Training Log Archive: jtorranc

Grocery shopping trip to Takoma Park.

Went to the NGA to see "Tractor Drivers", the seminal film in the Soviet boy-girl-tractor film genre (unless, I suppose, you count Dovzkenko's "Earth"). Had forgotten about the single-tracking on the Green and Yellow lines so ended up running to the gallery from the Shaw-Howard University stop when they announced the train would sit there for ten minutes.

To and from O meet at Meadowood.

QOC Meadowood Blue - hot and humid (at least until the deluge started shortly after I finished), woods getting thick and slow, contours from the county GIS due to promised LiDAR data being delayed and noticeable undermapping of rootstocks in particular plus an interval workout the evening before were not the recipe for a fast outing. Still, the map was adequate (and will, fortunately, only and inevitably improve before its next use) and the area, the western half used this time, at any rate, not without interest in a typical QOC terrain way.

Cycling to work and back.

Warmup/cooldown/rests.

4x1217m intervals in 4:19, 4:17, 4:22 and 4:21. Legs felt heavy and slow but not, it would seem this time, accurately so.

Cycling to work. Home by way of PCRM.

Cycling to work. Saw something I'd never seen before when a squirrel splatted onto the road about six meters in front of me, having presumably dropped from a tree limb perhaps three meters above the pavement. I say "splatted" since at first there was just this furry gray amorphous blob on the pavement but the center rose after a split second, gathered itself into a recognisable squirrel shape and ran off to safety, apparently none the worse. Home by way of TPSS, the MLK Library and a potential sprint venue I decided to have a look at.

11.7

Round trip commute.

Warmup/cooldown.

Silly walks, 8x100m strides, one uphill bounding pass, 6x30 stride sprints up the steep hill I haven't run on in some time and once hard up the long hill on the way home to end the workout. Felt surprisingly energetic after the physical stresses of the weekend.

Abdominal stuff.

Chasing the Star long - 5th, despite not getting my act together until after the fifth control. Reactions seem to have been varied as to the enjoyability of this day but I had no complaints about the map or terrain (except possibly the decision to map boulders under 1 meter tall,)and I think the course made good use of them.

Feel perhaps surprisingly positive about the weekend given that I arguably underperformed on all three days. It may be Pollyana-ish of me but I was clearly in the hunt all three days - if I'd orienteered as well on all the controls in each race as I did on 90% of them, I'd have won or been very close each time. It's much easier to be, if not entirely satisfied with that then optimistic about competitions going forward than if I'd been well out of it.

Blue Long - Splits