Training Log Archive: Sandy

Nice hike in the Wissahickon with Sandy and Karl. Hotter out than I was expecting.

C • NIce one . . . 3

Hill repeats with Sandy.

Meadow loop with Sandy. I little bit of jogging.

Ears already a bit better; one side is already cleared.

Up and down the stairs.

Didn't want to go outside but wanted to do something.

Haven't been doing any yoga since getting back since going upside down puts crazy pressure on my sinuses but needed to do something to stretch so settled for some random core and stretching exercises.

Ears still blocked; doctor put me on a prednisone treatment. Thirty years ago when this happened, it took antibiotics but since there's no real indication of an infection she was loathe to do that especially given all the controversy surrounding overuse of antibiotics. If the steroids don't work though she said she'd consider it. Here's hoping this works. Unfortunately, my sleep, which hasn't been that great recently, won't improve for a bit.

Yard work - clearing out lots of dead plants but there's still so much more to go.

Both ears still blocked. Seeing a doctor on Monday.

hill repeats

All my usual trail loops have poison ivy encroaching on the narrow sections so I may doing some out and backs to avoid it.

Meadow loop with Sandy via Sandy's to get some veggies from their gardern. Yum.

Just walking though as my ears are still blocked. Time to see a doctor I guess.

Bleah. Feel worse today. Head so clogged up I can barely think.

C • Feel better 5

Still not better. My ears are a bit clogged - if I bend over I get crazy pressure on my ear drums. I was worried the plane ride would be bad but they didn't bother me too much. I did have one coughing fit though - the poor guy sitting next to me must be downing vitamin c, echinecea, zinc drops or anything else he can think of. I tried to be really good about coughing into something, but still.

All the stuff in my checked bags was wet when I got home. At first I was worried one of the bottles of whiskey Scott bought and I volunteered to take home with me since they were carrying all their luggage on their backs had broken, but it was just water. A few cotton items were soaked while most everything else was just damp. All my maps which were in an outside pocket were sopping. At first I thought some TSA agent had spilled a bottle of water in there but then when I got to the second bag it was wet, too. The only thing I can think of is that the bags sat out on the tarmac in Manchester where I transferred planes and they got rained on. Or they got set down in a puddle. But the outsides of the bags were not damp, just the stuff inside. It's very puzzling.

From now on, I either do just carry-on or everything goes in plastic bags.

Kept trying to shift on the drive home... At least I didn't try to drive on the left side of the road.

C • Welcome 1

A quick outing in hopes that I will be able to get to sleep tonight despite all the coffee I drank in order to drive the two hours from Newark. Did not run any of the hill but did run (translated: jogged slowly) the half mile on the drive.

Feel ok but still having some horrible coughing spells (one bad enough that I had to pull the car over and get out). And now my ears occasionally hurt too. Not the way I wanted to end the vacation. Did a few more touristy things today like visit a distillery and then took Scott and Katie in to Inverness to catch their train back to London. Had planned to hike tomorrow but may just walk around the town of Nairn if my head doesn't clear.

Drove to Loch Ness and planned to visit Castle Urqhuart but the lot was full and there were a zillion cars so we kept on going to our "real" destination, Castle Eilean Doran, the castle used to film some scenes from the Highlander movie. We made a big clockwise loop and saw the most stunning scenery along the A87. The castle was pretty cool, but that stretch of the drive was definitely the highlight.

Picked up Scott and Katie in Inverness and then visited Culloden Battlefield and Cawder Castle. Walked a bunch but quite leisurely; feeling better but not all that great.

Pretty worn out and a bit sick. Bagged all thoughts of going somewhere for a hike.

Day 6. So glad I decided to go out today. My knee was really sore this morning - both knees actually - and I have a bit of a cold (cough and stuffy nose mostly) so i thought about just bagging it. But I can relax tomorrow and Samantha Saeger and Alex Jospe both said the terrain was wonderful so I decided to at least start but be sensible and quit if my knee was a problem. So I hiked up to the start (it was steep and fairly long). And the terrain was just fabulous. So different than yesterday.

