Training Log Archive: kissy

Event: US Champs
 

Sprint Model. I visited all of the controls in the model, getting used to the scale. It seemed to affect me more here on the model than on the real sprint. The woods here were pretty trashy, much more than what we saw in the sprint.

Classic Model. Went to some of the controls in this model. Again, trashy woods. Hopefully the woods tomorrow will be nicer, a la the Sprint Model vs. the Sprint. It was very nice to be back in Prince William Park!!

U.S. Sprint Champs. I was one of the later starters (with the super 13:07 crew of Ross Smith, Tim Good and Karen Strat!), so I knew what the top times were in my category. I was quite nervous, so of course I blew the first control. I went too far to the right out of the field, down by my #12 control, hit the woods and finally figured out what I had done. Lost about 1 minute there. I hesitated a little on #3 for some reason...couldn't immediately figure out the big gully, the ditch and the trail. Weird. After that, things went fine and I was running hard, harder than I have in a long time. Dry heaved at #9, so I knew I was giving it my all. But, my all wasn't enough to beat Peggy today. I came in second by about 1-1/2 minutes. It was a very fun race, though.

Sprint Green - Splits

One last hurrah at Hemlock before next weekend. Jon Torrance was kind enough to set out a training course and, I believe, had quite a few takers, which is nice. Once I saw the course was about 9 km., I knew I couldn't do the whole thing because of other commitments, so I just did 1 - 11. I had a few bobbles, but nothing too bad. I totally didn't find #5, but I knew I was in the right spot, which was some poorly mapped green areas with low visibility, and we were using the mini-controls, so I think I just didn't spot it. After 3 days of non-stop rain, the sun came out for today's session, although the woods were still soaking wet and I went very carefully over the downed trees, being careful not to step on any of them and go sliding down the trunk.

I felt good in the woods and this was an encouraging way to go in to next weekend.

A reporter and photographer were there from my local paper, The Free-Lance Star, and there will be an article in next Friday's paper. I asked the reporter to please just don't position the sport as a treasure or scavenger hunt. We'll see.