Training Log Archive: glewisIn the 7 days ending Jun 16, 2018:
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Saturday Jun 16, 2018 #
Event: Maine Summer Adventure Race
10 AM
Adventure Racing 23:05:00 [3]
MSAR with Craig. We were expecting a 5th or 6th place finish considering the top-level competition and this being Craig's 2nd AR. We seriously underestimated the heat level and were woefully under prepared for collecting loads of water on the course. I heard that we would be able to receive water at TAs on the 2nd half of the course, and foolishly thought that 2.5L would be enough to get me there.
Pre-Race: We arrived with plenty of time to spare and went through all 13 maps, marking biking routes and labels clues. The o-maps would be given on course, so we didn't have too much work to do. We were ready to go well before the start, so we tried to eat and hydrate as much as possible. I took some Scratch Hyper, but I guess I never really felt the effects: must have been that hot.
Leg 1 - HVNC Foot-O: This leg had 5 CPs, and at one CP there would be a map that unlocked 3 "bonus" CPs. We gambled that the bonus section would be at the south, so we planned our order around that. After the 10AM stary, we hit CP 1 lock-step with NYARA, and then made our way by ourselves to CP5, where our suspicions were confirmed with a CP A bonus map. This was simple to navigate to, and it gave us the location for B, which we made our way to with only a slight bobble. I chose too much of a bushwhack and ran across a few unmapped trails, but we sorted it out when a hoard of racers led by Joe came right through the area where we were. We took long bushwhack out of B and hit the area where C was mapped, but couldn't find it. I wandered up the reentrant right with Joe, and we found a beautiful junction where a CP should have been. We ended up spending 30-45 minutes searching as more and more teams came along, including the Rootstockers, Glen, and NH Trail Vets. Jim ended up calling Kate, and we decided to bail after NYARA passed by (apparently they found it, but it was mishung by a decent bit). We were given credit for the CP and a promise to make the time right. CPs 4, 3, and 2 were easy enough, and we finished the section right at 12. A quick transition to bike and we were off.
Stage 2 - Road Bike: This was 16 miles of travel designed to get us to our next foot section. We moved decently well. Here I realized just how bad our water situation would be, and I could feel my bladder being emptied. With only 1km to the TA, I heard a loud hiss in my rear tire. I tried to get sealant into the sidewall, tried shoving dirt and grit into the hole, even tried a rock (which worked for a moment). I ended up putting in a spare tube, but I misfired with both CO2 cartridges - the shooter was clogged. Craig got his out, only to realize that the specific cartridges that he had wouldn't work in his shooter or mine. Dejected, I began to walk the bike. I only made it about 30 seconds before Glen arrived and graciously let us use his pump. He rode off as we pumped enough air in to make it into TA. During our transition, Craig filled up the tire fully with the pump, but it blew before we even began stage 3.
Stage 3 - Garcelon Foot-O: We were given two maps, a LIDAR and a topo for comparison. We were also warned about the bugs. No amount of warning would have prepared us for the bugs. The 4.5 hrs spent here resulted in (literally) 100-200 bug bites and extreme dehydration. I ran out of water with 10 minutes of the section beginning, and Craig rationed his own water very carefully. We started the section towards the north with 3 tough CPs, but hit them all right around Rootstock. We even filled water with them and another coed-4 at CP 7. My filter is on the craps, so I didn't get more that 10-15 oz for my troubles, and I wasn't about to put any in my bladder. Right about this time I began slipping deep into the hole, and I spent the rest of the section getting deeper and deeper. I struggled to eat foot, and I had no water to wash it down with, and my head was a mess. I thought a few times about just laying down and letting the mosquitoes kill me. Fortunately I've learned that the only way to get out of the worst possible suckfest is to keep moving forward, so we took the section as if we were having a walk in the park. We started the section with 8, 6, 7, then did 9, 10, and 11. I had a terrible bushwhack off of 11 that cost us a little bit of time as I missed our backstop entirely. We got 19, 17, and filled up water for 15 mins at 18. I was able to drink about 20 oz and also get almost a full liter into my bladder. I momentarily left my dark place as we left this CP. I reentered that place quickly as we death marched along the powerlines to and from CP 16. Approaching 15 and then 14 I was feeling worse and worse, and I don't really recall how I even found 13 and 12. I know that there was at least 1 other team there, which made my navigation a bit easier. When we got back to the TA, we had decided to forgo three additional bike points in favor of water at the next TA and getting my tire fixed. Any dreams of the points vanished as we struggled to even get the tire off of the bike because of the mosquitoes.
