Training Log Archive: PG

Map from Day 1. A bit of a strange course. Could have done without the climb up to 13. Click on map for a larger image.



And from day 2. Very nice course. But I have never seen a ruin printed so small, see #8, not anywhere close to so small. Just messing with me I assume, seeing if my new eye is really any good.

It ain't that good. :-)

C • Ruinous 16

Day 2, M60, GreenX, 5.8 km, 205m climb.

After a little bit of a shaky start, a very fine run, except….

Except that about 5 minutes from the finish, coming downhill to #11 at a good rate of speed, landed on a pointy rock right in the middle of my right arch. Ouch and then more ouch.

Seems like a class 2 injury, where class 1 is it goes away after a minute or two, which means maybe a day or two of soreness will follow, class 2 is it doesn't go away, but not so bad that you can't keep running, which means a week or two at least of recovery time, and class 3 is when you can't even finish, in which case you are screwed.

So now I am hobbling around, the arch very sore, one assumes a deep bruise. Don't expect much activity this week. Other than getting my other eye done on Thursday.

The good news is that perhaps the rest will fix my sore hip (it's certainly not bothering me now), along with the psychological cure of having all my attention focused on the arch, so the hip can just be cool. This has worked many times in the past -- the best cure for an ailment is to get another ailment on a different part of the body.

Back to the orienteering. Overall a good effort, certainly a better effort than yesterday, and a good result. And the last part of the course, especially, was as much fun as I've had orienteering for quite a while. Thanks to Kseniya for the course setting, a much better course than what we had yesterday.

And it seemed to be a fine weekend overall. Good vibes. I think the secret was to make the map, or at least certain features on the map, virtually unreadable, and thereby focusing all the normal complaining needs onto just one area, so everything else gets off scott free. Brilliant strategy. From my point of view, a role player in the organization with one of the easy jobs, the weekend seemed to go just fine (as long as I stayed away from the map discussions).

And the forest is wonderful. Way better than Harriman. There will certainly be a Billygoat in its future.

C • start line 6

Green X Day 2 - Splits

Event: HVO/WCOC A-event "Love The Lakes"
 

HVO/WCOC A meet, day 1, M60 GreenX, 5.3 km, 250m. Pretty good navigating. The legs seemed to have no zip, but maybe that was just because of all the hills. Who knows.

Main event of the day was this was the first test of my new left eye. I've obviously been checking its vision compared to my right eye over the last week and a half. After the first couple of days after surgery, things calmed down and the vision close up is definitely better than with the right eye. Where there is a contour line, I pretty much see a contour line, as opposed to the right eye, where I see a fuzzy contour line, and a shadow, and some other random interference and blurriness. Though I do have to have the map very close to focal length distance from my eye; otherwise things get fuzzy very quickly.

So anyway, today. I'm not sure I'm supposed to be orienteering -- gardening is not allowed to avoid getting dirt in the eye -- and if the doc knew I was going orienteering (and knew what O' was), he might have banned it. But he didn't know….

It's not like the map was suddenly simple to read, especially on the run. But it was a lot easier than what I've been dealing with in the last year or two. When I stopped to look carefully, the dot knolls were dot knolls, the boulders were boulders, the cliffs were cliffs.

I still thought the lines were thin and the symbols were small and maybe things were a little fuzzy, and so part of me was still a little disappointed in my vision. So I was really really happy to hear the experts talking afterwards about how bad the printing was and how small the symbols were. Because I could still make sense of things a whole lot better than two weeks ago at the NAOC. :-)

And that was even with changing eyes, normally I read the map with the right eye, so I had to make some adjustments. But still, yippee!

Note that my overall vision still sucks. Get the new right lens (and a special pricy one to deal with bad astigmatism) this coming Thursday, and then after that settles down new glasses for far vision and maybe new contacts. And then I'll really know where things stand. But today was sure a pleasant surprise.

As far as the rest of my O' today, dead legs going up any hills, good free-fall going down, good navigation (missed at most 30 seconds). And, it should be said and repeated, a wonderful forest.

Other than that, a pleasant morning working at the start, get to see lots of people. It means running without having eaten for about 6 hours, don't know if that made a difference or not. But an easy way to make a small contribution to the job of hosting a meet. And when people held out their e-punches for me to check the numbers, I could actually read them.

