Training Log Archive: z-man

COC -Long. Well... this was an interesting one to say the least. I don't remember as many wipe outs on a course as I had on this one, just couldn't manage to keep myself upright at many times. In addition, a close and personal encounter with a barb wire for a total of three times must be some sort of a personal PR.
The first part of the course, before the map change, was really fun. It felt like running in a maze or something, though some parts of bare rocks closely reminded of those in Harriman. The vegetation, for the most part, was not very runnable and quite often thorny, so I found myself hoping from one clearing to another if I wanted to keep on running. This of course led to a constant change of direction and made it hard to follow the direction I was running in.
The map exchange revealed that a lot more of the course would be spent in this maze. Eventually, it got too tedious, and I was loosing my focus. There were no trails, so I couldn't get any mental rest and had to constantly keep on trying to stay focused, which was hard.
I quite never gained any kind of a flow, as I found myself bushwhacking across beaver dams and other many crossing places. I stayed out of marshes and lakes with dark lines, although I clearly saw footprints of someone going across before me.
After my second encounter with the barb wire, which entangled with my ankles and sent me flying across rocks, it felt like my right calf got shredded to pieces. But after a quick evaluation, it only looked scratched up pretty badly but no muscle damage. So I wobbled ahead. The third encounter completely knocked the wind out of me, and I began to worry that I may not make it out in one piece. But I didn't give up as I saw that the course was taking us out to a more traditional parts of the woods and I was relieved to be finally out of the maze section.
The final part went relatively peacefully, but I was too banged up to ask of any meaningful effort out of my body at that point.
This course was tougher than me and it showed in the final results.
I only hope that my ankles didn't sustain any material damage, as I found it hard to be stepping on my left foot this morning, though I don't remember anything in particular happening to it on the course, so it may be just nothing serious.
I will put my routes on RG once it is up, some of them are just quite not right :)

C • OK, Back to drawing boards 6

Long Course 10 - Splits

COC - Sprint. Really upset about this race. Had it going pretty good, despite a slow start, not sure how top guys were able to crash through that green on the way to the first control at the time that they did. But the after picking an around route to #7 I never saw an underpass and went on a little tour around the facility for like 1:36 for what should've been only a 0:23 leg. Was really bummed about that. Got really pissed and started really pushing it. Managed to win some splits I guess but was too late. Probably would've had something like 15:40 result at the end. Still can't believe I did that!

C • I know why 6

Sprint Course 5. - Splits

COC - Middle. Had an ok race though nothing to be extremely happy about. Very detailed terrain with lots of trails, but with rough footing and pretty thick green. Starter out pretty good with exeption for the first control where I had my map upside down for like 15 sec before figuring it out. Cought Mark Adams, who started 2 min in front of me, by #5 and then had my first, of many, 20 sec error. Wasn't very sharp on #9 and then #15. And then really messed up #19, just couldn't understand the map and just happen to stumble upon the bag after wobbling around for a bit.
I definitelly had the legs and was feeling pretty good despite not sleeping the night before, but sloppy o-ing doomed me in the woods.

Middle distance, M21E - Splits