Stage 4 - Road Bike: We ended up changing the tire out of TA at the road because of the bugs (amazing what 50 ft will do). We had to contend with the smell of decaying road kill, but it was worth it. My tire had pinch flatted on the ride in, so we patched it up and began riding, thanks to Glen's pump. We made it less than 1 km before I flatted again. The patch had come loose because of the sealant in the tire. We got out Craig's tube, but struggled to get any air into it. We patched mine again and rode about 250m before I flatted again. Here, we got some assistance from some other teams, who offered pumps and moral support. We found a hole in Craig's new tube, patched it and moved on. 250m later we were patching another hole in his tube. 250m after that we were sitting on the side of the road deciding if we would even get to the night in this race. Our last resort was a tube given to us at a previous flat-break by the NH Trail Vets. We installed it as carefully as possible, and rode on with it holding enough air. Thankfully it worked, and we grabbed the mandatory CP and rode up the massive hill to TA3. We had lost at least 90 minutes on the tire fiasco, but were greeted by the best sight that we could have hoped for: water!
Stage 5 - Bond Brook MTB-O: We filled up water and dumped our mandatory gear, as we would be riding some sweet groomed trails looking for 4 points. As we filled up, Chaos Machine warned us that it was dark (lights would be necessary) and that the ribbons that we were supposed to follow were being torn down. The map that I was given was helpful, but it was tough. Craig took an immediate wrong turn and we found what was presumably the last of the CPs, but we didn't punch it and turned around, riding into the section with ERECT. We ran into the man ripping down the ribbon on his ATV, who told us what he thought of us using his ribbons and then pointed the correct way on the trail. We had some interesting turns here, but found two CPs easy enough before running into the start/finish from that morning's enduro event. Try as we might, we could not find the correct trail to continue the route. We actually ran into the last CP again and chose to not punch again. Our decision was to ride the second half of the section in the wrong direction. We ran into Rootstock shortly thereafter, and found the 3rd CP not too far from there. We turned around and rode back, finally punching the last CP. This portion gave me a feeling of sheepish embarrassment, as Brent was (rightfully) none too pleased that we had cut off about 20 minutes of riding (they had seen us on an adjacent trail early on in the section) and nailed the CPs. To ease my guilty conscience, I asked RD Kate to remove our time credit from earlier in the day.
Stage 6 - Road Bike: Glen finished this section as we were still in TA, ad we made the excellent agreement to stop for a quick burger in town with him and his dad. After fully refilling water bottles and bladders, we headed out and back down the massive hill. The burger waiting for us was perfect. After having gotten ourselves out of that massive hole we were in, the burger finished the job. We were in and out in 15 minutes and rode onto the next rail trail section. We owe Glen and his dad some burgers, big time. There were two simple CPs here before arriving at the boat launch to begin our Urban-O section.
Stage 7 - Gardiner Urban-O: After a quick TA, we flew through this section. We hit 31, then found a hole in the fence to lead up to 30, 29, 28 and 27. The railroad trestle that I walked across to get 29 was crazy - I'm glad it was at night so I didn't have to see how high it was. The times on the final results show that a volunteer must have missed a check-in for us, because everything from this TA is a little screwy. Still, I know that we did this faster than anyone else: I had us timed just about 30 minutes.
