Training Log Archive: glewis

NYE ride with Jake (and Bandit) at Hershey. The trails were awesome - some of my favorite riding. Little bits of everything - rocks, roots, punchy climbs, flowy trails - absolutely awesome. Hope to get back there for a more serious ride in the future.

Run at Harmony Hill and Nature Center. A bit wetter and more sloppy than yesterday's run. Felt ok, but got a bit zapped by the end.

Run at Harmony Hill. Some pretty muddy spots. Felt ok, better as I settled in. Started too late and finished in the dark without a light.

Busy day at Legoland and IKEA with Noah, and then putting together a new desk and bookshelf. Pretty tired before this began but I promised myself that I would get it in. Felt surprisingly good.

Run at Valley Forge. Oddly enough, almost exactly a year since the last time I did this run, but a shade slower this time. Felt alright all things considered.

Pedaling as fast as I could for as long as I could.

C • identity struggles? 6

Trying to find a core routine.

Knew I didn't have it today. Ended up having even less of it than I expected.

Simple ride at home.

Felt fine but got a bit tired by the end as my form disintegrated.

Core workout. Tougher than I expected.

Good paddle.

Core - same as earlier in the week. Less hard but still hard.

Simple paddle.

On this day in history, we've had a botched early dismissal that led to busses getting stuck in snow, a bomb threat at the high school, and a full-on snow day. This year's addition is a FID day due to some rogue TikTokers. Happy birthday to me! I took advantage with some workouts this morning. This run along the creek was much too fast.

Fun ride at Harmony Hill into the dark. Didn't push too hard, but did get up the courage to successfully ride some skinnies that I always avoid. Got dark about halfway through - the handlebar light on full blast was enough.

Run at Cheslen. No issues with the sore thigh. Felt surprisingly great, so I kept pushing the pace. Wonderful weather too for a great run.

Tough core workout made tougher by the lack of core workouts.

What I had time for. Felt really good after yesterday's ride. Sore leg isn't quite ready for running yet, maybe by midweek.

Wet ride from Exton to KOP. Didn't realize how windy it was until I turned around. Not a fun ride back.

Still nursing my thigh, so a speedy trek. Everything felt fine, but walking this fast is hard.

Decent paddle while I attempt to rest my leg.

Cold run at Cheslen. Just trying to shake things out. Felt rather good but a very sore knot developed on the outside of my right thigh after only 10 minutes, so I circled back to the car. Hurt the most trying to go uphill - not sure what it's about as it didn't hurt at all on Saturday.

EDIT: Rebekah pointed out that the painful spot was near a very large bruise on the back of that leg. I think I picked that up scrambling over a fallen tree on Saturday. Thinking that I've found the source of the problem.

Recovery spin. Legs are sore.

Event: Crooked Compass Adventure Trek
 

Crooked Compass - 2nd overall with Kevin

I had been looking forward to this CC since I signed up nearly 2 years ago. The two of us seemed in a position to contend for the overall win, but I've been trying to handle my expectations more appropriately, so I made it a point to be happy with any result as long as we raced our hardest and did as well as we could. Good thing too, because I did not see Brian Mayer's name on the team list...

The weather ended being wonderful for December, with temps peaking around 57. Kevin and I left home right around 3:15 and arrived in Thurmont, MD with a short time to spare before 5:30 check-in. There were 3 maps showing some overlapping areas. We found the course to be rather straightforward in design, with a loop that needed to be done counterclockwise because of the location of M2, where we would pick up a bonus map before continuing to the location of the CPs on the map. Both Kevin and I had a copy of the maps as well.

The race began at 7:01 with Kevin running a short (<10min) prologue. We headed off right between Rootstock and Brian. Brian decided to head up the trail to M1, while the two teams chose to head down a road to bushwhack up to HH first. We had a slight overshoot but quickly corrected and passed Rootstock on the way up. After ~45 minutes we made our way towards the next CP, but not before coming across a hunter, who seemed disheartened by the herds of racers in the woods. We didn't see any angry hunters during the race, but heard of a number who had unkind things to say to the racers. C and then D were simple to find - from there we chose to bushwhack up to the trail connecting them to F. The bushwhack ended up being a bit too slow, mostly because we cut off way too much trail, only hitting it just before F. A faster choice would have been to bushwhack to the trail much more directly. Rootstock had caught back up to us at F. We moved on trail to B near them and TanZ. We chose a more rocky but direct route to the CP, but got there at the same time as both teams. This was emblematic of the day: when we chose off-trail and Rootstock chose on-trail, the trail was faster, but when we chose on-trail and they chose off-trail, the woods were faster. We we right with them through A and then again towards E, where they chose to bushwhack to I and we backtracked to run on the trail. Inconsequential though, as we arrived at I at the same time again... I also took a tumble on this leg, but somehow escaped with only two very large blood blisters on my hand. Again, we moved right we Rootstock to H and J before running on the road to M2.

