Training Log Archive: Tundra/Desert

In early afternoon, ran The Big Loop at the park. It was pleasantly warm and I was overdressed. The weather was spectacular and slight breeze had scattered the exhaust. Paper-thin ice covered the lakes, and even at that time during a workday the park was full of walkers and strollers, most of them past retirement age.

I felt as usual after having rogained: powerful and slow.

Moscow Meridian in Ramenki. An open park, perfect sprint terrain. The usual night score-O, no pre-planning, starting with the rest of the people as soon as your turn comes to punch the start unit.

The highlight of the course was a playground castle with controls on two of its three levels (there were three blow-ups of the three levels). It wasn't really possible to figure things out from these blow-ups, so my impression was that most people just got there and poked around the castle trying to see the obvious passages. I approached it and of course there was a solid wall from my direction of approach, and I had to go halfway around to get in. Once I found the first-level control, I took the first stairs I saw to the second floor, and then stopped to read the map and found the second-floor control. It would have seemed to me that the faster way was to get the second-floor control first, given the available entrance and exit directions, but from looking at the splits I saw that most people did what I did, evidently figuring it out as they saw it.

I started just after Oleg and he caught up with me on the way to my first control because he chose to get another control first. So, from there I left the planning to him, opting to follow and see how far I'd get. It was not difficult to keep up, most likely because Oleg just came back from a week of skiing in Finland. On this particular route, however, I should have taken Control 40 after Control 49, leaving #47 to be had between Controls 38 and 49. That's where Oleg headed, to #40, but I let him go as I trotted off to #47. After I got the castle, I headed off to #38, trying to S-curve the remaining controls, but then discovered that I had already got #47, so the S-curve had a gap in it. I turned around and went to #32. My revised plan yielded a longish leg, 38–48, and I thought that the resulting route must have really sucked.

After the finish I could see that the route with 47 taken in proper order (looking like a Cyrillic YA) was indeed a good one. Another good route, I thought, was to start and end the same way but to take the central controls in a U (45–41–43–...–40–46–49).

When I saw the split analysis, it turned out that the best route was something quite different altogether. Only one person out of about 100 starters got it. The U route, at 18:08 Superman time and with 3 takers, was some 36 seconds slower than the best sequence at 17:32 Superman. The YA route, with 4 takers, was 18:13, and the one I ended up covering wasn't that bad at all, at 18:36 Supertime. I was the only one who opted for that particular sequence.

After staring at the HR/altitude record, it became clear that the true contour interval at the Ramenki map is about 3.5 meters.

Score - Splits

Don't know why I didn't run, but I didn't.

I was thinking going to a Sprint in Dolgoprudnyi, but I wasn't in a sprinty shape after the test run. Then I thought I'd go hashing and was about ready to go out the door, but couldn't take any more drinking after last night, and hashing just isn't fun without drinking. Then I thought about just a run in the park, but as always. So the day was spent sleeping.

Ran from "home" to Avangard for a 3000 m test, to match what the De Anza group has been doing. It was a crisp Sunday morning/afternoon, just above freezing, with some noticeable vehicle exhaust hanging in the air. The park was full of people walking dogs and kids.

And the test was quite slow. I felt having rogained.

About 18 years ago (somewhat sure) I ran 9:48 (quite sure) at this same place (not so sure, it might have been at the MGTU indoor track, and it may have been a 1600 m test run that I did in the early summer of 1990 at the Avangard, which, for the record, was 4:51). I was about 11 kg (kinda sure) lighter at the time.

It also seemed that they hadn't changed the track surface ever since.

Ran back.

I think the HRM altimeter fixed itself. I changed the transmitter battery earlier in the morning and then cleaned out the holes. After a period of wild swings the altitude reading stabilized. I then ran and wore the monitor over a sleeve, and the altitude readings were stable. It also read a temperature much closer to the truth.

At Moscow Meridian this evening in Strogino, I made sure to show up a bit early, given my last week's fiasco, and Nikolay the course setter/Mr. Meridian got back from the woods 20 minutes late, so there was a bit of freezing going on. The course was their usual 19-control score-O, well after dark, with a "relatively mass start" according to the info. What that meant in practice was that as soon as Kolya showed up, people lined up and were let go as soon as they could fit a map into the case and stick the SI into the start unit. So, not even a sneak peek at the map this time to plan, all of the planning had to be on the clock.

I made two planning errors. Of the three obvious loops, the western one was the best to be done first and the peninsula loop, last (or the other way round), this way there was not a dead run from the start and to the finish. But I started on the eastern loop because it was the obvious thing that jumped out at me at the start. And, I should have done 32–34–35, leaving 33 to be picked after 49.

The park was pleasant and the nettles had completely died off, dried, and shrunk. There were few people on my route, so I couldn't really feel how hopelessly slow I was; it felt like jogging after starting out cold, and I only warmed up and started to move well shortly before the finish.

The HRM transmitter battery was dead and the altimeter, noisy. The climb is from the map.

Score - Splits

Got up at 2 am to follow the election online. It was exciting and happy.