Training Log Archive: Sandy

Hill repeats. Remembered the heart monitor and remembered to take splits. Cool - I'm not totally brain dead yet.

Wore the same pack weight as Sunday and I'm now thinking it was the extra weight that wore me out. I felt the same sort of unsteadiness or awkwardness when I started and had to work a good bit harder to get up the hills. But the good news is that this is something that will definitely improve if I just keep wearing the pack and slowly increasing the weight. Psyched.

Stair repeats with my back (~13 lbs): 3 x (2 min single; 5 min double)

Arm strength: side raise, front raise, curl, reverse curl, overhead, tricep
3 sets of 10 each with a count of 5 on the downs for the last set

Worked up a good sweat.

Tried out a new yoga studio. Much more convenient. Today's teacher was a sub so will have to go a few more times before deciding if I want to go regularly. It is much closer to home and much easier to combine with doing errands so it has the big advantage that I might actually go.

Not a particularly strenuous class but did get some good stretching and worked on alignment and posture a lot. Which I needed.

Event: QOC PWF
 

Hike in the Wissahickon. I am exhausted - way more so than after the hills on Wednesday.

I started feeling a little woozy right off the bat and then realized I hadn't eaten anything other than pancakes for breakfast. So I quickly ate most of the food I brought with me and drank a bunch of water and that helped.

But then about 2 hours in I just felt beat. I was carrying a little extra weight in my pack - I threw in a water bottle and one of my 5 lb hand weights - but it wasn't any heavier than what I carried for the rogaine. But perhaps over time it was enough extra today to do me in. Note to self: do not gain weight; you have to carry every ounce of it up the mountain.

Another difference was I went alone - perhaps not having someone to chat with let me focus too much on how tired I was.

Anyway, a beautiful day to be out hiking. Feeling really comfortable putting lots of weight on the poles on the downhills.

C • There's a lot . . . 3

Event: QOC PWF Training
 

About 5 hours on my feet:
one last map correction for the A event courses
found a circle ditch and a platform to use for demos
did the trail-o course to give Karl some feedback - I thought it was great

20 minutes of stair repeats and 15 of arm and other strength stuff.

A little nervous about doing the full-out stair repeats so just did one double one single for 20 minutes. My knees have been a little more sore than normal and my biggest goal is to stay injury free. This seemed about right.

Did 3 sets of 10 repeats of all the arms with 5 lb. weights: side raises, front raises, bicep curls, reverse curls, overhead, triceps. On the 3rd set I did the lowering part to the count of 5. Will work on slowing that down. Did some squats and single leg balances in between each set.

TNT Media - walking the fields.

Hill repeats with Sandy. The plan is to up it to 3 in November and 4 in Decemeber.

Should probably start taking lap times on each repeat.

C • whoa! 3

RTP - plus extra arm strength stuff and some core.

And another day just like the first. A few bobbles, a few not quite clean controls having moments of not being sure but figuring out where I was quickly, and one really bad control. The bad control was horrible - I navigated perfectly right to the control but in using the magnifier somehow lost track that I was navigating to 3 and when I got to the control thought I was navigating to 4 and didn't even check the code of the flag that I could touch because it didn't match the feature on the map. After leaving the control and continuing on a compass bearing to 4, starting navigating to 3 again and nothing was making sense. Finally stopped, figured out where I had to be based on the directions of the rides I could see ( I thought the yellow was relatively easy to use) and then figured out what I had done. But a lot of time lost. AP says 4 minutes but I was with Charlie at #2 and was saw him leaving #3 - which I had seen him punch; it might have made me stop and check at the control - which means I then wasted 7 minutes before getting back to 3.

So again, just not mentally there. Another early morning setting up - at the event site at 7am - and busy up until going to the start. But I don't think that's really the culprit. I'm having trouble focusing on much of anything these days for more than 5 minutes.

Day 2 - Brown X - Splits

Event: UNO Boulder Dash
 

An okay but not great race. Small bobbles on many controls, some time lost on others but no real damage, and one really bad control. Was having trouble focusing - I could tell because I had to talk to myself to keep my head in the map.

I could blame having to get up really early to be at the event site at 7:30 to start setting up results, but I think it's more just general distraction with other things going on at the moment and knowing that I really need to take it easy on my knees.

Day 1 - Brown X - Splits

Model event with Amy just checking out how things were mapped.

