Training Log Archive: arcticQn

Easy run in the dark around the north haverhill "neighborhood". up and down on roads, around whatever roads made loops. the route happened to be mostly paved which didn't feel good on the legs. Surprisingly though, i'm not as sore as I thought i would be. My hip flexor, especially on my right side, is quite sore but not as bad as the last highlander (2005?)
I'm definitely in better shape now and I think the amount of biking has certainly helped the hip flexors and general fitness.

Event: Hudson Highlander
 

I didn't really have any goals going into this except that I didn't want to kill my body by running/hiking through the woods for 6 hours. The only other Highlander that I've done was quite painful for the knee tendons and hip flexors and I remember not being able to walk quite right for a week. Didn't want to do that again.
So, I ended up starting fast (which is hard not to do in a mass start) and got in with a good group of guys (including Wyatt and my dad) that were moving faster than I would have liked, but I could stay with them and still follow along on the map. It was way too fast a pace for me to actually navigate and make route choice decisions, but at least I knew where we were!
By #8 (45mins-1hr in or so) I was feeling woozy and my vision and footing was losing accuracy and I was slipping and tripping over lots of things. I thought I would never be able to stay with these guys, and perhaps I should just drop off and navigate by myself for the rest of the course. But then I decided that I didn't want to be out in the woods forever and my mind wasn't clear enough now to nav and I was having more fun runnign fast... so I decided I wasn't going to really independantly navigate for this race and that I was more interested in seeing what my conditioning level was and how hard I could run for the whole race. So I took a Gu and felt much better and ended up running strong enough up to the trail run section. Here again, on the paved roads and trails I felt sluggish and things were starting to hurt and I thought for sure that I would lose my dad and Wyatt, but apparently they were feeling the same and ended up slowing up a bit (I guess, otherwise I must have sped up to keep with them). Back in the woods on the final map I felt better (it helped knowing that there was only 7km left!) Halfway through wyatt and another guy we were with (I've been calling him the Latvian guy..i don't know his name! sorry!) split up and my dad and I decided to go the road run route instead of more picking our feet up over stuff through the woods and lost Wyatt (who took off through the woods) and the Latvian guy (who was running too fast for us at that point!) So I nav'd the rest of teh way (only 3 or 4 controls) and was feeling good knowing we were so close to the finish!
Surprisingly enough, I finished in 5th overall (I guess I was in a faster group of guys than I thought!) But I feel quite guilty about not really navigating at all and pretty much being a leech on Wyatt...though I didn't do it on purpose, it just kind of happened. Props to the other girls who actually did nav!
As for my body, i feel pretty good. Today, monday, my knee hurts and my butt where I fell a few times. one of my toenails will probably fall off. but otherwise, my body feels ok, certainly better than my last highlander!!
Thanks to HVO for a great race and great food afterwards!

C • rematch 12

Riding with the guys at Massabesic. I forgot how many rocks there are here.