Training Log Archive: TomN

Slept about 11 hours. The exercises went o.k. once I talked myself into it. Run tomorrow.

QOC Happyland Green. A difficult course -- lots of vegetation, tricky contour detail, obscure control placement. I made 3 significant mistakes, and thought I had wrecked it, but it turns out I came in 3rd, in a group of very close finishers.

On #1, I caught AJ Riley, who must have started just before me. We took different routes to 2, but converged at the same place, which was nowhere near the control. I was thrown off by the little creek branches, and didn't see the spur with the control until AJ spotted the problem with the creeks. Even then it was hard to find the control, since the spur wasn't quite as well defined as depicted. A lot of people had trouble here. We took different routes to 3, again converging at the control. Same with #4, but AJ had a better line into the control.

I messed up 5 badly. Got tangled up in the swamps and dark green, missed the creek junction, and without position knowledge bailed out all the way to the road. Attacked from there and still had a little trouble, going too deep into the reentrant and backing up, the control in a pretty dense thicket.

On 6 I had a very fast split, going past the ruin, crossing the creek on a bearing, then contouring into the little reentrant. On #7, I ran all the way on the road, attacking from the nearest bend. But I messed up the compass after the long run, and had to go back to the road and start again. With oxygen in the brain this time, it was easy.

Then 8-9-F were also fast. Maybe a little advantage having crossed this terrain with the map walk group yesterday. I'm really happy with my running speed this spring. Now my legs are the limiting factor.

The relay exercise turned out to be another short point-to-point course, the relay concept having been abandoned due to junior fatigue. I suppose that's a good thing -- they all got a great workout. An interminable trail walk brought us to the best woods this whole weekend. I navigated well, good concentration and position knowledge, but had difficulty seeing the mini-controls from more than about 10 feet away, and also I noticed that my legs were pretty tired.

Picked up 7 controls from the relay exercise. Half the time was just getting back home along the trail. I made an effort to jog the uphills. After that, zombie time. Rehydrating with half a bottle of cranberry juice.

Sunday - Green - Splits

Event: QOC Prince William Forest Park
 

I volunteered to lead the intermediate map walk, as a last-minute substitute for Jon, who was under the weather. As a group leader in general, I didn't do so well, because I didn't take a head count, didn't keep track of my flock, and didn't take care to spread myself among them to make sure everyone got the same information. But other than that, I had a great time and I think they did too.

We walked what Jon thought was an advancing Orange course, but what I thought was 100% advanced. I drilled the techniques that came up (this being the mid-Atlantic, it was mostly counting reentrants). I told them what I was doing with the map and compass. I helped them recognize terrain features. I told them what map symbols meant. And I blabbered about whatever came to mind, wisecracks and all. We spiked 9 out of 10 controls, and the one was when I let one of the participants make the plan and reluctantly went along. Nothing wrong with her plan or execution, but I wasn't tracking well and ended up ordering a relocation. After that, we didn't do anything that I didn't agree with.

Afterwards, the thing that struck me was how incredibly tiring it was! Walking this course in 3 hours was clearly more work than running it in 50 minutes, and in addition, being a chatterbox is hard for an introvert. For the rest of the evening, I recovered by standing at the road intersection alone in the dark and directing what little traffic there was, then lying in my bunk "reading" but actually dozing off. No game night for me.

OK, one other thing. While there was still light, I grabbed one of Thierry's advanced training maps and went out on the course. The first segment was a compass exercise, moving between little islands in a sea of white. Got that. Next was contour-only, and I didn't do so well. Had to backtrack on the first control and re-do. Missed #6 after a long leg fell apart at the last minute. Skipped #7 and went straight to the corridor.

Corridor was an abject failure. Starting from an obvious feature (on the road next to the water tower) I could not get to even the first control. I went back and tried it two more times, failing in different places each time. Too bad, I would have liked to have gotten further along.

Pushups, planks, squats, lunges, figure-8s. And stretching.

Through Forest Glen and the National Seminary Park, down to Beach Drive, up Old Spring Road and back through Kensington. Included the loop up and down Homewood Parkway, plus a nice tour of the Seminary, past the Chalet, and Pagoda, around the hotel circle, the Windmill, the "Taco Bells" and out at the new Walter Reed Annex.

The full workout, post-run. Plus stretching.

Drumm loop in pretty quick time, just squeaking in under 32 minutes (but I could have hit the watch a little further up the driveway). 42 degrees and raining. I felt pretty good, but guess getting out of the rain was a motivator. The conditions are supposed to deteriorate later today.

Planks, figure-8s, and stretches.