Training Log Archive: Matej

Lake Chabot long run. This one, like my last run here, was a little bit creepy: I didn't realize there was a shooting range just above one of the trails until a series of gunshots scared me out of my wits...

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Red course at Mississippi Bar. This was a GCO event at a park next to the Sacramento River, and the terrain was defined by gold-rush era activity: massive piles of rounded, football-sized stones littered the area. Those cobblestones were slow to run on, but the huge expanses of cobblestones also had a multitude of knolls, depressions, fine re-entrants, and winding ridgelines. Apart from Vasquez Rocks and possibly Anza Borrego, I don't think I've seen terrain this intricate anywhere in California.

The course began with some typical Bay Area hills on #1, #2, #3, and #4, and followed it up with some trail-running/compass legs to #5 and #6. #7 was where the real fun started, as the course headed straight through the heart of an intricate, surreal landscape defined by nothing but cobblestones. I'll admit I "cheated" and used the dark green areas to approach #8 and #9, taking compass headings off my last known point and hitting both controls pretty much straight-on. I tried to read the contours to #10 and barely missed the control to the left; fortunately it was visible from the back side of the knoll.

#11 was about getting out of the cobbles as fast as possible; I bailed south to the indistinct trail, which I followed northeast to just above the control for an easy attack. For #12, I followed the cobblestone fields south of the forest, which were ironically more passable than the forest itself. At the tip of the gully, I veered northeast towards the control. To #13, I took no chances and bailed due west to the trail, avoiding the green entirely. The area around #14 was mismapped, with multiple thickets north of the control, but fortunately the bag itself was relatively visible.

To #15, I ran past the two steep knolls to approach it from the south, and for #16, I decided to take the southern route along the field instead of risking going straight through the cobblestones. My one mistake of the day came on #17, where I was initially looking for the control at the base of the hill, west of the actual location, in some unmapped thickets.

This was truly amazing terrain, as well as a rare chance to experience 2.5 meter contours in the Bay Area!

Another tempo run, a little slower this time. My right knee still hurts somewhat while running; hopefully it isn't anything serious...

Tempo at Don Castro. My right knee hurt for about the first 15 minutes but then the pain went away...

School-schedule-imposed rest day.

Easy run cut short by some pain in my right knee; I don't remember hitting it against anything at NAOC, except perhaps against the ground in my relay finish.

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NAOC Sprint. Of all the races I've run in the past year, this one has to count as the most frustrating. In the first 21 controls, I ran an efficient sprint race, avoiding the tricky traps early in the course and pre-reading legs effectively. My route choices were sometimes barely suboptimal, but I lost no time hesitating or making up my mind. During the arena segment at the end, I tuned out the announcer's voice and kept hitting controls effectively. I was in 3rd place at control #21. And then came control #22.

I came out of #21 with a simple plan involving two things: an accurate compass heading, and the knowledge that I was looking for a tree at the end of a finish chute. The problem was that the same tape used for the finish chute extended far north of where the control actually was. This was to block the food stand off from errant runners, but it confused me and I veered right of my original heading. I immediately saw the stairway and ran back south, but I somehow managed to miss the control and hit #20 instead. From there, I just took a straight compass heading north and saw it immediately, but the damage had been done.

Altogether, I lost a full minute at the GO control to a silly mistake that never should have happened. If I'd just followed my heading straight to the tree and ignored the tape, I would have hit #22 cleanly. Lesson learned: never rely on finish chutes for navigation.

I finished 8th out of 24 juniors.

NAOC Relay (3rd leg). I started the course alone, with the rest of the teams several minutes in front of me, so I wasn't really expecting to catch anyone. The first part of the course had some tricky compass-heading controls through flat forest with low visibility, and although I found #2, #3, and #4 without a problem, I missed #5 to the east and lost ~40 seconds relocating. From there, I hit #6 straight-on and took an extremely conservative route choice to #7, approaching it by trails from the southwest. The rest of the course was relatively easy.

The real story of the day was Isabel, who made up almost 5 minutes on the last leg to secure a comeback victory for our A-team. Congrats to Katrina, Will, Ethan, and Izzy for an amazing relay race!

Sprint - Course 5a - Splits