Training Log Archive: Mona

MSP

Unknown number of miles to the marathon course, along the course, then to the church and back to the marathon course. I was really cranking it when not cheering along the course. Minneapolis is a beautiful city to bike through (the river, the little 'castels', the train tracks trail..).

Event: MNOC - Willow River State Park
 

Score-O - one hour - 10pts/control

Every orienteer has some kind of story for all situations where not completely happy with the results. My list: I got there a bit late (5 min delay start), I mean my navigation was OK in the woods, just getting TO the start was not not great ;) Then I didn't have enough faith in my running ability = could have planed better, so I returned too early, when I could have run and got a couple more.

Got 14 controls: 111, 101, 114, 107, 120, 108, 121, 109, 112, 102, 118, 122, 105, 113.

Sprint

This was fun! i had my usual challenge with sprints to get used to the scale, so i guess i need to do more of these, as there IS NO time to get adjusted. passed no 3 and wasted a good min or two there. otherwise no problems navigating, just a bit slow as usual. which I will start working on it shortly, now that I'm finally injury free!

Some people did a short sprint blind folded which was quite fun to watch :)

Thanks MN for a great event and bbq!!

Sprint - Splits

Up north.

First saw this running couple that were about my pace and thought it would be really cool to get new (any!) running buddies, but i was not warmed up and felt embarassed to slow them down. then when i was just about warmed up, bumped into mike, had to catch up for like 15 min since last year. Then that was it, i was gonna run, so even when I bumped into greg one mile to go, decided not to chit chat but keep on going. felt awesome today. so good to be injury free!!

Feeling a bit sore but not too bad, not too bad. Need to be careful with lower back... its so nice not to be injured! I think I'll skip that half marathon, this way I can be adventurous on saturday, and not worry about being tired on sunday.

My hands (actually between thumb and index finger) still hurts since the AR. No clue why (paddling?)

C • ...we live very close to La... 3

C • Lots of offers 2

Did a quick overview of my training and it seemed like I was doing pretty well till that stupid fall on the roller blades on April 11. I'm finally feeling pretty good, and if I don't get too carried away this weekend, should I decide to do yet another half marathon, I should be good to crank it back in medium-high gear.

Up north

Bumped into Greg on the way up and down, so we had to catch up for like half an hour (which I obvioulsy did not log). Legs all feeling pretty good, just a bit scared how they would feel tomorrow. That'll decide if I'll do this half marathon or not.

to church in MSP, very leisurely on the way back. pretty sites.

very leisurely, MSP lakes

Quite a bit sore next day. Need to do this more often.

Needed to stretch legs after long ride.

GMRAS, team Slow and Furious!, with Dragos and Jenny

7th out of 12 teams total, 3rd in the 3peeps category, and last team to get all points! :)

We were told the first discipline would be orienteering, so I had my compass ready to go :) This was a pretty low key AR, after about 10 min of instructions, we all had to run up this huge hill to get our maps. Honest I only jogged half of it (with the backpack and everything), but we got our maps, and after a quick glance I realized the controls were so easy I would have no advantage over the other racers. Which proved to be true after I looked at the results. At one control I relaxed so much, I didn't even take a bearing, so after walking in the relative direction for 5 min, nothing looked like the map, and had to "relocate". Luckily I picked the right direction; otherwise it would have been an ugly long up hill. That was the orienteering, which was a truly good hill workout, and good bushwhacking exercise. I hope next time they'll add a bit more challenging controls, to make my trip worth ... I mean, nothing more exciting than the chance to get lost in the woods :)

Then we hoped on the bikes. We had about 25 miles of road (paved and dirt). My bike seat post was not tight, so it slid all the way down and because I haven't really biked since last year, I just kept thinking "it seems a bit low, but maybe I'm not used to it" Half way I finally looked, and sure enough it was way low. Mostly uneventful. One control was in the woods I was pretty happy with our decision to stop at the base of the mountain and orienteer straight to it, versus using the suggested bike drop. It was a quite a bit shorter and easy to navigate.

