Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Event: ROC - Mendon Ponds Park [2012 Sprint Series #4 Score-O]
 

At Mendon, starting near the NW corner of the beach parking lot.

Not much in the way of navigational challenges or substantial route choice dilemmas, so it was mainly a question of running speed and endurance (which I have neither of these days), and the ability to keep up as fast of a pace as possible on the long slog on the barely-existent "trail" between 6 and 7.

On the latter (speed on the non-existent trail through tall grass, some marshy ground, and fallen trees), I didn't do very well at all. Dave Levine and I compared splits, He beat me by 1:24 overall, and by 1:36 on that leg alone, so w/o that leg, I wind up beating him by a bit. But hats off to him for beating me soundly on that leg. Plus, as I pointed out to him, by dawdling on that leg, I was more rested for the rest of the course, which I beat him on. So if I had been able to push harder through the cruddy "trail", I would have been slower from that point on, and he still most likely would have beaten me.

The time limit was 75 minutes, but I was aiming to be done in 60 minutes, as my long-time friend and previous tennis partner (back when we were in our 20's!) was playing a tournament match in the 60+ division at 2:00 in the Picklefest at Ontario Beach Park. I know and have played with his partner as well, so I wanted to cheer them on, take some video, and check out some of the other action. Plus, the same long-time friend's wife was playing in the women's 60+ division, so I was hoping to see her play (which I did).

I wound up being 3 minutes "overtime" vs my goal of 60 minutes.

Probably an OK strategy for my limited running speed and endurance, although not perfect. I headed for 171 first, but it wasn't all that close to the start, was kind of out of the way for the rest of my strategy, and was only worth 10 points. Better would have been to go to 192 (closer to the start, not quite as much out of the way, and 20 points).

After that I did: 163, 175, 174, 186, 194, 185, 184, 183, 161, 193, 155, 156, 162.

I'm not sure if I could have done much better given my limited running endurance. I had originally hoped to get 166 and maybe 173, and I'm pretty sure I could have if I had used 75 minutes, but I could tell when I got to around 185 that there was no way I was going to get those.

Navigation was reasonably clean but not perfect.

I attacked 175 from the trail bend just to the east of it, and I came out maybe 30 meters south of the flag. Either the flag was located a bit north of the circle, or the map isn't quite right, because I came upon the (or at least "a") ruined stone fence, and just beyond that there was some fairly open woods. I thought I needed to go further south, based on those observations and what the map was telling me, but I saw another person to the north of me, and I looked in his direction and saw, a fair distance off, the flag. So not a lot of lost time, maybe a minute at most.

I also didn't hit 174 real cleanly, probably because there was no real good attack point from the bottom of the hill. I came to the white wood area towards the SW tip of it, and the flag was at the NE tip. No major lost, maybe 30 seconds or so. Then there was a nice, totally unmapped, trail leading from the open woods down the hill to the east, towards 186, so that was a pleasant surprise. (But not totally unexpected, as I recalled from Medved races that there were a couple of small but well established trails that were on that hillside.)

All in all, a very interesting and challenging course.

C • pickleball 21

Sprint - Splits

Outdoor pickleball. Two games played on the Webster Rec center courts, then two games on the brand new and very spiffy pickleball court at Webster Park. With trailsnail, Cheryl, Jayne, and Donna at the Rec Center, and with all of the above except for Donna at Webster Park.

Walk/run, with Homer, on the Hojack Trail.

We had two encounters with unleashed dogs, neither of them pleasant, one of them particularly non-pleasant. I usually think the best of dog owners, and when I see an owner with an unleashed dog, my first assumption (which is actually almost always correct) is that this is a very well behaved, mellow dog that can be trusted off the leash.

The first dog was a golden retriever, a breed which I think highly of. It was well ahead of its owner, a lady who was on a bike, and barked fairly aggressively at Homer, but didn't make any move towards us. I held Homer back a ways until the owner got there, and she assured me that he was a very nice dog, so I cautiously approached him with Homer in tow, telling Homer that this was a nice dog ... Homer seemed receptive to a civil meeting with the dog, but the dog started showing its teeth and still looking menacing. The lady apologized and said the dog was normally very friendly, and she was surprised at his behavior. I kept Homer away from him, the other dog didn't attack, and they went on their way and we on ours.

The other one was much worse. A lady was walking with a black, somewhat heavy-set dog, off the leash. The dog instantly starting running from a good 50 feet away at Homer, growling, and attacked Homer. Homer, of course, retaliated, briefly anyway, I pulled Homer back, the "fight" lasted maybe 1-2 seconds, so no damage done, but pretty scary, since Homer isn't one to back down from an aggressive dog, so it could have gotten into a major dog fight. The lady semi apologized, but she didn't seem nearly as contrite as she should have. I yelled at her "You need to have your dog on a leash!" and she just replied "Sorry about that." But showed no sign of putting it on a leash.

More mapping at Cobb's Hill.

Outdoor pickleball at the Webster Rec center. I was playing pretty badly, but it seemed like everyone was a little off. I observed to trailsnail that it seems like most of the group there today was playing distinctly worse than they all played indoors, and the reason isn't all that obvious, at least today. There was a light breeze but nothing significant. The sun was low enough that it was hardly ever in your eyes, and the court wasn't so bad that we got many if any bad bounces. I speculate that it's something almost psychological about being in the wide open outdoors rather than a more confined space indoors, which might make it harder to have a perspective on the flight of the ball, where the lines are, etc. Who knows.

C • Suzann Pettersen 2

Walk with Homer (we're down to one dog, from three dogs) to Finn Park, with the usual stop for a dip in the creek, and back.

Front yard only. Parts of it kind of needed it, other parts, it was tough to tell where I had mowed and where I hadn't. But it does look a little less scraggly after the mowing (but also a little more brown in spots).

With Homer and Hershey. Over to Finn Park, with a stop at the creek, then continuing around the field, and back home. Lasts day with Hershey and Joey, unfortunately for them, as they both really like walks, and their owner isn't into giving them walks. And now she's recovering from surgery so she'll be even less inclined to do so.

I didn't turn on my GPS in advance, so it didn't acquire satellites until a number of minutes into the walk. Non-recorded distance was estimated.

Second attempt at doing some running. Again, approx 30 seconds running / 90 seconds walking, repeated many times. My knees felt very slightly creaky but nothing bad by any means. Homer was starting to drag a little during the last few running "intervals", but he kept up, with a little encouragement.

Corn Hill festival; walking to and from car (parked only about a half mile away, for free, on the street near Washington Square Park), plus some very slow walking at the festival. Total time was around 3 hours but so much of that was standing (or sitting) that I thought putting down 1 hour made more sense.

No tracks from this walk even though I had my GPS, for some reason. I reset the GPS after Corn Hill and before Cobb's Hill mapping, but I didn't think that meant the GPS was supposed to delete the tracks. It did keep the distance and time records at least. Also, if I was only going to have tracks for one of my outings, having them whilte mapping is certainly far more important than having tracks for meandering around Corn Hill.

More Cobb's Hill mapping, in the Washington Grove area, getting the trails to be situated correctly relative to the LIDAR contours and with each other.