Stage 8 - Kennebec Paddle: We transitioned with Rootstock 2; they were in the hole big time. They were also a bit displeased that we had the audacity to eat a burger and not share it with them. Note to them: drop out of contention before the restaurants, not after. Before we put it, I also learned that Craig had somehow forgotten my drybag and rain pants in a different paddle bag, so my legs would be cold and my pack would be soaked. The paddle took about 3 hours, but ended up being simple enough. It was also a perfect night, and there were an endless number of stars to be seen. The fish jumping around our boat kept us awake and alert. I was able to find the CPs without too much difficulty; Rootstock being with/ahead of us (3 people move a boat much faster than 2) made this even more true. I had forgotten to drink anything on this section, which only caused an issue once we got out after the TA, which we reached just before 2AM.
Stage 9 - Swan Island Foot-O: We took a few minutes to get situated and loosen the legs at Swan Island before starting the section. Rootstock took off clockwise, and I had chosen the opposite route, so we were on our own for the first time since the urban-o. I've been feeling really confident on foot lately, and this section confirmed how well that translated to the nighttime. We hit 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40 and 42 without any issue. There wasn't much running, as I felt junky and I was super-hydrating. By the time I got to 42, I was feeling much better, and we started to move more deliberately. The western trail and the island was tough to follow at times, as I learned when I tried to make a short bushwhack but cost us 10 minutes. We found 43 and 45 before the sun came up, and I dumped my headlamp between 44 and 47. We ran into Rootstock going the opposite way at 49, the second time we had seen another team (we crossed paths with an Untamed team near CP 40). We proceeded to 48, 46, 41, 38 before bobbling 34 pretty badly. There was a male-3 team in the area, and I got pulled off my line by their questionable route choice. We got 32 before hopping back into the boats. We finished in just over 5 hours, a good time considering the lack of daylight and how poorly I felt.
Stage 10 - Paddle: This was potentially a huge paddle, but we just chose to get the closest point, dropping two points for the first time since the bike section the previous afternoon. We again crossed paths with Rootstock, who found our clue sheet floating in the water and agreed to give it back in exchange for a burger...A quick TA and we were headed back out on bikes. Felt a little odd to have over 2 hours left and be heading for home, but the other paddle CPs were much too distant for us.
Stage 11 - Road Bike: This was an uneventful ride back with 2 CPs along the way. We pushed hard at a few points to keep ahead of the teams around us, unsure of how the standings looked. Craig was completely tanked as we finished, but he gave it a great run, and I was pretty proud of the push we had at the very end.
We finished just before 9:15. Untamed's male team came in after us, thinking that we had them beat, unaware that we dropped the earlier bike points due to the bevy of punctures. Apparantely they had a terrible day physically, with full body cramps and wandering way off course, but managed to put a good race together. Rootstock 2 had finished a few minutes prior to us, with a strong bike leg to finish. The other two teams to beat us (Rootstock 1 and Untamed) came in before the time cutoff, having left only 1 of the final paddle points on the course. Congrats to Rootstock for a great race and to Untamed for pushing them hard at the end.
Pre-Race: We arrived with plenty of time to spare and went through all 13 maps, marking biking routes and labels clues. The o-maps would be given on course, so we didn't have too much work to do. We were ready to go well before the start, so we tried to eat and hydrate as much as possible. I took some Scratch Hyper, but I guess I never really felt the effects: must have been that hot.
Leg 1 - HVNC Foot-O: This leg had 5 CPs, and at one CP there would be a map that unlocked 3 "bonus" CPs. We gambled that the bonus section would be at the south, so we planned our order around that. After the 10AM stary, we hit CP 1 lock-step with NYARA, and then made our way by ourselves to CP5, where our suspicions were confirmed with a CP A bonus map. This was simple to navigate to, and it gave us the location for B, which we made our way to with only a slight bobble. I chose too much of a bushwhack and ran across a few unmapped trails, but we sorted it out when a hoard of racers led by Joe came right through the area where we were. We took long bushwhack out of B and hit the area where C was mapped, but couldn't find it. I wandered up the reentrant right with Joe, and we found a beautiful junction where a CP should have been. We ended up spending 30-45 minutes searching as more and more teams came along, including the Rootstockers, Glen, and NH Trail Vets. Jim ended up calling Kate, and we decided to bail after NYARA passed by (apparently they found it, but it was mishung by a decent bit). We were given credit for the CP and a promise to make the time right. CPs 4, 3, and 2 were easy enough, and we finished the section right at 12. A quick transition to bike and we were off.