If this progress keeps up, in another month or so I'll be able to read road signs. :-)

C • NY Times 5

C • eyes 2

Green X Day 1 - Splits

Taking a few days off. My left hip had been on and off sore for a few weeks, time to see if I can get it to calm down. Bothers me at home (things like getting into bed). Running it hurts the first little bit, then OK. Don't know what's going on. May need to take some more off days.

Warm-up checking out the south edge of the Amherst College grounds.

So, under the assumption that the way to get the legs moving a little faster is to go out and move them faster, back to the track for a short but quicker workout. At least that was the plan, 4 x 400 with a good rest in between, with the quarters in the range of 90-95. Meaning, sadly, full effort.

I'd finished the warm-up with a couple of quicker 200s to stretch the legs, but now was the time to put up or shut up.

First one in 92.4, hard work, felt like it was as fast and as far as I could go. But then a nice gentle walk for the remainder of the 5-minute cycle.

Second one in 90.0, this was really was as fast as I could go. And also exquisitely bad mental tactics. Because it hurt. And I had two more to go. And I really really didn't want to do that two more times. And when you are by yourself, it's easy to shift to plan B.

Not that there was a plan B, so I had to make one up real quickly, how about scratch the last two 400s and do an 800 a little slower, say 3:15. Oh, good idea, won't hurt so much.

So off on the 800, pace was about right, but after about 300 it was crystal clear I didn't want to run an 800 either, so beeped the watch at 400, 98.5 and had another walk. And thought, that was a bit of a wimp job. And thought furthermore, well, that one didn't hurt, so now there's really no reason not to put out for one more 400. Just don't start too fast.

And so the 4th one, 91.2, remarkably good, hurt some of course, but knowing it was the last made the difference.

And the whole workout? An interesting mental see-saw, and a good enough physical effort to accomplish what I wanted. Not so bad. :-)

C • Last One 2

And a short jaunt around the neighborhood afterwards.

Off to Litchfield, so the usual opportunity to run someplace different. This time I thought I'd have a go at Zack's Nassahegon Loop, Zack being Charlie's son and Nassehegon being a state forest between Litchfield and Hartford with lots of mountain bike trails. I figured I had an distinct advantage over Charlie in that I didn't have to drag a bike around the loop, but also a distinct disadvantage as I didn't have Zack waiting for me at junctions to point me the right way. Also, I had the advantage of having a map of the GPS track of the route, but the disadvantage on an overcast afternoon of not having a compass.

Clearly my navigation was far from perfect, since my covering his 4.2-mile loop in only 3.8 miles is not a sign of success. I figure I found, and then lost the trail at least three times, maybe four. Lost it pretty soon after I started, went down a reentrant but it was a little overgrown so I turned back. That might have been the correct one after all. Meandered on a bike trail for a while, possibly back on the correct route again. Maybe lost it again. Definitely found it again, but then lost it again and had to do a bit of bushwhacking to get back to where I needed to be.

But eventually I made it back to my car, despite being quite sure early on that I had no idea where I was. In such circumstances you do the only reasonable thing -- keep moving, preferably at a good pace. :-)

Legs felt pretty good, though there was only one hill of any substance and it wasn't much.

And the highlight, a fine AOWN -- while I was meandering along, quite lost, mostly concentrating on the twisty bike trail which was quite hard to follow, I happened to look up, and there about 20-30 yards in front of me was a fine specimen of the American black bear. It was sideways to me facing downhill, a little left of the trail, and it hadn't seen me or heard me or smelled me yet.

I stopped, had a good look, seemed to be a lone adult, no sign of any others around. Just a perfect sighting. And then I made a move, and it looked my way and then -- well, this bear knew how to move in the woods and a little scruffy vegetation wasn't going to slow it down. It took off, heading downhill at a high rate of speed, quite a noise, branches breaking, small tress swaying. In 5 or 10 seconds I could no longer see it; in 10 or 15 no longer hear it.

Very very cool. And I'm not sure if it a good or a bad thing, but yours truly, normally full of anxiety about everything, wasn't the least bit scared. Though, of course, if it has been a western bear, I would have at the very least peed my pants. :-)

===========

So here are the GPS tracks, Charlie in red that I was trying to duplicate and me in blue. Hmm, not so good. Seem to have lost the trail at least four times. Oh well. The bear, by the way, was on the hillside just south of the State Fish Hatchery.

C • Awesome 8