Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Shell Ridge/Diablo Foothills. US Team Trials A-meet, Long Brown. 3.8 km, 270 m climb. Fortunately, not as warm as yesterday. Scheduled start at 10:41, but starts were delayed by 11 mins.

Wore my trail shoes because my toes were sore from yesterday and the trail shoes are easier on my feet. This was fine except for a couple of times when contouring on the sides of very steep hills, where I had to struggle to maintain my forward momentum.

Pushed hard the whole race, realizing early on that this was going to be a test of running endurance. Pleased that I was able to run as well as I did. Several small bobbles, but no errors bigger than 30 seconds, so it was a very good run, resulting in a 9+ min margin of victory.

My route on RouteGadget.

1. At first glance, thought going straight would require down-up-down, so ran along the road instead. (In fact, a little contouring and then following the line of trees would have been a better route: 20 sec route choice error.) Followed the road to the junction, took the small trail across the terrace to the road again, went down the reentrant and followed the ditch down. At the end of the small clump of trees, peered into the ditch but didn’t see a flag; took a few more steps, peered in again, and there it was, where I’d looked the first time, but difficult to see because it was in a dark crevice. Additional 10 sec loss.

2. Rough compass up to road. Had planned to continue diagonally up the hillside, but it was too steep, so ran along the road almost to the sharp bend crossing the big reentrant, and then climbed straight up. Paused a few times to recover, and used those moments to plan the long leg to #3.

3. First thought was to go left towards where the big power line crosses the ridge, but there was no marked fence crossing there, so abandoned that idea. Contoured into the reentrant (tough hanging on to the side of the hill) then angled up to the road. (Hat got knocked off at one point, which is way I don’t like to wear a hat even though I should to protect me from the sun.) Forced myself to jog along the upgrade. As I rounded the bend towards the fence, saw Nancy, seemingly poised to cross. I called out to her that that wasn’t a legal crossing point; she said four other people had just crossed there. George told me later that there was actually a 2-meter wide gap in the fence there (which I didn’t see). Does that make it legal to cross? Anyway, continued up the trail to the marked crossing point. Saw Rich Parker heading up towards the saddle, but I had planned to go around the right side to save a few contours, so took the path heading SW and did just that. The hillside was so steep that I couldn’t run without losing my balance. So, this probably wasn’t a faster route, but it did save my legs a little. Diagonally down (steep!) towards the forest where #3 was (pretty easy to identify from these heights). Went around the edge of the big, forested reentrant on the other side of the road instead of going direct, probably a 20 sec route choice error. Contoured towards the control; I was just a little high. Rich was contouring out as I was coming in.

4. ENE to the road, force myself to keep running (passing Rich), all the way to the terrace NNW of the control. Swing around the side of the spur, descending a bit, into the forest - but no control. Realized it was much lower down than I had been thinking, so headed back and down, and saw a rootstock way down towards the bottom, and figured that must be it, and it was, though lower down than it looks on the map (as many people agreed). 20 sec error, giving Rich a chance to catch back up. Despite the error at the end, had a very good split even compared to the Green runners.

5. N along the bottom of the reentrant then take the NE fork up (walking) to the road junction. Take a quick drink at the water stop by the next gate. The road to the right looked tempting, but thought I’d save a couple of contours by contouring on the left side of the hill, and that worked out nicely. Crossed the trail, contoured through the reentrant, around the spur and into the bag in the next reentrant. As I came around the spur, saw Katie heading down the reentrant the control was in towards the bottom of the bigger, W-E reentrant.

6. Before punching 5 had already decided I would contour out rather than drop to the bottom. The sidehill running was a little difficult, but well worth the savings in climb. Crossed over to the hillside with the control, and angled up towards the rocks. Had to walk, but caught up to Katie at the control.

7. Quick exit as I’d had plenty of time to pick at my route on the climb up - didn’t even need to look at my map. Contoured N, caught the little trail, into the saddle, saw the top of the reentrant a little to the right, down to the control.

8. Angled up, W, to the trail I’d left. Trying to run along that trail was no better than being on the hillside, so cut further left and around the N side of the hill. Going down to the road was really steep and treacherous: had to sort of slide from tree to tree, braking myself by grabbing onto the trunks. Got to the road right at the where it meets the bottom of the subtle reentrant, then angled up and around the N side of that hill until I saw the rocks, and then the flag, maybe a half a contour lower.

9. Down the nose of the spur to the trail junction, then try to push it along the trail to the T-intersection. Trying to pick out the map detail in the saddle to come, inadvertently stopped to get a better look - sign of a fading brain! Left at the junction, figuring I’d angle up to the saddle, and lo and behold there was an unmapped trail going exactly where I wanted to go. Forced myself to keep moving up to the saddle. Should’ve been easy from here - just follow the reentrant down - but my fading brain was giving me an uneasy feeling and I probably checked the map a half-dozen times as I descended, finally spotting the control.

10. Left, contouring around the hill, having trouble making sense of anything (and realizing my brain has had it). Pause a few times, finally get it in my head that the cliff is very near the bottom of the reentrant leading to the Finish, start cutting down and see what looks like the top of the cliff (and Chuck, up considerably higher, looking down), head there and right to the control. Lost maybe 25 secs.

F. Here’s how much my brain was fading: the Finish just didn’t look like a Finish to me, and I started worrying that there was actually one more control to go - even checked my clue sheet to see what the code would be for this one. Finally sorted it out, maybe slowing down a little and costing a second or two. Definitely pushed myself to the limit.

Long, uphill walk/jog to start; starts were delayed by 11 mins, so had to jog around for another 5 mins before actually starting.

Long brown - Splits