Training Log Archive: jtorranc

Downtown at ATCA conference so a fair bit of walking but no cycling today.

Cycling in to work. Roadkill deer by the side of 16th Street on a surprisingly residential not adjacent to Rock Creek Park block. Home by way of aquatic center.

Miscellaneous cycling, the bulk of it getting from College Park to REI and then to Greenbelt. Did the bulk of the serious getting around by Metro to allow some luxurious sleeping in in the morning. Though I should have bestirred myself earlier - it might have been possible to get everything I wanted to do done including going to the concert at the NGA in the evening if I'd gone to REI before orienteering and been among the first starters at College Park.

College Park Sprint A - a course with a lot of route choice - I'd say eight of the legs required more than a glance to decide on a route, including the first one in which I turned around after initially starting south from the start. Also took what, on the map, looks like the wrong way around the Clarice Smith center but Dave Onkst claimed it was actually better - apparently there was some unmapped or perhaps unmappable construction activity in the way going around the other side of the building?

College Park Sprint B - less complex route choice, more quick direction changes and penalties for failing to read the smaller details on the map and/or the control descriptions. Slight edge taken off my speed by the first sprint so merciful that it was possible to run the legs on this one more directly.

Streamering control locations in Greenbelt for a training exercise sometime in future. It sounded as though November fourth wouldn't be good for a number of the people I would expect to be most likely to show up at any training I offer so I may end up doing it after the Batona 500. Saw many whitetail deer. Came fairly close to having a hard time finding the pit I'd stashed my panniers in as darkness of course came earlier than the back of my mind nevertheless expected it to. Some of the deadfall producing weather has definitely had a nasty impact on parts of the park, though the 2000 vintage vegetation mapping still makes sense if you move slowly enough. Some undermapped contour in the vicinity of one of my controls, including something that really ought to be at least a big formline reentrant but doesn't even get hinted at.

American Liver Foundation 5K? No HVO O festival; was going to organise some training but then realised this was Maryland Scout-O day so shifting that plan to November 4th. Unless it seems advisable to spend all that day checking the new PWFP mapping.

Easy ride out to Hain's Point for the 5K.

ALS 5K - second, only slightly slower than in the same race in 2004 so work to be done over the winter but the starting point isn't too depressing. Next attempt to improve on this likely mid-December on the same dead flat course.

Remaining cycling home after the race and then downtown for an afternoon of films at the National Gallery and back.

Home to dentist for relatively quick and painless replacement of two fillings to work and home again.

Commute in and home by way of the aquatic center.

Reading various training comments on the advisability of a big season ending rest, I wonder whether I ought to extend my break from serious running since NAOCs for an additional week. I had been planning on resuming training on Monday.

Front crawl feels much the same as it did earlier in the week. Did a fair bit of that and other strokes and much flutter kicking with and without fins. Guy in lane next to me was doing pretty fast front crawl while I was kicking with fins so I resolved to keep it up until I managed to lap him. Didn't notice he was also wearing fins, though smaller ones than mine, until I was about 2/3 of the way to succeeding.

Commute in with a visit to the dentist in Rockville on the way. Home and then onward by Metro to (successfully) line up for a ticket to see Pilobolus at the Warner Theater.

Work commute, including home by way of TPSS and the Takoma Aquatic Center.

Seems I can do front crawl again with only minor discomfort from the right side of my rib cage.

Home from work to see an eventful Prison Break.

Help out at Buff Betty Adventure Race? Or will I be in Ottawa? No, I'll be visiting Dan in Bloomington. With possibly an excursion to Indianapolis for a night-O race.

Second outing on the Story trim course - Dan and I together this time. Colder but still a nice day. Visit well timed for leaves though I can believe they might still be slightly off peak.

First outing on the Story Middle Fork trim course east of Bloomington. Lovely day, nice woods, terrain dominated by very large contour features and slopes festooned with gullies but somewhat difficult attacking the controls by virtue of having no control descriptions and the markers being brown posts with a sticker ressembling an O flag on only one side so hard to see if one picks the wrong side to attack from. Dan and I went out separately - she saw a turtle; I didn't see any wildlife other than squirrels. Two controls seemed to be missing - one being the one marked 20 or so meters from the parking, the other being marked as at the north end of an earth bank. I suspect that one may have been eroded away by the stream downslope.

