Training Log Archive: bishop22

Event: US Short and Long Championships
 

US Short Championship at Thacher State Park. Not a good run. Started poorly with C2, which I overran (excitement lenghtened my stride). I also had a problem going to C3 - didn't notice the cliff off to the right on the map until I got to it in real life - I had drifted right on purpose to avoid some of the climb. I am not happy with the C4 setup. I ran to the oval depression on the map, since that was the clue, but the bag turned out to be at the shallow depression on the map - not sure why they had different symbols, they seemed to be the same size. I lost a couple of minutes going to C9 - I ran low, on the trail, which was good, but I didn't have a good feature picked out to trigger my climb. C11 was a disaster. Since it was only ~80m, I was too casual about direction - thought I could use the force, I guess. Got to do some running the rest of the way, anyway. Plenty left in the tank for tomorrow (which I'll need, since I'll be out for well over 2 hours, most likely).

Splits (I can't measure the leg lengths just this minute to enter the race):
38, 4:14 (lost at least 2 minutes),
10:48 (lost over a minute), 13:51,
14:33, 15:55,
19:26, 23:07,
30:47 (lost ~2 minutes), 35:53 (lost ~1),
41:41 (lost ~4 minutes), 44:44,
48:42, ~52:30,
~55:20, 56:28,
56:35

Red - Splits

Easy swim ahead of this weekend's races.
4:10/8:14
1:28,30,28,8,6 (on 2)
3:28,20

Gerbil at Bayview - easy, mostly at 7.5mph, 1 mile at 8, and some 9mph strides (roughly 4x20-30sec).

Easy run over to the soccer stadium and back - looks like they have plenty to do to have it ready for the June 3 game.

Squeezed in a brief swim at lunch, between meetings.
3:56/7:56
1:30,1,1,0,0 (on 1:45)
3:20,15 (on 3:45)

Drove over to Buffalo for their training session. Jackie had set up a nice window-o for Walt, Pat and me. I spiked the first control, but it said Canisius College ROTC on it, so I wasn't sure it was right and had to run past the control to a fence to verify I was in the right spot. I knew I wandered right toward C2, but I still felt a need to look further right when I hit the stream - lost a few minutes there. Only other miss was on C10, when I missed just right, which put me on the wrong side of a gully, and after scratching my head for a minute, I ran around to the control - falling back behind some casual walkers I had passed midway thru the leg.

This will easily be a record month for the number of runs on maps - 13 already, with 2 more planned for this weekend.

No time to fit in a workout, since the day included rising at 4:35am and flying from Asheville to Rochester via Cinci, then straight to work (~10am), then dropping Chelsea at softball before driving to Buffalo to see the Sabres thrash the Flyers, 8-2, including hat tricks by JP [Dumont] and JP (Jason Pominville) - not sure how often dual hat tricks have been done in a playoff game - and arriving home at 11:20pm.

Day 2 of the Blue Ridge Challenge, Red course. Was delayed right from the start - my route of choice would have been to run back past the call-up lines to the dirt road, but I didn't want to look stupid, so I navigated (slowly) thru the terrain. Clicked off the next few controls pretty cautiously, then had a big boom at C8 - after crossing the creek twice, and battling mountain laurel, I found myself bailing left to the trail, anyway. Then I thought I was at a trail intersection, so I made my attack, only to hit a trail, and finally figure out that I hadn't actually reached the intersection - just fooled by an unmapped, or false, trail. For C12, I went past C16 as planned, but followed a mountain laurel boundary that led me within sight of the house (which I could not find on the map for a couple of minutes). Next problem was C15 - I came down by the big cliff, then saw the rocky spur, and ran out it, not realizing (until just now, in fact, that the clue said "top" of the spur), so I had to climb back up the spur, and still had trouble spotting it. Chose to run around (past the finish) to get to C18. Turned out to be a good choice for me, even though I was running out of gas, since that dark green-infested leg would have been trouble for me. John Campbell went a more direct route and passed me, but I'm sure I would have lost more time going straight. A youngster punched the GO control just before me, so I tried to go with him, but all it got me was hyperventilation (a first for me). Well, it did also give me a 4-5 second split victory over Nate.

I think I need to invest in gaiters. My shins really took a beating running thru some of the green areas.

Nate had a terrific run, to grab the fastest yellow of the day, and it was fast enough to move up from 3rd and claim the US Interscholastic Jr. High championship. Zach had one big error (3-4 minutes?), but other than that, was really quick again. Patty extended her lead to win her age group, but Walt struggled big-time on Brown C2, and was not able to retain his podium position from Day 1.

Well, they fooled me today - yesterday's "15 minutes" to the start was just over 400m; today's "30 minutes" was just about a mile. I did some jogging and walking toward the start with Nate, but when we were not in sight after 10 minutes, I had to turn around, so I could get back and send Zach on his way. Then I suited up and jogged after him. By the time I caught him, his start time was getting close, and no start was in sight, so we jogged a little quicker, and got there about 20 seconds after he was called up, giving him a little time to recover before his start. But he's young, he can handle it.