Stage 2 - Road Bike: This was 16 miles of travel designed to get us to our next foot section. We moved decently well. Here I realized just how bad our water situation would be, and I could feel my bladder being emptied. With only 1km to the TA, I heard a loud hiss in my rear tire. I tried to get sealant into the sidewall, tried shoving dirt and grit into the hole, even tried a rock (which worked for a moment). I ended up putting in a spare tube, but I misfired with both CO2 cartridges - the shooter was clogged. Craig got his out, only to realize that the specific cartridges that he had wouldn't work in his shooter or mine. Dejected, I began to walk the bike. I only made it about 30 seconds before Glen arrived and graciously let us use his pump. He rode off as we pumped enough air in to make it into TA. During our transition, Craig filled up the tire fully with the pump, but it blew before we even began stage 3.
Stage 3 - Garcelon Foot-O: We were given two maps, a LIDAR and a topo for comparison. We were also warned about the bugs. No amount of warning would have prepared us for the bugs. The 4.5 hrs spent here resulted in (literally) 100-200 bug bites and extreme dehydration. I ran out of water with 10 minutes of the section beginning, and Craig rationed his own water very carefully. We started the section towards the north with 3 tough CPs, but hit them all right around Rootstock. We even filled water with them and another coed-4 at CP 7. My filter is on the craps, so I didn't get more that 10-15 oz for my troubles, and I wasn't about to put any in my bladder. Right about this time I began slipping deep into the hole, and I spent the rest of the section getting deeper and deeper. I struggled to eat foot, and I had no water to wash it down with, and my head was a mess. I thought a few times about just laying down and letting the mosquitoes kill me. Fortunately I've learned that the only way to get out of the worst possible suckfest is to keep moving forward, so we took the section as if we were having a walk in the park. We started the section with 8, 6, 7, then did 9, 10, and 11. I had a terrible bushwhack off of 11 that cost us a little bit of time as I missed our backstop entirely. We got 19, 17, and filled up water for 15 mins at 18. I was able to drink about 20 oz and also get almost a full liter into my bladder. I momentarily left my dark place as we left this CP. I reentered that place quickly as we death marched along the powerlines to and from CP 16. Approaching 15 and then 14 I was feeling worse and worse, and I don't really recall how I even found 13 and 12. I know that there was at least 1 other team there, which made my navigation a bit easier. When we got back to the TA, we had decided to forgo three additional bike points in favor of water at the next TA and getting my tire fixed. Any dreams of the points vanished as we struggled to even get the tire off of the bike because of the mosquitoes.
Stage 4 - Road Bike: We ended up changing the tire out of TA at the road because of the bugs (amazing what 50 ft will do). We had to contend with the smell of decaying road kill, but it was worth it. My tire had pinch flatted on the ride in, so we patched it up and began riding, thanks to Glen's pump. We made it less than 1 km before I flatted again. The patch had come loose because of the sealant in the tire. We got out Craig's tube, but struggled to get any air into it. We patched mine again and rode about 250m before I flatted again. Here, we got some assistance from some other teams, who offered pumps and moral support. We found a hole in Craig's new tube, patched it and moved on. 250m later we were patching another hole in his tube. 250m after that we were sitting on the side of the road deciding if we would even get to the night in this race. Our last resort was a tube given to us at a previous flat-break by the NH Trail Vets. We installed it as carefully as possible, and rode on with it holding enough air. Thankfully it worked, and we grabbed the mandatory CP and rode up the massive hill to TA3. We had lost at least 90 minutes on the tire fiasco, but were greeted by the best sight that we could have hoped for: water!