Then went to Beaver Brook. I finally took care of this. It took 8 years, but I had brought my map along thinking there might be time and went out and tried to navigate from 7 to 8. Damn if I didn't end up in exactly the same place as I did 8 years ago! I recognized it and was dumbfounded - both by the fact that I ended up in the same place and that I totally remembered exactly what it looked like. And once again could not figure it out right away. This time though, after a few minutes of feeling like I was in a time warp, I relocated off something entirely different and went right to the control (which I also totally remembered looking exactly like what it looked like). I then re-found the area where I had originally found myself and now realize that I never went far enough. I took some thinning of green to be a gap in the green and so was one green blob off. The knoll I ended up on had some rocks so I thought I was one knoll further than I was - the rock on the knoll where I ended up thinking I should see the spur my control was on was was not mapped. Anyway, a fun outing and very glad Valerie egged me on to do this. It's been filed away in my mind as something that needed doing.

Some more quality time with the gnats. We need a frost!!

Someone was messing with my streamers. A few were missing and I found a few of them tied on to trees about 500 meters from where I put them. At least no stakes were moved - at least none that I visited today.

Another super fun course on a great map in wonderful terrain. No real errors, every control was where I expected it to be, just couldn't get there too terribly fast. Just a bit tentative about running hard right now.

And some pushups (3 sets of 15) just because I haven't done any arm strength in a few days. Not so hard when I haven't also done all the other strength exercises.

C • Nice work . . . 7

Long Course 5 - Splits

What a fun, fun map. Really hard to decipher up/down/hill/reentrant for the first bit but the woods were so clean and it was all about reading the map and not getting into the wrong set of hills and reentrants. A little tentative and not completely clean but always able to stop and figure out what I had done and where I was. But boy was it good to have that magnifier! Without it I would probably still be wondering around in there.

Had a lot of trouble getting down the steep hill to get out of that section but eventually slid down and then went on a compass bearing on the longish leg through the flat stuff. I wasn't positive where I was as I was going but thought I was holding a decent line and just figured I'd sort it out when I got to the hill on the other end. As it turned out, the little hill I thought I might be on was the hill I was on and the spur I thought be crossing was the spur I was crossing and I came out right in front of the reentrant with my control. And then it was just some straightforward legs with a very steep hill right before the end.

Couldn't really run a whole lot - too steep going up to run, too steep going down to run and the flatish section was just thick enough to make running hard too. Pushed where I could but others pushed harder.

C • Super 5

Middle Course 5 - Splits

Event: 2013 Nationals (Hamilton, CANADA)
 

Sprint: worked results for Valerie and then ran over to get out on a sprint course. Head wasn't really in it for the first two controls and then I started to settle down but then whacked my head on a concrete wall. Stupidest thing - felt like such a moron. Had my face in the map and then looked up and turned and smack. Hit it flat on the side so at least no cuts or blood. Wondered if I should keep going but felt okay so did. Got into it a little more and then had fun. Was able to jog most of the rest of the course. Fun course through the MacMaster campus using lots of archways and and things like that.

C • You're rockin 1

Sprint Course 2 - Splits

Hill repeats with Sandy. Meant to wear the heart monitor but forgot. At least I remembered to start the garmin.

C • Ow 3

Core DVD plus some stretching and then some planks to be sure I wasn't exaggerating how long I could hold them.

TNT - brisk walk down on the drive. At least it felt like a good pace. Wore my Garmin but forgot to start it. Big crowd for dinner.

And back to the workouts.

Stair repeats: 4 x (8 minutes double stairs, 2 minutes single stairs)

And then a bunch of arm stuff.

C • arm stuff 11

Event: QOC Oregon Ridge - Susquehanna Stumble
 

Short Stumble
Had a pretty decent race with only two small errors, backtracked a bit on 5/C in the first window thinking I had come to the stream but in fact hadn't gone far enough and drifted a bit left on the way to 12 and was momentarily a bit confused. Lost maybe a minute or so on the first and 30 seconds on the second. Other than that, spiked everything and am happy with my route choices. In particular, very happy with the way I took the second window: 18, 19, 14, 15 16, 17. I had one climb from 18 to 19 and then the rest was really fast and very little up and down. I changed my mind several times on how to do that window on the long route from 10 to 11. But I used the magnifier on my compass to really understand the contours and was able to move really fast between the controls one I got there. Everything else was so wide open - both in the terrain and on the map - and the map was easy to read so the only thing to think about was route choice and I went mostly straight. It took a conscious effort to shift gears and concentrate on details and my compass in that last window.

Physically felt good and even ran some near the end when I realized I was almost done.

C • You rock 5

Short Stumble - Splits

3 hrs of yard work.

Woke with a really sore neck. Grrr....I thought that was getting better.

Need to get back to my training routines: stair repeats and weights and stuff.

tnt - walking the fields at the HS.

Putting in the last of the stakes and streamering white. Spent an extra hour backtracking trying to find something I dropped.

TNT - hike with Sandy. Jim walked down with us but then jogged; Karl was on his own but quit early.

This is the 15 minutes before I remembered to start my watch.

And the part after I started the watch.