Training Log Archive: Sandy

NAOC Long Distance
Another great map and great course. I loved the course which made great use of the terrain. Another slow and careful outing, nothing great but good routes and no big errors. A few small bobbles - almost went by #3 a little high but saw the root stock out of the corner of my eye and went back and then later was heading straight for 12 but got distracted by other people nearby and probably lost a minute before giving myself a stern talking to and getting back into it and going right to the control. I started to really get tired at about 60 minutes and wished I had brought a GU or something with me. But I resorted to my tried and true method of talking to myself to keep me focused and while I think I slowed down a bit it seemed to help. Took some chances and cut through a few swampy areas - guess I was judicious in my choices of which ones to try as I didn't get stuck in the muck as others did. Again, not much running anywhere but slow and steady was good enough for 2nd in F50.

C • Nice weekend! 3

NAOC Middle Distance
What a fantastic course. I had a blast. I didn't go particularly fast but I didn't lose too much time anywhere either. A fast walk with an occasional jog here and there was it but I was in contact the whole time. It was tough to read the map because of the rain and a few times I wasn't sure whether the stacked contours were going to be up or down but I figured it would be pretty obvious when I got there and I was able to read things when it was important. I lost a few seconds on 8 when I was a little right but knew I had come across the wide flat depression on the right side so looked left and saw the flag. (The contours there are weirdly drawn - I thought it was my eyes but even now with a magnifier it doesn't make sense.) I lost a minute or so on 11 when I came down the hillside near the green and checked out the unmapped 5m rootstock to my right carefully before going over to the 1m one a bit to the left. I only just noticed that the clue sheet says 1.1m so I guess it's my own fault. But that's it. And it paid off as everyone else in F50 had several large errors. I certainly was not expecting a great result, but I won F50 by 7 seconds. Having lost by 8 seconds at the last NAOC and by 9 seconds in a US Champs several years ago I'll take it! :)

Event: North American Championships
 

NAOC Sprint #1.
Told Valerie on the drive up that I didn't want my sprints to count for rankings purposes. I didn't want any reason to try to go too fast. I know I'm woefully out of condition and I figured if I was going to last the weekend I needed to pace myself. So the intent was to keep jogging the whole course if I possibly could but not try to sprint anywhere. And I was pretty happy with a clean run and managing to keep a good jog most of the time. I took good routes to all controls ( except maybe #7 where I went around instead of through the green) and was rewarded by catching back up to some speedier people a few times by cutting through instead of going around - Walter Seigenthaler took off from 3 right in front of me but went east then north on the trails and I wasn't but a few steps behind him at 4 by taking the ride and Charlie DeWeese punched right ahead of me at 8 and took the road around while I went through the mismapped white/yellow finger of woods and popped out on the road right as he was going by on the way to 9. Any I was under 10 min/km which I know is ridiculously slow for a sprint but it's way fast for me! So quite pleased.

NAOC Sprint #2
Another solid, reasonably clean run and under 10 min/km again. Was careful to pay attention and see which way people were going out of the start and as I took off could hear people commenting that I seemed to know where to go. Could probably have found a better line out of 3 but forced my way through the crappy woods. Couldn't decide on the best way to go to 6 and went around but in early and then tried to go straight out and got pushed right of the line so probably lost some time on 5-6-7 but nothing really significant. Wasn't too sure what 11 was going to look like going in and there was no elephant trail when I got there so no help but just pushed my way through pine trees till I could see a flag. Took the left route to 14 cutting through the green towards the end but I wonder if turning around and going right is better. It took me almost a minute to get to the finish from 16.

I ended up 3rd in F50.

Solo tnt, but I got out early before it was dark. Walked down to the drive and ran two miles almost getting under 10min pace. What a difference from a few days ago! And it didn't feel particularly hard.

Walk down to the drive then - after running two miles on the drive - up the very steep hill by Bells Mills Rd and then back around on the roads going past Sandy and Karl's on the way home. I may try to do something like this more often - walking up that hill is an excellent workout.

pilates class; not too challenging although I did step it up a bit and try to hold tension in lots of muscles to isolate just the one that was being worked. It's one of those things that doesn't come naturally and that you don't have to do to do the exercise so it's easy to not do it unless you consciously think about it.