Stage 5 - Bond Brook MTB-O: We filled up water and dumped our mandatory gear, as we would be riding some sweet groomed trails looking for 4 points. As we filled up, Chaos Machine warned us that it was dark (lights would be necessary) and that the ribbons that we were supposed to follow were being torn down. The map that I was given was helpful, but it was tough. Craig took an immediate wrong turn and we found what was presumably the last of the CPs, but we didn't punch it and turned around, riding into the section with ERECT. We ran into the man ripping down the ribbon on his ATV, who told us what he thought of us using his ribbons and then pointed the correct way on the trail. We had some interesting turns here, but found two CPs easy enough before running into the start/finish from that morning's enduro event. Try as we might, we could not find the correct trail to continue the route. We actually ran into the last CP again and chose to not punch again. Our decision was to ride the second half of the section in the wrong direction. We ran into Rootstock shortly thereafter, and found the 3rd CP not too far from there. We turned around and rode back, finally punching the last CP. This portion gave me a feeling of sheepish embarrassment, as Brent was (rightfully) none too pleased that we had cut off about 20 minutes of riding (they had seen us on an adjacent trail early on in the section) and nailed the CPs. To ease my guilty conscience, I asked RD Kate to remove our time credit from earlier in the day.
Stage 6 - Road Bike: Glen finished this section as we were still in TA, ad we made the excellent agreement to stop for a quick burger in town with him and his dad. After fully refilling water bottles and bladders, we headed out and back down the massive hill. The burger waiting for us was perfect. After having gotten ourselves out of that massive hole we were in, the burger finished the job. We were in and out in 15 minutes and rode onto the next rail trail section. We owe Glen and his dad some burgers, big time. There were two simple CPs here before arriving at the boat launch to begin our Urban-O section.
Stage 7 - Gardiner Urban-O: After a quick TA, we flew through this section. We hit 31, then found a hole in the fence to lead up to 30, 29, 28 and 27. The railroad trestle that I walked across to get 29 was crazy - I'm glad it was at night so I didn't have to see how high it was. The times on the final results show that a volunteer must have missed a check-in for us, because everything from this TA is a little screwy. Still, I know that we did this faster than anyone else: I had us timed just about 30 minutes.
Stage 8 - Kennebec Paddle: We transitioned with Rootstock 2; they were in the hole big time. They were also a bit displeased that we had the audacity to eat a burger and not share it with them. Note to them: drop out of contention before the restaurants, not after. Before we put it, I also learned that Craig had somehow forgotten my drybag and rain pants in a different paddle bag, so my legs would be cold and my pack would be soaked. The paddle took about 3 hours, but ended up being simple enough. It was also a perfect night, and there were an endless number of stars to be seen. The fish jumping around our boat kept us awake and alert. I was able to find the CPs without too much difficulty; Rootstock being with/ahead of us (3 people move a boat much faster than 2) made this even more true. I had forgotten to drink anything on this section, which only caused an issue once we got out after the TA, which we reached just before 2AM.
Stage 9 - Swan Island Foot-O: We took a few minutes to get situated and loosen the legs at Swan Island before starting the section. Rootstock took off clockwise, and I had chosen the opposite route, so we were on our own for the first time since the urban-o. I've been feeling really confident on foot lately, and this section confirmed how well that translated to the nighttime. We hit 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40 and 42 without any issue. There wasn't much running, as I felt junky and I was super-hydrating. By the time I got to 42, I was feeling much better, and we started to move more deliberately. The western trail and the island was tough to follow at times, as I learned when I tried to make a short bushwhack but cost us 10 minutes. We found 43 and 45 before the sun came up, and I dumped my headlamp between 44 and 47. We ran into Rootstock going the opposite way at 49, the second time we had seen another team (we crossed paths with an Untamed team near CP 40). We proceeded to 48, 46, 41, 38 before bobbling 34 pretty badly. There was a male-3 team in the area, and I got pulled off my line by their questionable route choice. We got 32 before hopping back into the boats. We finished in just over 5 hours, a good time considering the lack of daylight and how poorly I felt.
