Training Log Archive: cmpbllj

1st Leg (Green) of our relay team. It was nice not to be running anchor and having that pressure...I felt like I could use my experience and my goal was to run a solid race and keep our team in-the-hunt. I took it easy out of the start, ran my own race into the technical section, and had our team in a respectable 3rd place, with about a minute over CSU. Although my HR was red-lining most of the time, I felt strong the whole time. I am still a little in shock that we actually took third place, and on the strength of cadets. Tori and I really did nothing other than keep them in contact for the final two legs. I remember watching Michael Norris head into the woods after the spectator control, taking the lead from Peter Gagarin and thinking...Oh No, he's challenging the goat himself in technical terrain. I couldn't believe my eyes when Michael emerged a few minutes later by himself. You could tell he had the "bit in his teeth." Unfortunately, Ross Smith launched out after Jordan, and ran probably as inspired a race as I've ever seen Ross run. On some days, our top guys can touch Ross. Today, Ross was really at his best, and we aren't quite ready to compete with that yet. We'll get there. What a great end to the competitive year for us. I really feel like our top 10 athletes are starting to realize that they can compete at the elite level, if a bit shakily. I can really see the mind-set on the team starting to shift ever so slightly, and the top ones are starting to feed off each other performance-wise. Estonia will be a great experience for them.

Event: US Middle Distance and Relay Champs
 

Middle Champs at Letchworth SP, near Rochester. I did a decent job of keeping up the speed and simplifying, until the last piece of the complicated terrain, where I had three controls in a row with 1-2min errors. At least I wasn't trying to "make-up" lost time. Luckily, I was caught by Will Hawkins right after coming up onto the plateau for the last 1.5km, and he was just the encouragement I needed to really pick up the pace. Had I run clean, I would have had a really top-notch time.

Had a very early sprint start time, which I missed. I picked up another no-show slot only two-minutes ahead of Jordan. I ran like I was being chased by the hounds, and barely pulled it off. On top of that, Michael beat me by 5 seconds, and I consider it a clean and fast race. I didn't think Michael had that kind of speed in him...he has always struck me as a clean, but slow, orienteer. I am going to have to re-evaluate things...when he throws that inner motivation switch, he seems to be plenty fast. Hmmm.

Layout for Buckner during the ride to Rochester.

6 Trail-O locations drafted.

Went down after class in the morning and turned 3 x 1600m (400 RI) on the track. Goal was 5:46, adjusted to 6:02 for running in lane 3.
16:30 warm-up
6:00 (164)
3:40 RI (bathroom trip, 120)
6:00 (171)
2:59 (400m, 147)
6:09 (172)
11:25 cool-down (walking most of the way to the top of the hill).

So, LTC Hendricks found the laminated "technique running sheets" in the O-supply room that I put together when I was a cadet. I took a few of them along and ran/read, although I didn't during the intervals because there was a unit down there doing the APFT and I didn't want to look like a complete freak.

What is most surprising is that my thoughts on these things have changed very little in the 12 years since I did these. Today, I would tweak a bit of the wording on some of them, and a few of the routes that I chose then, I would not choose now, but overall they are still good. I'm going to get through all of them over the next few weeks of running. Check this out: I used brown ink on all of them...so that you get used to reading information in brown (contours). What an O-freak I was, even then!

Got 6 Trail-O locations and all the connecting area (whole E side, actually) done. Beautiful day, and I didn't even pick off a single tick.

Last of the A-meet updates, plus two of the Trail-O controls.