And the last and most eventful was the canoeing part. That made up for all the previous not so challenging sections. So we get there around 1pm, and we knew this was a 10h race, so hmm... Hopped in the canoe, Jenny in the middle, headed to first control, the waters seemed a bit rough (=I was already a bit tired). The control was around an island, maybe a 1/4 mile north, but we saw some canoes parked at the south side, so we figured they must know something. It's always the "adventure racing" style = using as much information you can get, including stealing it from other teams or = cheating as much as you can w/out actually braking any rules set by the AR. So, we soon found out that the waters around the island were REALLY rough, so everyone just pulled on the south side, and walked it. So, we figure, good idea, we'll do the same. Dragos and Jenny volunteer for the swamp cross and we got our first canoe control in hand.

The 3 teams we met there have decided the waters were too dangerous and they bailed out for the next (last) 2 controls. I looked and it was wild: we were embarking in the +1 feet waves against the wind going all the way across, then all the way down and then back up. So, we look at each other, check out watches, the sun was shining "We got nothing better to do today, we might as well get our moneys worth!" So, I tightened up my life vest, tied my camelback to the canoe (yes, the possibility of tipping was there). And here we go: OH, MY! We set up the direction for next control from the shore, because once we turned around the island there was no stopping or looking on the map, or we would be right back in a second. So, we push with all our mighty efforts, and then me and jenny say: "Ok, now we'll switch on the right side". Yeah, right! Dragos, with limited steering experience came back very promptly "no, you're not, keep paddling on the left cause I can't steer this against the waves, wind, and you" So, we're like "what?". But seeing how we're quickly getting parallel to the waves and moving in complete wrong direction, we followed orders and kept on paddling on the left, yeah, arms were ready to fall off. But slowly and surely we could see the control and got in calmer water by the shore, so smiles came back to our faces. Not for long! Dragos messed up with the punch card there. Anyway, we decided to go to the third control as well, like we didn?t get quite enough punishment.

So, I look at the map, get my bearing and say: oh, it's easy, we'll just go along the shore till we hot the control. Easier on the map than on the real terrain. Not sure what kind of an antique map was that, cause where my bearing was now there was a forest, not a tree here and there in the water, thick woods! So, I said, oh, well, we'll just use the islands on the left to figure our kind of where we were, even if now I really starting to have my doubts that map was good at all, but did not make a big deal at the time. So, we paddle, and paddle, and paddle, and not much was making sense, and I'm looking at that map and I see some sort of earth bank that was supposed to be our catching feature, and the bend in that was the control. We could see no bend from where we were coming, so after little decision making, I say, take the shortest route to the earth bank and we'll walk to find the control. Said and done. And to our huge surprise, when we were about 30 feet from the shore we see the control just a bit to the left. We said, awesome, cheering up again. Stopped on the shore for a stretch break, bathroom break, and more clothes on.(the wind picked up even more).

So, now we had all our controls ... and big decision on how to come back... which waves were least frightening? So, finally said, ok, we'll hit the islands on the right and then keep on straight against the waves. Now, we didn?t realize how shallow the water was on the right, and there was a LOT of shimmy-shimmy, and at point I thought that we were completely stuck, but we somehow made it back in deep waters. (obviously, I'm writing now). So, by now, I think dragos kind of got the hang of the steering, so we could at least switch once in a while, but he kept putting us parallel to the waves, which scared me pretty good, as I kept looking to see if we tipped, where we would drift.... and it was a LONG way. Can't complain much cause I can barely steer at all.. Anyway, we somehow made it back, last team out of the water, I was just so happy we made it and we didn?t tip, that the bike ride back was just "flower behind the ear", like Romanian would say.

Got back, had some food prepared by the very nice AR staff (may I say some of the nicest!), but we continued our BBQ up at the tent with some nice pork chops and good beer to conclude the day. Yet, another fun AR.

C • yeah 6

I just need to rest a bit, with this AR coming up, the right back side and leg still have a lingering pain from that fall..

Down south

they're rebuilding the creek bed next to the harley. it's probably been flooding enough by now. feeling good pain from yesterday's body pump. i'm sure by sat I'll be like new. i might just bike a tiny bit tomorrow to loosen up.