Commute in. Won't be doing the return trip since I'm flying to Louisville en route to Bloomington this evening.

Commute in and home by way of PCRM. There was leftover carrot cake this evening.

C • There was leftover Carrot Cake... 3

Commute in and home by way of the aquatic center.

Breaststroke okay, backstroke okay, flutterkick okay, front crawl problematic for my rib thing.

Commute in in light rain. Home on barely damp roads.

Commute in then downtown to the Goethe Institute to see a film by Karoly Makk, part of a series of film nights relating to the Hungarian revolution of 1956.

Event: Hudson Highlander
 

Hudson Highlander - 6th overall, won King of the Mountain and the trail run it was part of. A satisfactory first Highlander despite my ankles clearly not being up to that much running in Harriman terrain. Was surprised by the start without much attempt to position myself well for the initial sprint so was well back of the lead after the initual crush was done. Clawed some of that back but was still somewhere around 100m behind when I clued in that we must have run past the junction with the smaller trail heading up to the control. Ended up more or less level with John F. after we all went off trail to the left and, since he wasn't pushing hard, reached the hilltop the control was on ahead of everyone. Got sucked a little ways further north by one of the streamers leading off to control 2 but realised and headed for control 1 in time to beat Eddie to it. Heading to 2, couldn't quite keep up with John F. but he didn't see the control on the left (looking at the map now, I can't see how the control was right on that trail bend) so I punched that first as well. Managed the same trick at 3 by picking a good time to slow down and read the map. Mostly followed people around the rest of that loop on Silvermine, including in bobbles, though I managed to screw up 6 independently and fall slightly behind. I think I should have then headed as directly as possible to the trail south of us but I headed more southwest and no doubt lost some time in all the blueberry. Hit the trail with Clem in sight ahead and slowly pulled him in over the course of the trail run, also encountering Eddie emerging from the woods. Took a long time at the map exchange eating, drinking and retying my shoelaces. Felt slow and less motivated to push running alone thereafter. Greg Balter caught me at 11 and got to witness my big fall of the day, which fortunately didn't do any additional serious damage to my strained rib muscles or whatever. This was somewhat painful given the amount of pulling my legs through blueberry bushes on the course but overall it stood up pretty well to a hard day. More than I can say for my ankles - I was slowing down in large part because they were getting too tired to permit aggressive running over the rocky terrain. Also, my left achilles tendon was feeling fragile. Must have got ahead of Greg without seeing him on the way to 12. Caught Clem at 14 and ran with him (I agree, not cleanly - we were very much at sea in our approaches to 17) through to 17. Clem tried to go fairly directly to 18 while I headed to the trail left of the line and took it to the bend due south of the control. Got a bit ahead there and managed to maybe widen the gap a bit going to the map exhange. Took longer again and had to catch him up at 21. Then we both somehow got sucked into trying to cross the green to get to 22B too early and got bogged down. Clem presumably did a better job at heading consistently north despite the vegetation and got out first. I think I heard him leaving the vicinity of the control but never saw him again after we crossed paths in the green. Eventually found the control after stupidly navigating to the boulder rather than the knoll first. Jogged uneventfully the rest of the way to the finish without seeing another soul. Will definitely have to do more Highlanders but I may have to consider either an ankle strengthening program beyond running in the terrain I live close to or some kind of external ankle support if I want to be competitive.

Candy Cane City 5K? - Rock Creek park just outside DC. Seems unlikely with my strained torso muscle still bothering me and the Highlander the next day. Lying motionless in bed another couple of hours probably better for my recovery.

Some miscellaneous purposeful cycling finding out that REI apparently sells the item I wanted only online, crossing the particularly unpleasantly suburban section of the Maryland suburbs between College Park and downtown Silver Spring to see a Chris Marker film at the AFI, and then to the office.

Strained rib muscle felt qualitatively better this morning. Hope it's not an illusion - I may be able to run normally tomorrow, which was beginning to look questionable.

Work commute. Found out on the way home that I hadn't looked at the AFI web site carefully enough and it was tomorrow's screening of "Ivresse de Pouvoir" that was at 7:30 - no film for me tonight.