I orienteered reasonably well except for leaving 3 and putting my compass down as if I was leaving 4 and heading to 5 and while things sort of made sense they didn't match exactly so I stopped and luckily realized what I had done. Only lost 3 minutes or so as I was able to head off to 4 pretty easily. Most other controls popped up just as I expected them with maybe 2-3 others just a little further than when I started thinking I should be seeing them or at least the biggish feature I was aiming for.

I had a pretty horrible placing despite having a "good" run. The majority of the course was downhill and many people just came flying by me. The ground was reasonably runnable although a bit hummocky so even in the flat bits I wasn't willing to run. And any time I tried to jog just a bit, my knee really hurt so I just walked. Even the finish chute.

I've been icing this evening and taking ibuprofen and hopefully I'll be fine in a day or two.

The terrain really was quite wonderful and lots of fun to orienteer on and I'm so happy to finish on a successful (for me) outing and not yesterday's disaster. I heard someone describe Glen Affric as "magical" and after yesterday I thought they were crazy. But after today I can see why they thought it was so special.

And bonus - it didn't start raining until we were done for the day.

S6D - Day 6 Glen Affric - C23 - Splits

Day 5. Well that was embarrassing. Just could not focus and kept making errors. And the terrain was absolutely brutal. I would come to a stream with a 20 foot sheer drop and think "they can't possibly have meant for me to be doing this" but then 5 runners would come barreling by and hop down the bank and I would realize yes, this exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. So I slogged around the course and totally trashed my knee. Fell twice crossing streams and was totally soaked. Good thing the waterproof map paper is really quite good. Hopefully I will feel okay for tomorrow.

C • Day 5 5

S6D - Day 5 Glen Affric - C23 - Splits

Day 4. Another day at beautiful Darnaway but a new section - the area used for the WOC relay. I think I liked this terrain even better. Had lots of fun and again even jogged in a few places where the woods were just long sloping downhill of wide open woods with soft leaves underfoot. Very happy with this outing with my only "errors" of the hesitation variety. Another good result.

S6D - Day 4 Darnaway - C23 - Splits

Day 3. Beautiful woods today. Lots of hills and depressions with virtually no undergrowth. They kept us out of the nasty sections that the WOC middle competitors had to run through. I tried to jog in a few places since the woods were so nice and promptly overran a few controls. But no big time losses; only 30 seconds or a minute at most. So ended up with a good result (at least for me).

S6D - Day 3 Darnaway - C23 - Splits

Day 2. Pretty much the same as yesterday. Walked all but a short bit of the run in. Made a handful of small bobbles but all in the 10 to 15 second range except 12 where I was a good bit right but Janet told me where it was. We ended up starting 30 seconds apart and saw each other most of the course although we took lots of different micro routes. There was a huge delay on the road since cars were getting stuck trying to get into the parking field and lots of people missed their start times so they were feeding late starters in every 30 seconds.

I had a really late start so there were trails through all the vegetation by the time I got there. Would have been brutal to go early. Very physically tiring today.

S6D - Day 2 Strathfarrar - C23 - Splits

Okay day. Deecided to just walk the course to make sure I can get through all 6 days. Followed that plan except for the run in to the finish where I jogged slowly for about the last half. And have the slowest split for that leg anyway! Relatively pleased except for the one place where I turned off a road too soon and had to cross a bunch of muck to get over to where I wanted to be. Lost maybe 3 or 4 minutes there. Went by 2 other controls about 20 meters before correcting but everything else popped up nicely right where expected. Not so hard when walking.

S6D - Day 1 Achagour - C23 - Splits

Lots of walking around yesterday and today. Worked as a course Marshall guarding some makeshift stiles of haybales to cross fences on Friday (some local kids were messing around with them) and then monitoring some fences that were erected to force some mini route choices to let locals know they could cross through but make sure competitors didn't. Missed being in the arena but fun to see all the competitors go zooming by.

Went to one of the training area Thursday. It was brutal. No trouble navigating in general but lots of trouble moving through the vegetation and down the steep hillsides.

C • Hey 2