Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Biked to the November Project meeting site. Ran to the event which was at Brooklyn Boulders. Called it!

So this was interesting. NP uses a lot of acronyms like FOMO (fear of missing out) and FIMO (fuck I missed out). I might have to add FIDSI (fuck I didn't sleep in) and SISI (sweet, I slept in) to this after this morning. This was a FIDSI morning.

It wasn't bad. We went in to Brooklyn Boulders and they can only handle so many people on what they've set up so a bunch of us did strength/plyo stuff for 15 minutes or so. Which was fine, because while I wasn't that fast or dynamic (except when we did skate hops!) it was basically forced stretching. That will probably make me feel a lot better. So that's good.

The other good thing is that I learned that everything I've assumed I'd think about obstacle racing is basically spot on. I think I know myself. What they had us doing was going through some of their "savage games" course. Savage Games, for those of you who don't know, is paying $45 (but just $25 for November Project people!) to do an indoor obstacle course in a climbing gym. Woohoo! This was a free sneak preview with a lot of waiting around (more stretching time!). There was a wall traverse (although it wound up being a partial wall traverse because people were taking too long) and a metal jungle gym type thing (if you touch the ground, you have to do ten penalty burpies; note to self: do not pay to participate in any event with penalty burpees) and a cargo net traverse.

So kind of fun, but such a stark comparison to yesterday. So manufactured. So prescribed. So follow the leader, we set this up, do this do that. I am just not wired for this. Some people were very psyched; I was rolling my eyes. That's what's so great about an orienteering race, the controls are set up, but the rest is up to you. The physical part and the mental part. Here it was just "do this do this do this hooray look what you did!" Well, yeah, the same damn thing as everyone else. Maybe after the bliss that was four hours of running through Harriman, anything was going to be a letdown. But I can tell you this much: if I am doing something at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, it is not going to be an obstacle course in a rock climbing gym.

On the other hand, I got a lot of stretching in, and my knee still doesn't hurt. To that's good.

Event: Hudson Highlander XVIII
 

So Alex said I should do the Highlander, and I decided that sounded like fun, because it's an orienteering race with a trail run segment so how hard could it be?

Then I realized it was 26k straight line. Well, some of those are a on a trail, so it's not that much. Hmm, what are the finishing times. Oh, three and a half hours. For the winners. Who know how to orienteer. Which I haven't done since (checks attackpoint) June. Oh. God. Then Alex made me scared of Harriman all the way down. Ooh, fun.

Well, okay. I felt better at the navigating after yesterday's control pick. We were marched to the start and then they said go. The first control was the King of the Mountain race and I wasn't quite confident in my speed or navigation enough to try to burn all my matches and win that. So I didn't. Most everyone went up to the trail and up it and so did I. Not hard to spike that control. Then we all ran down the white reentrant to the trail to 2 and, uh, it was not that white. Lots of horrible slash all over the place. I sort of saw the trail to the left and should have gone that way, but we climbed over trees and swore all the way down. Oh, and spiky trees with spiky trunks out of doctor seuss that should die.

Anyway, I didn't really see the flagged trail run trail because it didn't look like a trail on the map because it was pink and I've never done the Highlander before so when everyone took it I took the trail I was going to around by the marshes. I hesitated for a second and then made that decision based on:

* Went by marshes while the other had a lot of brown. Marshes are flat.
* Steep sections of other trail are, uh, steep. And slow.
* Better attack up a ravine.

So I went for a run on a flat, grassy trail, while everyone else went through struggles over the mountains. If I'd actually gotten over to the trail I should have I would have had a terrific split. But I spiked it, and ran off to 3.

3 was okay. We all went up the hill and I got pulled off a bit by another runner and had to backtrack after a parallel error. To 4 I ran with a pack of mostly cadets. Stayed above the trail and everyone else went high to the control and I went low and that was fine but didn't gain me anything. Spike? Sort of.

Off to 5 I followed someone to the AT and then had the same idea as that someone ahead of me, down across the swamp, up the same reentrant, seeing people coming by 2, over the top of the hill to avoid the green, use the swamp, and then up to the control. Spike, with some help. Same to 6, but mostly following. I thought about going up and hitting the AT but that seemed like too much extra climb and no good attack. Anyway, other people attacked for me. We passed a shelter I slept at when I'd thru-hiked. This was very exciting. I yelled "I slept there" five or six times to no one in particular.

7 I borked. We got to the AT and I wanted to run the AT and then attack off the top of the hill with the big clearing down to the mountain laurel to the control. But I got carried away with trail running and was way too far down the trail and ran off and then nothing lined up and I had to run back to the trail and recon (which I did pretty quickly) and then was able to attack properly (helped to realize that the guy with the radio antenna was on the tallest hill) and found the control. Probably gave back 6 minutes here.

Followed to 8. Saw Joe, who I was supposed to follow. Followed in to 9, punched, drank (in that order) ate a goo (not in that order) and then hit the trail run. I quickly passed one cadet and then started trailing another, who was faster. He didn't get lost (but almost did!) and we traded places down to the end of the trail run. Which was awesome. Two miles of AT bliss, some janky bits in the middle, but those were fine, and then wheee! down a really nice hill to the lake. So glad I didn't run the trail the other way over the harder parts.