Stage 10 - Paddle: This was potentially a huge paddle, but we just chose to get the closest point, dropping two points for the first time since the bike section the previous afternoon. We again crossed paths with Rootstock, who found our clue sheet floating in the water and agreed to give it back in exchange for a burger...A quick TA and we were headed back out on bikes. Felt a little odd to have over 2 hours left and be heading for home, but the other paddle CPs were much too distant for us.
Stage 11 - Road Bike: This was an uneventful ride back with 2 CPs along the way. We pushed hard at a few points to keep ahead of the teams around us, unsure of how the standings looked. Craig was completely tanked as we finished, but he gave it a great run, and I was pretty proud of the push we had at the very end.
We finished just before 9:15. Untamed's male team came in after us, thinking that we had them beat, unaware that we dropped the earlier bike points due to the bevy of punctures. Apparantely they had a terrible day physically, with full body cramps and wandering way off course, but managed to put a good race together. Rootstock 2 had finished a few minutes prior to us, with a strong bike leg to finish. The other two teams to beat us (Rootstock 1 and Untamed) came in before the time cutoff, having left only 1 of the final paddle points on the course. Congrats to Rootstock for a great race and to Untamed for pushing them hard at the end.
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018 #
Event: DVOA Fort Washington
6 PM
Orienteering race 10:47 [5] 1.6 mi (6:44 / mi)
shoes: New Balance Leadville 1210
DVOA Summer Sprint Series - Fort Washington
I started on the shorter, easier course as a warm-up for the special course. Forgot to start my watch, so the distance is approximate. No real issues, just about 10-15 seconds of the wrong trail and backtracking after 4.
I started on the shorter, easier course as a warm-up for the special course. Forgot to start my watch, so the distance is approximate. No real issues, just about 10-15 seconds of the wrong trail and backtracking after 4.
Orienteering race 16:53 [5] 1.83 mi (9:14 / mi)
shoes: New Balance Leadville 1210
Sprint 2
This started with a creative 1:500 map. I wasted 2 minutes looking for 3, when I should have just gone back to 2 and reattacked. I was told to rely on my compass, and I wasn't good enough with it. After that debacle, I went just a step slower for the rest of the controls on the 1:4000 map. Lost by about 2:45, so that sounds about right for the errors and slowness. Didn't make any other mistakes, but I'm not sure if I took the optimal route for a few controls; there wasn't an obvious best choice, but rather 2 iffy routes to choose from.
This started with a creative 1:500 map. I wasted 2 minutes looking for 3, when I should have just gone back to 2 and reattacked. I was told to rely on my compass, and I wasn't good enough with it. After that debacle, I went just a step slower for the rest of the controls on the 1:4000 map. Lost by about 2:45, so that sounds about right for the errors and slowness. Didn't make any other mistakes, but I'm not sure if I took the optimal route for a few controls; there wasn't an obvious best choice, but rather 2 iffy routes to choose from.
C • #3 2
Tuesday Jun 12, 2018 #
5 PM
Hike/Trekking 1:15:00 [1] 4.2 mi (17:51 / mi)
shoes: New Balance Leadville 1210
Rebekah and I met up for an easy stroll around Stroud Preserve. Weather was beautiful; it felt nice to stretch out the legs.
Sunday Jun 10, 2018 #
12 PM
Mountain Bike 1:15:00 [3] 8.0 mi (9:22 / mi)
Ugh. Finally got a time to ride at Marsh Creek and I broke a chain climbing up from the rail trail. I keep forgetting to restock my quick link, so I had to push the bike back the whole way to Dorlan Mill Rd. Ride was about 38 minutes, the rest was some frustrating hike-a-bike.