Training Log Archive: cmorse

Too tired to log much tonight, licking my wounds from todays pavement crash early in the ultra long. But got home and checked in and to my utter amazement, I still managed to come in third place, even though its more than 35 minutes back of Greg Balter in first. And doing it sans compass (destroyed enroute to #2 full story tomorrow) and by taking uber-conservative routes.

Medalled all three days - I guess that officially makes it a fine weekend indeed - along with most excellent company...

And of the totally useless, trivial facts - it looks like the only people that beat my 25s in the chute today were Andy Strat (22s), Samantha and Christina (24s). 25 seconds out of a 2+ hour race is pretty meaningless, but I pride myself on pushing it in the chute.... And since yesterday was a tie for 2nd, seconds in the chute can account for something.

Being an ultra long course I decided to throttle back any instinct to run fast early and just cruise the early part of the course in order to save something for later when I'd need it.

First control was fine, up to the campground loop and did the smart thing and began studying my whole course while running along the paved, flat campground road. Making great use of time right? Well, this particular campground loop was closed and there was a heavy chain hanging about 8 inches off the ground I certainly wasn't looking for that while engrossed in this exciting map I was reading.

Crash!! Serious heavy duty face plant to pavement, felt my head and right shoulder hit pretty hard but quickly felt my glasses and they were still in place. Whew... Lots of abrasion and blood on my left hand though, map case torn pretty good, but luckily in a spot the course didn't go through. But then looked closer at my right hand and didn't like what I saw. Remnants of thumb compass - the capsule and most of the plate shattered all over the road.

Briefly considered going back to the car and getting my baseplate, but said screw it and went off without. Nailed the 2nd control and then decided to take uber conservative routes and go slow enough to maintain map contact at ALL times.

Running with Ted Good off and on at times and afterwards he was commenting on how I was certainly running fast, but seemed to zig zag quite a bit in the woods and that was because I was zig zagging between solid intermediate attackpoints - lots of them. But I got around the course with little problem and enough oomph left to post one of the best finish chute splits of 25 seconds. But about 25 minutes back of, wait for it, Mark Voit (duh) and turning up in M45 for the first time this weekend, Greg Balter with an impressive 1:46, besting Mark Voit by 10 minutes..

But I'm totally fine with my time considering the extra mileage and effort needed to navigate this somewhat tricky map without a compass.

Totally out of the running, washed my wounds and hit the road back to Columbus with the Walkers and Samantha Saeger. Got home and logged into attackpoint only to find that everyone else on M45 ran slower times than I did allowing me to somehow grab a 3rd place spot. Totally cool - in the medals all three days... gotta like that....

Now I just have to figure out how to run as fast as Balter/Voit and company... probably not in this lifetime....

Routegadget

C • in this lifetime 3

Red - Ultra Long - Splits

warming up on sidewalks and grass, some stretching

First sprint of the day on the campus of Miami University. Lots of fun, great course. Read ahead well, speed as good as I can muster given my physical conditioning at this time. No errors, chose my routes before hitting the previous control and executed them well, in hindsight going the other way around a building 'might' have gained me a couple seconds, hard to say. My plan to was think ahead and not break my flow when leaving a control - so by the time I punched I was already committed to my next route.

Finished 3rd again, but this time the margin to 2nd place was only 6 seconds, this time to Mike Lyons. Mark Voit again took the class in a blazing time of 15:35. With no major errors on my part, I have to wonder whether its even possible for me to run fast enough to make up 2:21 on a guy like that on a course like this. Somehow, I just don't think my genetics will allow that to happen.

A very fun course though...

Routegadget

less warmup for the second race

A mixed terrain forested sprint for the afternoon. Going in I knew that I was 6 seconds back of 2nd place and about 30 seconds ahead of 4th. Got to the starting line and realized Mike Lyons (2nd this AM) was starting one minute ahead of me. So I knew that I needed to finish within 54 seconds of him to catch 2nd place. Pressure....

A good physical run, but made a couple route choice errors costing me at least a minute and a half. Caught sight of Mike Lyons approaching #5, but my big error was not staying high enroute to #6, so I lost sight of him. Once out into the open field toward the end I caught sight of him again and totally rough estimate figured he was around a minute ahead of me.

Turned every bit of speed I could muster down to #13, swung around intending to hit the white gap in dark green but came around the corner and saw nothing but impenetrable nastiness, so quickly swung right staying in the open field around the corner. Splits show I lost 9 seconds on that, and discussion afterwards indicated there was indeed a herd path through the nasty green, but I didn't see it and made the split second decision to go around.

Caught up to Rhonda headed toward 14, but took a while to overtake her - damn speedy one she is. Rounded the corner into #14 and then to finish - have no idea why it says 18seconds in the chute, I'm sure it was less than that, that's only 7 seconds slower than Sundays run-in which was substantially longer.

But the good news is I finished exactly 54 seconds back of Mike Lyons to make it a shared 2nd place for the US Sprint Championships. Yet again Mark Voit well ahead with a class winning time of 17:31.

Will do post mortem when splits get posted - as I assume they will go up shortly..

Routegadget

Red/Blue Sprint 1 - Splits

Red/Blue Sprint 2 - Splits

Event: Flying Pig XII
 

warmup before the middle pig. Cool and damp, but the rains of earlier had subsided. Ran up the hill at a pretty decent pace to get the heart rate up and then jogging around and stretching at the start. Although chilly at the start, I decided to take off the longer top I had on and just run in short sleeves. Was a good choice. As I was standing around waiting for my start I heard a familiar name called up to the line - Ivar Helgeson. I thought to myself, the basemapper? nah, can't be... but indeed it was...

The absolute last starter of the day, and no one out on any other courses either, so started alone. The crew began taking down the start while I was on the line and apparently put away the beeping timer before I started - seemed like a long minute on the line and I asked the guy - shouldn't there be a beep? He says, 'oh yeah - you can go....'

Very slick especially in the area around each control since everyone had been there before me churning up the goo. Almost slid past the first and fifth controls.

A few minor hesistations, a couple route corrections required but a fairly clean, but far from perfect run. Overtook and passed a couple of M45's so felt good about that. Wound up 3rd on M45, only 9 seconds shy of 2nd spot, Mark Voit winning the class in 32:33.

Routegadget

Red - Short Pig/WRE - Splits

The usual, but today my 'station' was jumping jacks - so I estimate I did somewhere on the order of 600 of them on a muddy field so the more I did, the slicker it got.