Got to the control and it was off to the rocks. Rockhouse. It's called Rockhouse. We were here yesterday. I was scared. Discussed with the cadet a little bit what I was doing, made some snarky comments ("oh, more green, great"); I don't think the cadets get enough snark at USMA because they think everything is funny. Or they're 19 and think everything is funny. Could be that. Spiked 11 mostly and got dragged right by the cadet but realized he was going to 16 (I should have said something: "sir, that appears to be 16") but I've done that enough and he needs to learn and we went and found 12; helped that a lot of the Lowlanders were coming through.

We picked up Misha around this time to 13. I talked through 13. Let's handrail off the green and maybe there's something runnable between the green and the rocks and around that nose and we'll get there. Maybe? So we did that and then decided to take a guess and try to bash across the green which we did pretty well and then were a bit left for 13 but made the map make sense and me and the Cadet found the control and Misha found it after us, I think? Then the cadet and I were discussing 14, deciding how to get through the green. We found the path, but not quickly. Then we saw someone (Sam) bashing in to the green to find the control, but I decided that with the control at the head of a swamp I didn't want to have to navigate through mountain laurel. So we went around and ran the swamp (the recent dryness made this course so much nicer; if everything had been wet it would have been bad news). Pretty sure we put time on Sam and Misha.

We again discussed 15. My plan which he agreed to was to follow the narrow trail south of the little hill and avoid the green. The problem? The trail has been overgrown with mountain laurel. We wound up abandoning the trail and clawing through the laurel and then running the reentrant to the control, through someone's campsite and got to the control. Behind Misha and Sam. I'll blame that on the map.

Trail run to 16, led the team up the hill, knew where the control was and that it was visible, easy spike. To 17, followed the stream down to the power line, sort of remembering that there was a 4wd road along the power lines. There was! It may not have saved time, but it saved some bashing and blueberries. Then we all ran to 18, and then we all ran to the map exchange. And ate food.

Ran out with this same crew just behind John. I'd seen him earlier, lost him at 7, caught up finally here. He seemed to be going slow at this point, but maybe was eating and digesting. It also was snowing. Let me repeat. It. Was. Snowing. A little WINDEXy thing but remember that the first three letters in WINDEX stand for winter and that's okay. So I ran out of the map exchange whooping and hollering and dancing in the road and almost overran the road we were turning on to. Ran with folks to 20, and to 21 I took the route choice along the lake, which was not the right choice; had I not had blurry three-hours-of-O vision I would have been able to see the rest was through a camp. Oh, well, didn't lose contact with Sam. The cadet was falling off at this point. 22, 23 24 were all a group run, pretty much spiked, and 25 we all ran together on the long leg to the control.

To 26 John went south of the rock field and we beat him in to 26 but he didn't lose contact and caught up to us when we made a mistake in to 28 (after team-spiking 27). Or 29. I can't remember that much from this portion of the race. We all punched 30 and then it was decision time. I'd decided to go right, but followed Misha who followed Sam down in to the reeds and muck towards the parking lot. Misha and I turned around and ran across the dam and along the lake. This was going swell. We ran through the camp and up the big trail that became not a big trail through the camp (unmapped) and then we took a left on the unmapped big trail (which was obviously too close but we're four hours in here and figure that out) and it petered out and nothing lined up and we bashed through the rocks and hills and laurel and popped out in to a great, nice runnable area near the control. Sam put four minutes on us, John 30 seconds. But I actually think that had we executed our route choice, it would have been just as good.

Then it was trail to 32. From there I realized that November Project downhill legs for a downhill road run were what I needed and opened up like I would down Summit and Misha said he wasn't going to have caught me anyway. Also my knee didn't hurt and my hamstring charlie horse was over.

Then I put on all the clothes (2x wool, fleece, down) and was just warm enough and the car said 46 but it was windy and snowing and I think that was a lie, and I ate all the food, and Alex won, and then we drove home.

Strava link for Alex

C • So glad you did the highlan... 2

HL - Splits

Out to Harvard etc with Alex for rollerskiing. Good ski with a couple of J2s and Frank and John. Lovely day, a bit breezy, but cool, but, ugh, stupid gravel pavement on Fruitlands loop. Then we left the juniors behind in Harvard and it took them a while to catch back up because they were goofing off there. Then skied in to the end. Maybe too much with tomorrow upcoming?

Control pick with Alex. It took a while to get used to the scale and we spent a while on the first control. Learning how to do this is hard, and we never got any flow, really, especially without streamers and on the 1:5k map. Then bashed around to the others. Harriman is beautiful, but blueberries and mountain laurel. I sort of got back in to the swing of orienteering. Sort of. Good times?

So now they're making us race the second Friday of the month.

Well, okay then.

I went out super hard down the hill, set a PR, and still am not the fastest, 6 seconds back on a 1:45 hill. At least the guy who has that Starva is super wicked fast. Kept chugging pretty well, not the fastest I've run three times of the full hill, but not bad.

Really falling off #deckaday. Wednesday night was going to be a catch up day, but I was tired enough and didn't get home until 8:30 from a meeting that I didn't Thursday I slept through my alarm, then had to go to work and another meeting and didn't get home until damn near 10, and basically collapsed in to bed. Not good.

The race whatever thing at November Project. 5 minutes of racing people up, and then 2 minutes of recovery (sometimes even less if you get a late start on your last run up). So hard. So, so hard.

Didn't puke. Nice for it to be 55 and not 75.

Knee feels good. Highlander?

Deck on the field, felt pretty good. Needed a couple quick rests, but still under 17 minutes, even with 24 pushups at the end.

Late, tired deck. Felt slow, but wasn't that bad.