Training Log Archive: smittyo

Sierra Summerfest Long Green. Not as clean as the last few days, but still pretty reasonable. A lot of places where I was in or close to the circle, but looking at a parallel feature or just not seeing the control. Probably lost about 8 minutes total. Still good enough to keep an overall three day lead and take home the Western States Champs F50+ title.
1-went left up the rocky spur and then took the trail into the large clearing. Then got on the ride from there that went straight to the control.
2-generally straight, south of the first rocky hill, then hit the rocky ground and adjusted NW into the control
3-straight. Plenty of other people around to follow at this point as well.
4-bounced off of the rocky green patch
5-west to trail and then to the bend and down to control
6-lots of choices here. I decided to go straight over the top to have a clean attackpoint even though it was extra climb. I didn't trust that I would keep track of my position well contouring around. Unfortunately, I messed up coming down through the clearings and ended up on the similar rocky features below and to the west of the control and had to go back. Lost about 4 minutes.
7-went slightly west down to,the reentrant to avoid climb. Then east across the saddle and down the spur to the control.
8-bad route choice. Should have gone straight, but I was too focused on the trail as an attack so I went around to the left and through the assembly area. Then ended up doing some extra climb over the wide spur and into the control.
9-a little left of straight to the second stream. Then I went up into the rocks and paralleled the stream checking the rocks. I started lower than I thought so wasted time looking at rocks that were wrong before I went up the stream far enough. lost about 2 minutes.
10-generally straight and used the clearings as collecting features before going up the reentrant
11-over the spur, up the ditch/reentrant, stopped at the top of the ditch wondering where the control was. Thought I was looking for a tree of some sort. Looked above me and figured I had to be at about the right spot. Checked the description - thicket - started turning to look below and saw the control on some bushes to my left less than 5m away. D'oh! Lost about 1 minute.
12-contoured into the clearing, then followed the yellow. Could see the control from pretty far away.
13-ride to the trail, across the yellow to the stream, then took a bearing. Apparently, I was pretty far off on where I had hit the stream. The bearing was clearly leading too far to the right based on the rocks I could see. Saw something huge to the left and went to it. No control. Then saw another further down - success! Lost about 1 minute.
14-slightly left to the clearing. Attacked from the clearing on a bearing.
15-straight down to the reentrant and passed a control that had to be on the ditches. Easy attack from there.
16-trail to control and finish

Green - Splits

Sierra Summerfest Middle Green. Felt good about today. I was solid on all but one control and only lost a little time there (#2). A few others was slightly off on approach, but all of my routes worked well. It was mostly take a bearing and run, with some attention paid to terrain and vegetation to stay on course. Lots of people had similarly good days, so it was close competition in my class.
1-through the yellow then up the spur to the small top.
2-took a bearing and counted. Hit the three boulders before the circle and readjusted my bearing from ther, but ended up too high (with quite a few others). Looked uphill and could see the boulder that must be #3, so I knew I was too high and corrected to go down to the control. Lost Time 1:06
3-had already identified the feature so went straight there.
4-down through the reentrant and hit the trail near the more eastern boulder, then climbed the reentrant from there to the control.
5-hit the reentrant just east of the two boulders and then went on a bearing through the woods and to the thicket. Around the top of the thicket to the control.
6-uphill and then find the proper boulder (lost 0:20)
7- bearing and count. A little worried about this one, because there wasn't mush to catch you if you screwed it up. I came out just to the left of the clearing and easily identified it and found the control.
8- aimed off to the left figuring I would get to the spur then go down to the control. Hit the spur, saw the control and didn't believe it was mine until I checked the code. I thought I was higher. (lost 0:20)
9- attacked from the saddle and down the ride
10- down the shallow reentrant and landed right on it.
11- down to the stream, then used the clearings to find the right tree.
12-bearing and distance to the clearing
13,14-straight to the stream and in

Green #2 - Splits

Sprint at Donner Memorial State Park. Nice short , fast course. It was great to not be doing a half- hour of sprinting at the beginning of a race weekend. It was open forest running, so the strategy was pretty much turn the right direction and run. As long as you were headed the right way you generally didn't have to go far to see the feature you were headed for, although in many cases there were multiple similar features and you needed to be careful you were going to the right one. One error at number 11 of about 1 minute tops. I was too far south and it was difficult to tell what was the yellow. Started checking various trees and didn't find the control. Looked at the hillside for #12 and thought I saw the right boulder and went a little further north, continuing to look for my control. Then I actually DID see #12 and figured it out from there. Given how far off I was for a fairly short leg, I did a poor job of rough compass work on this one. Currently in 1st place F50+ for the Western States Champs.

Green Sprint - Splits

Event: Sierra Summerfest
 

Scramble at spooner lake. Harvey came with me. The plan was basically to go around the lake and get the controls that seemed reasonable along that route. Harvey's been having difficulty with the altitude, however, so after the first two controls (100, 101) it was apparent we wouldn't make it around the lake in the time limit. We went back to the assembly area and got the two controls near there and finished. Due to a lack of entries in our category, we were second in mixed vet. Ha! I was happy with this plan because I wasn't tiring myself out before the A races.

Went to AVC to run the last mile of Mark Covert's 45 year streak. Pretty cool to be part of some history like that. There were about 100 people there I would guess. We just did an easy mile through the campus. Afterwards there was cake and lots of picture taking. I don't actually know Mark, but a lot of people I run with do. I was hoping to maybe say something to him, but there was too much hoopla going on. He was mostly talking to old friends from easy early running days and the media. In addition to the mile with Covert, I jogged to AVC and walked back home.

HDR interval workout at the track. 3-2-1-2-3-2-1-2-3 with 2 min recovery after each interval. I arrived late, so didn't do any separate warm-up. Just took the whole workout pretty easy. I didn't see a reason to push with so much coming up this weekend. Plus I'd already done some easy mileage this morning as well.