Training Log Archive: arcticQn

Event: WCOC / US Team A-Meet/WRE
 

WCOC Day 1 Middle Dist - WRE
Fail.
Actually, no, I was doing okay up until #4, and then suddenly my brain shut off and went on vacation and I ended up running TWICE AS FAR as I needed to to get to 4 and instead ran nearly to 5 before realizing what the hell I was doing. Once I finally gathered pieces of my mind and patched them back together, i sprinted back to 4 (which I _still_ had trouble finding in the circle despite an obvious attackpoint) and then sprinted _back again_ to 5. dashed off to 6 and then the pieces fell apart again and I ran around 7 for awhile. Mad dash again to 8, and then 9 on through were kind of a blur.
The whole race I think I was just lucky on the good legs and the bad ones were 'normal' for Erin's skill/speed level these days!
*sigh*
On a good note, running through the woods, lungs, and muscles, felt SO much better than last weekend. Not sure if it was the temperature or the bit of training, most likely a bit of both. (This ease of running in such gorgeous woods no doubt caused a bit of the over-run on 4.) I do like CT woods..
But, so... tomorrow has GOT to be better than this. ;) ... shoulda moved to brown, right George!?

C • Brown!? 1

Sweet gathering, games and bbq'ing at Boris and Kat's place in New Haven afterwards! Thanks to all who helped, grilled, organized, hosted and played! You guys are awesome, I've missed you. ;)

Red X Day 1: Middle - Splits

Travel day.. solid day at work, running around to various sites, then driving down to the Brautigams.

4x(5' at HR 168-172, 4' rest)
Got caught in quite a rather intense downpour, while it was still glaringly sunny at the same time. weird.

4x30reps ball crunches, 2x20 girly pushups, 1x20 backups (the hams are quite sore from these the other day.)

Got home around 6 and took one look at the lawn and decided it had to be done tonight. If I didn't mow it tonight, it wouldn't be until next week, and by that point I would have to cut it twice.
Had K help me get the rig out of the basement, put some gas in it that we had left over from last fall, opened the fuel line and - purrrrrr! lovely!
Started the blades and went to town, excpet not 200m later the thing puttered out and died. okaaayyy... got fuel, got oil...ugh. research... carborator?... I can't get to it with full tank of gas (that I don't want to have to drain)... research... spark plug? I CAN get to that - worth a try.... pulled the plug, cleaned with alcohol, dried and buffed and shined (as much as a used spark plug can be) and put back in.. crank... purrrr.... sputter. die. hmm. try again. crank... purrrrrrrrr! I let it sit idling for about a minute and it didn't die so.. VOILA!
Who needs small engine repair-fixit guys anywho!?
In any case.. the lawn got mowed, though it was nearing pitch black when I got done. no run today.

Down to the rail trail hill again. This time I told myself I was going to do 3x90s hills, in secret hopes that I would find that too few and challenge myself to do 4 (the silly games we play...)
+-16min warm up down and along the rail trail doing various running drills and 4 strideouts, then 4x90s-ish to a tree that I've marked out as being about 90s. 3min cooldown, walking/jogging down and a bit of standing at the bottom waiting.
1-1.22
2-1.25
3-1.28
4-1.30
Certainly no negative splits there.. maybe i'll try for that next time. HR would get to 168 or so at the top, then continue up to about 179 afterwards on all of them.
Did 2x30s on the trail up to the house, just for the hell of it. Then a slow jog back home.

3x30 reps ball crunches, 3x20reps girly pushups and backups and some other stuff.

planned rest day. Body felt good after the weekend, no soreness, and as far as i can tell no poison ivy!

Earlier start today, much cooler temp but still high 70s i think it was.
Again distracted at the start, which usually I like, but I'm beginning to realize (in hindsight) that I need to focus, concentrate, get my head screwed on straight and have a plan before I flip the map over. How novel, right?! :)
Turned the map and saw a route to 1 by taking roads around, didn't like it. Decided that since I saw a bunch of people running through the parking lot that must be a decent route and thought to try that instead. Dropped down through the woods and came across a paved road. What, where'd this come from?! Dropped through the woods again onto the playing fields and started running towards the parking lot. Looked at the map and saw a trail before the parking lot that I just passed. Ran back to it, decided it didn't look good, so I continued back again on my run to and through the parking lot.
Passed Greg balter who no doubt wondered what the hell i was doing. Got to the end of the parking and saw on the map this little red "X" across the road that I wanted to take, looked at another option, another "X". Determined that there was no way around it (except there was, not a great one, but there was - in hindsight), picked my ego off the ground and ran back through the parking lot, back up to the road and around on the originally discarded route.
What a way to start the day. There are waaay too many reasons I can think of now for why this happened, but basically i just needed to settle myself down, realize that this race is a lot longer course than either of yesterday's and take the few extra seconds to figure it out BEFOREHAND! ugh. I think i lost about 6-7mins on that one alone.
From there it was another flustered mis-calculated route straight up and over the ski hill to 2 (which I didn't think ended up being too too bad, but I guess I lost about 2mins) instead of going around on the road, which of course now seems insanely obvious.
At 2 I caught up with Ethan Childs and we ended up sticking together for the rest of the way, off and on, which was a HUGE asset and i would surely have run much much slower if I didn't have him to push me along, whether it was from in front, behind or alongside to simply to see whose routes were quicker.
The rest of the course was pretty cake, other than overrunning 8 by a few meters and standing around wondering by how far and then getting to the circle of 12 and looking around for 10s before Ethan graciously pointed out that I was standing, on top of tiniest cliff in the area, right above the flag at the bottom of the cliff.
Then at 13, I was fortunate enough that, after my catastrophic disaster on 1, I had flipped my map over to see how awful the rest of the course would be and saw the nearly 2km long leg to 14 so it wasn't a shock when i got to it! After actually studying some route options, Ethan bounded off to the left and I determined likewise that that looked like the least crapiest option, despite some immediate thrashing through green slashy yuck. Still think it was definitely the best route. 14 on was smooth sailing, got away from Ethan on 14 and 15 I think but he made a push and caught me again by 20 or 21.
Overall I feel pretty down about it, perhaps because it was so blatantly obvious the errors on 1 (and so public) and otherwise it simply showed my lack of fitness. I obviously feel weak on the hills, but my orienteering skill is similarly lacking. Doubting my great 'comeback'.

C • Ah come on... 7

Red Long Distance - Splits