Training Log Archive: bishop22

Event: ROC - Annual Icebreaker - Webster Park
 

ROC Meet at Webster Park.

Legs were certainly heavy from yesterday's races, so the very long first leg was not an ideal start, after not having warmed up. I was afraid nate was going to catch me, since he was only starting 2 minutes behind, but I did manage to hold him off until we got close to C2. We both expected it to be on the very noticeable hill to the right of the trail, but it ended up being left of the trail. nate moved ahead of Mitch and me over the next two controls. I kept running back into Mitch, although we took significantly different routes on almost every leg. I generally took more trail options - not sure if it was because of my usual trail preference, or just from habits obtained during XC practice at Webster Park - I caught myself skipping some obvious shortcuts a couple of times.

I lost the better part of a minute when I left C6 and kept allowing myself to be pushed left all the way to the trail, instead of popping thru to the road. Then I blew C8 quite badly by losing my spot on the map and thinking I was coming off a different trail bend that I really did, so I was too far south and then distracted by a highly visible streamer. C7 and C8 took me out of contention for 2nd.

I misread a bit halfway to C11 and did an extra, unnecessary climb thru some junky stuff, losing some time. And coming to the finish, I lost over a second scrambling around another finisher and having to go to the far finish punch, and lost overall to Pavel by one second. If I had known it was close, I may have been able to beat Luke's time from the GO control, and gotten ahead of Pavel. Of course, with the new scoring system in place this year, finishing just ahead of, or behind someone makes no real difference, since it is not place-based scoring.

Red - Splits

Event: BFLO Sprint and Score-O at Chestnut Ridge
 

BFLO Sprint at Chestnut Ridge Park.

I went over a little early, since Walt was running the 10K in Franklinville and told me they might need help with beginner instruction. As I approached the very full parking lot, I wondered what other event was going on at the park, but it turned out the cars were all there for orienteering. It looked like there must have been at least 75 people there for the beginner instruction.

Despite that, there turned out to be plenty of instructors, but not nearly enough maps. Jackie was furiously copying maps, so I relieved her, so that she could get the training organized. Little did I know that I was copying the White and Training courses onto the day's Score-O maps (I thought they were old map hike maps).

After things calmed down, I went out on the Sprint and tore through the first 3 controls. I made a big parallel error going to 4, misreading the reentrant to my right, and wound up in some nasty green with plenty of deadfall, next to the wrong stream. I lost 6-7 minutes on the leg. Pretty clean the rest of the way (too much hesitation going to the penultimate control), but the one leg caused me to lose to Zach by almost 6 minutes, as he posted the fastest time of the day!

BFLO Score-O at Chestnut Ridge.

So, after the Sprint, spent some time chatting and recovering and finally they called folks to the start, just before noon, to hand out maps (except to those that already had them for some reason). Well, since many of the maps had been commandeered for the training, there were nowhere near enough for the 30+ competitors in the Score-O. Why was this just being discovered now? We had plenty of time to copy new maps after the Sprint. The meet director made two trips to his car to scrounge up enough maps for people to copy the course and delayed the start by 30 minutes. This was not acceptable, since I was planning on returning to Webster in time for some of my team's meet, but we were permitted to start a few minutes early to save some time. The downside of the separate start was that there was no mention of the scoring system, and I am too used to ROC's standard 1 control = 1 pt. Also, I was unaware that there were any clue sheets (I thought I was just SOL since I did not have the correct map) which made some of the controls a little harder to find.

I'll have to post my route later when I have my map, but I started out in the counter-clockwise direction, with the hope of getting almost all of the controls in 90 minutes. I was well on my way with 14 of 25 complete in under 45 minutes and I had to make a decision whether to go all the way south. I decided to go for it and it was all over. I ran along the southern trail, pace counting carefully from the final inflection point before C13 and dropped down shortly before the reentrant where I expected the control, but it was not there (but Mike Lance was). I "knew" I could not have overshot (I intentionally erred on the short side), so I searched the next couple of reentrants with no luck. Eventually I gave up and decided to move on to C14, but I missed that as well. And the wheels were off.

I got C24 (I think) and then thought I could run around the ravine to C23, but the area where I thought there was a trail leading around was marked OB, so I turned around and got some other controls, including C15 where I wasted a great deal of time following the crappy stream, instead of staying high. By the time that I was headed to C12, I was down to 7 minutes and was in no mood to run hard, so I coasted back. I was going to be almost 3 minutes late, so I decided to grab C1, thinking that worst case, it would be break-even, but because of the scoring, I lost even more points. When I find out what the scoring was, I may discover that I scored negative points in the last 45 minutes.

The day was capped off when, after driving "quickly" back to Webster, I arrived just in time for the "mixed" racewalk, an event that is best eliminated from every track meet, but should certainly not include boys (the one boy in the race clearly cheated in his lunge for the line to edge out Steve's daughter - I do feel sorry for his parents, and wonder what coach would allow him to enter the event) and found out that nate and AJ were both injured and unable to compete in the 4x800.

C • 13 and 14 5

Class at the Simon School in the AM and a 4:35 departure for the Sabres game meant no time for a workout. Walt couldn't go to the game, so he dropped Luke off in Buffalo for me (Walt had taken the boys to CMU Thursday, to see if nate was ready to make a decision - he seems to have made a decision, since Chris sent a deposit payment to CMU).

RH3 at Oatka Creek. One of the longer (non-weekend) RH3 trails in recent memory. Sadly, I left the Garmin at home and have no way to come up with a good estimate of distance. And I didn't properly start and stop my watch, so no good estimate of time, either. I got there at 6:34pm, just as the pack was leaving, and we finished in the dark (at a random spot in the woods, not at the cars), so it must have been after 8:30.

Great trail - included two chilly creek crossings (but only up above the knees) and a scenic stop on top of a mountain of mulch and some earth day pudding, which I momentarily thought included a real worm rather than a gummy worm.

Before the race. Did almost nothing after the race, which seems to have been a mistake, as I felt fine before, during and after the race, but am not having a fair amount of hip and groin soreness (all on the left side, which is where my groin issue has been for the last several months).

Dirt Cheap Trail Series Race #1 - Mendon Ponds

They changed the course from last year, adding over 1/2 mile, so that played games with my head during the race. Went out relatively easy, but must have been real close to threshold, because when I hit hills and the mud pits, I quickly became winded. I was in about 35th in the open field several minutes into the race, and gradually moved up to 23rd. Michelle beat me by about 3 minutes, so that counts as a fail, but no other women beat me.

Dan got the win in about 28, so that's another sign of just how slow I was. He came up with Walt and Patty who may have both won their age groups (I think Patty was actually 4th or 5th overall for women!).

The finish up the stairs from Devil's Bathtub is brutal, especially when you hear footsteps.

C • 1

Easy run from the Ellison Park southern trailhead on the way-ish home from work. Did not run into the park, but over to Corbett's Glen instead going in via the newer trails and back via the older trails.

Event: Boston Marathon
 

Couldn't get out for a swim at lunchtime, so I left a few minutes early and stopped at Casey Park for a short run before my golf league practice round at Brookwood. Did a six minute w/up, then 8 x (1 min on, 30 secs off). Nice effort especially on the more rugged trail on the north side of the quarry or whatever it is.

46 - not bad for the first outing. Took an 8 on 11 after crushing the drive over the hill, but I chickened out and laid up with a 9-iron, or tried to - put it in the water. Add a 3-putt. I did finish with a couple of pars on 12-13.