Work commute including dropping by PCRM on the way home. They had vegan pizza with agave nectar rather than tomato sauce - I didn't even know there were food uses of agave.

Work commute, including going by the Avalon in the evening to see "One Night in Mongkok". Leg aches resolving themselves. The strained whatever in the torso still hurts if I sneeze, blow my nose too hard or otherwise move in an inadvisable way. Good thing the Highlander is four days away.

Heading home to do laundry and collapse into either sofa or bed.

Wine-O - ran from control one of the second loop to control 3 and put myself behind, then ran off in the wrong direction to 4 (finding 5 first) to put myself definitely out of contention for the top few spots. Lovely area with the nicest running of the weekend excluding the McMaster campus, as promised.

Strained torso muscle or whatever didn't affect me running that I noticed but I'm glad I didn't fall on it again.

Did a marathon session (a couple of hours?) of playing various forms of tag with my nieces with occasional sandbox and swingset breaks but I can't quite see logging it as training despite the physical stress involved. Thought my body had stood up to the weekend with little in the way of lasting consequences until my left knee gave me a twinge walking up some stairs late in the evening. Probably still nothing to worry about long term but another reason to give my body a rest now that the important fall races are over. Though going to APOC does complicate planning my training this winter.

C • Important Races 2

NAOC long - a much better race but nothing spectacular (I left a lot of room for improvement). A minute or so of confusion in the vicinity of a few controls was the worst of it. Embarassingly, I managed to strain a muscle attached to the ribs on the right hand side while changing in my car afterwards. Though perhaps I can give some credit to the tumble I took running to the go control.

NAOC Middle - boy, was I overwhelmed. Not that I shouldn't have done several minutes better despite the extremely technical terrain. Fun, though - they didn't overpromise about the terrain quality. Though it could have been a beast if unusual weather had kept the leaves from starting to fall until a bit later in the season.

Having failed to examine the Rocky Ridge Ranch diagram thoroughly enough to notice the 1.4km walk to the start (which a sign on site actually said was 1.8km - not sure what to believe), I ended up running all the way in my trail running shoes holding my O shoes in my right hand. In the end, I managed to make my start time with about a minute to spare after putting on my O shoes. Might be convenient to blame some of my troubles on this less than ideal pre-race but I don't think it was much of a factor.

Event: 2006 North American Championships (Golden Leaf Orienteering Fest)
 

NAOC sprint - a blast. A good race for me too - minor hesitations and possible non-ideal route choices only.

Commute in carrying the last of my stuff to bring to NAOCs.

Warmup/cooldown.

Silly walks and 6x100m strides - got to remind the body about running fast.

Work commute, both ways.

Work commute, including rushing home en route to the Kennedy Center to see the Washington Opera do Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Gianni Schicchi.

Made a wrong turn in the dark on the way out of Bloomington to the airport (couldn't see street signs well enough and turned south on Walnut Pk rather than Walnut so ensuing streets didn't match Mapquest turns) and was just figuring out that I needed to pull a U turn to get to IN-37 when I had to stop to avoid running over an opossum. Will have to consider whether possum sightings are a sign that I'm heading the wrong way. Not that this is likely to be useful other than in night-O events.

Home with grocery shopping in Takoma Park on the way.

More intense than 1 a fair bit but overall harder on the arm musculature than aerobically. We arrived barely in time to copy the master map and suit up so we didn't strategise a whole lot or worry about trying to sprint to any of the controls that had a bonus for being first (or, as I found out later, second or third) to them. Dan and I just started around the reservoir clockwise getting everything south of the start on the east side and being a bit more selective with the west side since some of the controls over there were well inland and time was pressing. A nice day, perhaps too nice - sunscreen was probably the most important thing I didn't find time for just before the start. Although I'm not too burnt, just somewhat pinker than usual.

While Dan waited patiently, I got my run in by picking up most of the controls on the west side of the reservoir. The map could use some updating, particularly as regards trails, but a reminder that it's usually best to trust the contours more than almost anything else on the map never hurts. Wouldn't have minded if it hadn't been quite such a long run around the north end of the reservoir to get back. Saw three deer in this presumably hunter-free area.