn't have as dramatic route choices as the men (they had 3 quite big puzzles!) and my solutions were fine, but it's possible going around on the bigger trails would have been faster for some.

I need to start really analyzing what I'm doing out there to improve, so here goes!
1 - Easy, contoured from around the trail junction. But realized my e-punch was in my ski-o hand (right), not my foot-o hand (left), so lost a few seconds to switching that up, jeez!
2 - A longish leg, with a small choice of which way to tumble down the hill. I took the one with a few less contours climb, but not as good of a diagnol. There was a great trail in my reentrant though, which helpfully sped up the route choice. Into the circle fine, could see the control from lower.
3 - Looked to climb on the other side of the valley after the reentrant heading to NNE, diagnoled right to it.
4 - Fought and probably lost time to the rough open. But actually, I think more of a time sink may have not been staying on the trail long enough. I cut, but then had an extra reentrant to go through and ended up too high above the control, staying low at least you don't climb extra!
5 - Uphill slog on trails into the big saddle and then pick your poison to approach the control. I went directly and it looks time-wise like that was good.
6 - Straight. Used boulders along trail to guide in.
7 - Straight. Could see control from lower.
8 - Straight. Hesitated one cliff too early from the little goat-path on the E side of the river.
9 - Long leg. I wasn't truly decisive to start, but went with a route that went down the same reentrant as I took to 2, now that I knew there was a nice path in it. I did have one problem with executing my plan, taking the lower big trail E instead of the upper one, which is what I meant to do.
10 - Eep! My mistake. I was even pace counting! And reports say you could practically see the cliff from 9. So major fail. I didn't really read that it was two contours down, so on approximately the right bearing, I passed right by it.
11 - Long leg, with some small route choice at the beginning and end. I stayed low, passed the unmarked seasonal pond and then went up the second reentrant on the left to make a nice diagnol. Towards the end, I contoured instead of climbing extra on the trail.
12 - To 11 I saw the German girl I'd also seen at #8 and was worried that she was destroying me, because she had started after I had. Eep! But ok, stay calm, the best thing is just to try to get as much time back as possible! So reeled her in on the way to 12, bending left around the hill.
13 - Tumble down, racing Teresa, and then that kicked me into caring enough to run fully up the hill to tumble down to 13.
14 - People are cheering, eep! What am I doing? Ok, bend around and stop. Where is my cliff? I want to find it and finish. Ok, another map look shows it's very close to the trail, so went on, found it and went on to finish.

C • Sergey 2

Long red - Splits

Event: Run Black Diamond
 

Middle Red - Splits

Day off for evening travel to SF!! Holy-moly team trials tomorrow. In packing for orienteering, I realized that *every* single one of my pairs of tights or o-pants has a significant hole in the knee. Yay for new uniforms soon!

C • Ski O memory game? 4

Have tickets to Tio Mila to race for CSU! Super psyched. Also heading to Italy for some pre-WOC training afterwards. If anyone is even remotely interested in this let me know, more company would be awesome!!! Plan is to focus on the woods, because sprint terrain is sprint terrain. May 5-7.

C • Great 1

Morning run with Tom! Once around Ottawa Park, doubled the construction hill. Tom had two falls on evil black ice, I was luckier...

Zumba!! Woo! Great to get back to it. Joanna's class along with Lesley and a few other gals. Love dancing to Timber. I mean, pretty sure that's what it's meant for!!

Uphill hiking on the treadmill at 15%. Trying to make the muscles just that little bit more ready for Team Trials!

2 laps of normal running drills.

400s with Kevin, mostly around 80, with just a 1/12 of a mile recovery. Felt pretty good, but those are pretty sharp corners at 400 pace!! Last one at 76 for fun, it hurt more... =)

Last indoor track workout?

C • Sick 2

Run around Ottawa Park with Tom. Did the construction hill 3x and the golf course hill 3x. Still some ice around the trail, but mostly it's clear. Lots of snow in the woods, but not on the open golf course anymore. Still, did not feel like spring by a long shot, but the rest of the week should be warmer!