Training Log Archive: Lori

Running Green was definitely a good choice. My hip is still hurting a bit and was especially hurting after Saturday. I started cleanly, if slowly, and spiked number 1. Molly Kemp was behind me and we were together most of the (really long) way to 2. This was when it all went wrong. I got basically to the circle and Angelica Riley came up behind me and pointed out a marsh. Aha! I though. My attackpoint! Angelica, Molly, and I then went to go find the control, but it wasn't there. They went one way, and I considered going with them, but then decided to try attacking again to no avail. I started wandering in increasingly large circles to relocate and started finding lots of little marshes, most of which weren't mapped. I was officially confused. I kept debating on running to the trail and re-attacking and just couldn't make myself do it. I kept finding new marshes and trying to re-attack. I finally got to within about 10 feet of the control and someone shouted, "I found it!" About 20 people ran over to the control to stand in line to punch. It was quite funny and would have been even funnier if I hadn't just lost 30 minutes looking for it. I started off to 3 without ever really understanding what had just happened at 2. I didn't really go very far out of my way, but I counted crossing 3 dry stream beds, but had apparently crossed something that wasn't mapped as a stream, so I spent a while going slowly down the wrong stream. I relocated off a rootstock and found the control quite quickly. Controls 4-6 went really well. I decided to take a REALLY safe way to 7. (Apparently that was by far the best way.) Somehow I made a small mistake that I can only attribute to being really tired, but overall this control went quite smoothly. I then went slowly and carefully to 8, which went well. I decided to take an absurdly safe way to 9, probably safer than I needed, but at least I didn't make my really tired mind think too much and get lost again. Going to 10 was fine, and I managed to keep my ankles intact down the really lumpy hill to the finish.

UltraLong: Green Y - Splits

Model event before the sprint with Presto. Jogged around nice and easy.

This course was a ton of fun. I started out 30s after Alex and 30s before Pavlina, which made me a bit nervous. I got to number 1 with no problem. Alex was just leaving as I was arriving, and I could see Pavlina coming up behind me. I ran with the pack to 2, but got a bit confused when we came out at a spot that I wasn't expecting. I stood in confusion as everyone passed me, and I tried to figure out where we were, almost went the wrong way, and then decided that the 4 or 5 other people around me couldn't all be wrong, and chased off after them. I came right up on the control, but now I was at the back of the pack. I decided I better start actually orienteering and worrying less about the pack, so 3-6 went really well, and I started catching back up. I saw Alex at 6, had a brief moment of happiness before realizing that she was quite injured. I had a brief argument about whether she needed help. (She thought no, I wasn't so sure and was eventually convinced that she was ok enough to leave her.) At this point the pack was more or less gone, and since I was still thinking about Alex and not 100% sure that the best decision was to leave her, I decided to take a longer, safer way to 7 at least until my brain kicked back into gear. I found 7-13 without much trouble. Dasha and I were running into each other a bunch throughout. I started to get tired around this point and could feel myself slowing down, but I tried to keep pushing. In retrospect, I may also have been not thinking quite as clearly because I also started making more mistakes. I took apparently not the ideal route to 14, although it seemed good at the time and quite a few other people also thought so, but then made a 5-10s error in the circle. I got to the correct spot at 15, didn't see the control right away, stopped, looked around, took 2 more steps and saw it. I wasn't sure what I was looking for in 16. (It looked like a small circle of white woods, but was in fact a tree. This was a blown up symbol and a bunch of other people were confused, too). However, I found the control without a problem and then basically compass beared to 17 with no problem. All in all, a good race.

Started out feeling a bit tired going into this, but not too bad. I veered a little to the left on 1 (compass bearing across a reasonably featureless flat area), but found it pretty quickly. Molly Kemp, who started 2 minutes ahead of me, found it at the same time. We ran to 2 basically together. She stepped in the seemly solid pit and sunk to her waist. I was glad to be behind her and didn't step in. We then proceeded to more or less run the next 5 controls together. She lost me on the way to 7 where I made a 15-30s error. I then tried to catch up on 8, which was a mistake because I lost a bit of time here, too. I thought the control was on a depression, but the depression was really hard to see. Luckily I decided to check the code because it was mine. Controls 9-11 were fine. I got on a parallel trail on the way to 12 and lost 5 minutes. I knew I was running too far but somehow didn't notice the other trail I could be on. I kept stopping to look around, but even though the map didn't match up well, I couldn't figure out how I could be wrong. It's kind of ironic because we were talking about listening to your "the map and reality don't match up" bell in the car. Oh well. Controls 13-17 went very well, and I tried to push hard. Except for 12, this was a really good race for me, and I had a lot of fun.

Sprint: M/F21 - Splits

Middle: Red Y - Splits

Running with Presto from my apartment to the river, did the JFK-River St. loop, and then to lab to do some stuff, and then home. My knee was feeling reasonably good the whole time, but my hip is still kind of hurting. I also got really hungry or dehydrated or something at some point and started feeling like I was going to pass out. I'm assuming this is from a combination of sickness and not having had breakfast yet. Presto was going insane trying to chase geese.

Night-O sprints at Prospect Hill set by Alex. I haven't done night-o in the actual dark in a while (it is usually cloudy enough to get a nice orange glow from the city lights), and this required a good amount of concentration. I started out by almost instantaneously face planting. This wouldn't have been so bad except that there was a nice log with a nice pointy branch right where my right knee landed. Perhaps the god of bruises just decided I needed to even things up since my left leg is completely covered in bruises from the MCB skit. (One of which involved enough trauma to embed denim from my jeans into my leg. Spending 30 minutes picking denim fibers out of a very bruised cut in my leg is quite low on my list of possible things to do on a Saturday night.) Anyway, I hobbled back to the start, determined that I was not bleeding and that the pain was decreasing and started again at a much slower pace and with my light aimed more towards the ground. Things went pretty well, albeit slowly until number 4, where I somehow managed to jog right past the control without seeing it and wander around for a while before re-attacking off the trail and finding it. After that, I slowed down even more, although I didn't really have any more major problems.

Sprint 2 went really well and was a lot of fun, although my knee started hurting again during this sprint. I started sprint 3 with about 15-20 minutes left before Ian and I needed to leave, so I decided to just keep an eye on my watch. Unfortunately, the codes for controls 1 and 2 were switched, so when I got to 1, I thought something terrible had happened with my navagation (not sure how...) and since I was cutting the time close anyway and my knee was hurting, just decided to jog back to the start. It was a lot of fun, and Presto had an awesome time!

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