Last night I had an Orienteering nightmare! It was so active and I woke up so tired I could almost count it as training. So, first I had this map, in a plastic bag, it had two sides, same map on both sides, and one one side it was the right course, on the other an old/wrong course. Oh, this was some kind of A-meet. So, I always flipped to the wrong side and could not find my controls. Then I would flip it on the other side, and the course was drawn in pencil, so you could barely see it. Most of this dream happened around this super long leg, where I was at control 3 and could not figure out on the map where 4 was. Actually, even at control 3 I had a punching challenge. Somehow I could see on my e-punch stick which conrols have been punched already (which btw, would be a nice feature!), and no 3 was punched already and I knew for sure I didn't do it. So I aksed someone what was going on, so it appears I was carying a "hobby e-punch stick" that you could use multiple times, w/out clearing it. So, I said, "but I have my own, how come I end up with this silly hobby e-punch". No answer. So I double punched and went on about finding 4. I think I made it half way and I woke up, but I'm still upset I didn't find 4!

Y - BD

The class was quite busy, I have to remember that for mon nights, i could not get my hands on some clips, medium weights or mat. But managed to get an OK workout. tried not to exagerate on squats.

Up north, just needed some sort of activity, till legs decide to resume normal activity. Not sure on the time.

yet another attempt to run. more succesful than wednesday, but after a few miles quads were cramped real bad again, and had to walk, very slowly home. long walk. but it was pretty outside.

quad cramp

Up north. Stopped at the pretty lake to wacth sunset.

quad cramp

Up north

Quads (specially left) was really cramped. So I had to walk. The rain felt good and refreshing. met greg on the trail ... other crazy one, rollerblading in the rain.

My pulse has been quite slow lately. Sitting down (mid day) is standard 47, and I've seen it 39. Blood pressure on the low normal side (107/66).

Flying Pig Half Marathon, Cincinnati, OH

I'll categorize this event first in the series "WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING!"

Again not too much sleep, I got woken up w/ no reason 90 min before we had to leave. So, here I am: mad, tired and its drizzling, which seemed ok during the race, but definetely not after the race, upon counting all rashes in places I would not think you could get a rash (upper body). i started running with John, both kinda sore. Running the flat part was ok, full speed was 10min mile. But as soon as we had to cross these bridges (=uphill!) I thought world is gonna end. I'm sure the scenery was beautiful otherwise. So, the normal pain I feel around mile 9, you know, you think your quads are shot, yeah, I had that at mile 2. John took off, as I was moving at the 12min mile snail pace, and he really needs to get faster.

Course was relatively flat for first 5 miles, then mile 6 to 10 a killer hill, no clue what i have done with out all people and mike cheering, inspiring quotes on racing shirts, candy given away on the race, oh, and a LOT of nice smelling trees and flowers alomg the race, definetely can't discount that.

Downhill started at mile 10, and as I'm cruising down, I feel my calves real tight, and I pray they don't cramp cause if I fell there was no way I could get up at that point. So, no, thank God, i did not cramp up at all.

As I reached mile 12, where Mike was waiting, I again got a second wind. I averaged 8 min mile on the last mile...which somehow proves I could have gone a bit faster, but I am not complaining, I was happy to be able to run (not walk) the whole race, every hill. last challenge was a really bad side stich as I saw the finish line...so i was breathing like a racing horse to get rid of it, cause there was no way i was gonna walk the finish line.

This is how one crosses Finish line :)

So, I'm happy I've done it. Will I do it again, defitenetly not ... or never say never, how about not without proper training. oh, and proper body glide :)

C • Great photo 2

It started with a bad night of sleep, or more exactly almost no sleep at all. I was not quite looking forward to this race. I was not quite looking forward to anything, really. I knew I was not trained and just came out of an injury. I got to the start and could not find a porta-potty. Finally found one, and then, all 6 people I knew were running the race disappeared, so I started running by myself. I placed myself in the 2:15 time wave, but for the first .5 mile the crowd was barely moving, so i'm thinking (probably outloud if I know myself good enough) "people! we are not going to make it in 2:15 like this!!' I think the extra caffeine gel in me was talking! That's the soap opera part of the race.

Once I warmed up, i could not believe how good i was feeling, no bakc pain, no nothing. John caught up with me and we ran together a bit till he took off again. the course was pretty flat and a lot of people cheering. I was running low on energy toward the end where John's family and friends were cheering, and i got this incredible second wind. Never felt anything like that. It simply felt efortless to run. I'm still amazed. Anyway, finished the race, the weather was perfect, the time was only 30secs slower than my first half marathon on january, so not too bad.

I was quite tired after and i did not get a chnace to take a nap, and a bit more soap, but I'll spare the log.

Event: US Team Trials & Return to Boggs Mountain A Meet