Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

Lots of physicality in the first half of the course, lots of opportunity for speed in the second half. I felt better about this race than the first two. I focused on creating and maintaining conscious plans (plan plan plan) for each leg, which worked well other than the two times I executed poorly, causing ~3:00 lost.

On 5, I went up a reentrant to the top, then merely had to move along a side hill, cross above another reentrant, and jump into a trident of three small reentrants. Unfortunately, I failed to realize that I should stay at constant elevation and ended up doing the subconscious sidehill/downhill thing, which caused me to come in low and bumble around for a bit.

On 10, I'm really not sure what happened. I reached my attack point without issue - two boulders next to a trail - and then headed into the white, looking for the control in a small clearing only 30-40 meters from the trail. Somehow I missed it entirely, then circled back around and eventually stumbled into it. Were my boulders not actually the mapped boulders? Did I just get confused and go the wrong way? This is one I would have liked to go back and reexamine. It's hard to things when you're not sure what went wrong.

Blue Middle - Splits

Boggs long. I have far lower self-expectations for longs than sprints and middles, and I was pretty happy with this one until I blew TEN - one-zero -minutes on the very last real control. Ugh. The good news here is I would've been only 3-4 minutes behind the random fast Norwegian guy who showed up for the weekend and added another chapter to the Legend of the Unknown Cali-Euro.

Seriously, go to any A-meet in California and you'll encounter at least one completely random European who shows up, rampages through the competition and then disappears back to Hollywood to continue his fledgling movie star career. Spanning Tahoe, Sprint the Golden Gate, Team Trials and Boggs, I've now been beaten by a Dane, a Finn, a Swede, a German and a Norwegian.

Blue Long - Splits

Event: Boggs '14
 

Boggs sprint. A tricky course through gently sloping, mostly white woods sprinkled with green and yellow, with a few trails thrown in. At 1:5000, the contours were sufficiently vague as to prevent use for navigation other than "generally downhill" or "generally uphill," which meant I was obliged to rely mainly on reading vegetation and taking compass bearings at high speed - a dangerous game under the best of circumstances.

There were definitely times, especially on some of the longer legs, where I lost map contact. Sometimes it worked out (9), sometimes not so much (13, 17). Someone with excellent compass skills could really dominate this course, because your best bet was basically to go straight on every leg.

I also fell and gashed my knee open on the way to 12, which caused me both to lose focus and also to slow down and limp along for a while until the pain subsided. Not coincidentally, this was when I stopped picking up top splits.

Overall, not the race I was looking for. My speed was good, but the consistency wasn't there, with ~1:30-1:40 lost. Thus, a disappointing result.

Blue/Red Sprint - Splits

I can't even look at the USMNT right now in those uniforms. Why so much red?? In the history of the United States, all of the bad guys and/or things have worn red. Redcoats. The Red Scare. The Soviet Union. The Little Red Book. The Masque of the Red Death! The Washington Redskins is no longer an acceptable name.

And royal blue?? What happened to our lovely dignified navy? Some people who wore navy blue: George Washington. The Union Army. The United States Navy. COME ON.

C • Wait, I didn't write this. 5

C • shirt 3

Some very light running mixed with some Watershed explorations, meant to stretch the legs. Not logged: an off-trail odyssey through most of the "friendliest" parts of the park. I found a few more interesting things, including a cool pit. Also found a way down into the giant ravine and out the other side! This is very bad news for those of you who may potentially run on this map in the future.