We arrived at the manned CP just before Rootstock. Brent tried to distract me with conversation about my order of CPs, but I withheld the urge to chat. We went downhill to N on a neat-looking ledge, then crossed a stream to get O. We ended up crossing and then sidehilling towards the correct reentrant, but it was comically slow - taking the road downhill to the reentrant would have been at least 5 minutes faster. Rootstock had passed us here, but ended up on the wrong trail near the reentrant and we were able to grab the CP and move uphill away from them. We popped out at the top of hill and quickly climatized, losing arm sleeves and feeling instantly better for it. This next section was the MTB trails that we got a supplemental map for. The trails were "Brent's Interpretation" of what was there... We hit B3 with a bushwhack, and then got turned around quite a bit looking for B6. We backtracked to B3, reattacked on different trails and ended up in the exact same place again. We ended up finding the flag a small bit north of where we were, but never really understood how the trail matched up. We stuck to trails carefully and hit the rest of the points smoothly (5, 2, 4, 1) before exiting. (I thought I had figured out my error on the trails between 3 and 6, but a post-race look at my tracker shows that I actually had it correct the first time. I still have no clue what was going on in there... but we may have walked right by it the first time?).

From there we hit M and R before taking off on a long-ish trail run towards S. We hadn't seen Rootstock since before O (a little over an hour) and were surprised as they came running up behind us at a road crossing. We hit S with them, but then took a different route to T and didn't see them there. Somewhere in this stretch I brushed my hand against a tree and EXPLODED a blood blister. All over my arm, my shirt, the map - graphically gross. We didn't see Rootstock again at V. We took a slightly longer but roadier route towards X...and were surprised to see them ahead of us! No clue how, but it seemed impossible to get away. Jim even joked that no one was allowed to sprint until after M1 on the way back - this was getting ridiculous. We hit BB right with them, lost them on the way to Z, but then found them again as we approached Z (sidenote: Z began a string of gorgeous and memorable checkpoints; four in a row that were picturesque. Well done A+B!). Jim was planning on sidehilling at elevation to AA from here. Kevin and I had grown quickly tired of sidehilling, so we changed our plans and instead dropped elevation on the road so that we could gain it again, but in a more direct route up the hill. AA was on a nice ridge. We intentionally aimed off and then rerouted ourselves nicely to the vista. We didn't see Rootstock here, but I heard them coming, so we jetted out as sneakily as we could. This was the last time that we saw them during the race. WW was another neat point on top of a large rock pile. We ran into TanZ here again (they were doing a slightly different route) as well as a very angry rattlesnake (my first one!) sunning itself just underneath the flag. Kevin punched and left without any punctures.

We navigated well to YY on another rocky spur before dropping really efficiently towards U. Since BB we had been heading towards the finish, and it finally felt here like it was getting closer - no more massive climbs left and CPs in a linear format. We hit a nice trail next to the reentrant where U laid and followed it down to the flag. We ran into Eric Schrading here and he was more than happy to come with us for a few points. (Also, I overlaid our tracks with Rootstock's and Brian's - the three of us came down the hill into the reentrant in almost identical spots - funny how that works). We found a nice trail over a hill to Q, but had to cross the bottom of a reservoir and finally get our shoes wet. I also grabbed some water as I had long since run out. We found Q and then climbed up to P. It was easy to find, but the trail that went north eluded us, so we just angled downhill towards the road. K looked tricky on the map without a super-defined attackpoint, but the road was easy enough to follow and the point was visible on a cliff from the road. One last water fill and we headed up to L. I couldn't find the trail that I wanted, so we bushwacked up to find a different one, eventually hitting a pair of trails right to the CP. We left Eric soon thereafter, as he was planning on getting HH before finishing.

The finish from L was simple, although we did get slightly off track and had to correct back to the main ridge. We rain through to G and then to M1, which had the last (and best) vista of the day. We ran as best as we could downhill to the finish, but the never ending downhill was killing my quads and shaking my empty stomach. We walked a little bit but ran when we could, finally catching a glimpse of the highway, then the parking lot, where we finished after ~8:11 of racing. Brian Mayer had finished >1hr before us, but Rootstock was a little ways behind.

Super fun day - perfect weather, wonderful course that emphasized big features and trail options. Very happy with this as the endpoint of my season! I felt great for most of it, just needed a bit more food and water at times. Navigation was really clean, and I felt phyiscally strong during the entire event. Thanks Rootstock for another great one!

C • Report 4

Super relaxed and easy run at Stroud. Warmest day for a week or two. Legs felt pretty good.

A bit of stretching of the legs. Getting looser.