Training Log Archive: Charlie

Brown X course at DVOA meet. Pretty good navigation. Not moving particularly fast, as evidenced by how fast Nadim went by me, but no particular physical difficulties, and no particular altercations with the brambles. An unqualified success. Nominal distance 4.5 km.

Map.

In retrospect, one of my better runs, given the general level of fitness. No notable navigational problems or errors, just slow. Need to work on more running and less continual map study. I have a tendency to keep reading the map even when I know where I am going, slows me down a lot.

1. Thought about leaving the road before the pond, and then just after, but the green looked pretty unpleasant. So a bit of a long way around, waiting until the dam after the green area after the pond, and hopping across some wet areas. Could see a dot knoll/root stock up on the hill and just climbed up to it. Flag was actually on the second one, but easy. Saw Ken Sr leaving the area, assumed he had just punched. Turned out later that he was on Red, just happened to be passing by.

2. Behind Ken, who was walking briskly. I was running, not catching up any. He walked right by #2, headed on to the Red control beyond.

3, 4, Trivial, to get us across the creek.

5. Nadim passed me, having started 2 minutes behind. Started up through the woods, then backed out and took the road. Seems like most courses went down here. Nadim disappeared fast. Several other runners passed me on the road. Again, went past the control to the little trail, because cutting off earlier was not that appealing between green and open marsh. Sideways up the hill, could see some rootstocks which were before the control, so easy to find. Tom Strat punched ahead of me, walking.

6. A little tumble coming down the hill, but not so bad. Angled up the hill and hit it right on, catching up to Tom there.

7. A little more speed going downhill, stayed a little left so I could look for the rootstock right. Excellent.

8. Nice route choice leg. Compared with Nadim later who had headed more to the right. I aimed left for the near corner of the large field. I had seen the little white patch on the far side that looked like a good way to get out to the road. Once on the road, I stayed with it a while, then angled down through the not at all bad green slash, heading for the opposing spurs with cliffs, thinking it was on the southern cliff. As I got there, I saw Nadim standing and scratching his head. Not a good sign. Checked the cliff across the way - yes, in the right place, but there's a flag on that cliff. OK, just misread the map and didn't notice which side of the stream I was supposed to be on. No real loss of time.
9. A little extra climb to get up to the trail and then run down it to the bridge, so maybe not optimal, but very secure, anyway. A glimpse of Nadim and Phil HT headed up, then another glimpse when they were on their way down again.
10. Caught Phil halfway there, just on line.
11. Planning on a straighter route, but caught a bit of trail, and ended up getting to the reentrant sooner than I expected. A little slow climbing up to it.
12-15, F. Dragging, but the rest was easy, all in the open.

C • Nice result 9

White Clay Creek - Brown X - Splits

Event: 2014 US Relay Champs and Intercollegiate Champs
 

Leg 2 of 6 point team with Earl and Merick. One substantial parallel error of maybe around 3 or 4 min. Otherwise just plodding along, running into some brambles. Nominal distance 5.6. A nice visit with Giovanni and Katia.

Hard to remember exactly, but I have the sense that this was one of the best relays we've had, lots of action, over in a reasonable amount of time, people had fun, some stirring performances. Of course I missed a lot of it by taking so long on my own leg.

Map..

1. Hand-off from Earl. Just watching the bend in the road on my right, saw the post ahead, so very clear I was going the right way.
2. Couldn't see any trails through the green printing, so going a bit on faith. Trails on the ground were quite broad and open, so just following, assuming I would get there. Saw the tower sticking up above the trees, found it on the map, so knew I would be near that.
3. Trails.
4. Thought it didn't look so bad to go straight, but it was really nasty, plus I drifted a bit right into nastier stuff, and then had to go out to the field to be sure of where I was. Definitely a loss of a minute or more.
5. Loss of focus! Pretty obvious where I was, but somehow I convinced myself that I was over one field segment to the right. A big parallel error ensued, unable to figure out why I was not finding the flag in the reentrant above the small stream. Wrong stream. Maybe 4 minutes of utter foolishness.
6. Easy, could see it for a while. Hardest part was getting down the steep hillside.
7. Hard to see fences and paths in the green on the map, but eventually got around them.
8. Easy,
9. Easy.
10. Stayed in fields as much as possible, could see the flag from a bit of a distance.
11. Straightish, maybe better to contour a bit to the left, but no trouble and could see it from a distance.
12. Lots of rootstocks on top of the spur, and pulled up short a bit and looked around. Maybe 20 or so seconds.
13. Pretty afraid of the green by now, so avoided it by staying in fields and on trails, going a bit out of the way.
14. Easy - used the compass. I could see how you could screw it up if you didn't.
15. Easy navigationally, but really hard to penetrate the green. Once I could see it, I still had to fight through some nasty stuff and climb over some logs.
16. Again, trivial navigation, but awful briars. In retrospect, better to go around to the right, pick up a trail segment.

So not great, not really awful. Only one really regrettable leg.

Another easy session, just testing. A bit better than yesterday as far as the arm goes, but borderline for going any faster or further.

Forearm is taking another turn for the worse, so may have to shut this down for a while.

Once around from Pleasant Valley, CCW with Zack. Very pleasant.

Event: Cemetery Hill Training 1
 

Usual route at McLean. Legs felt very weak and sluggish, but somehow the time was pretty good. Remarkable.

A lethargic outing. Yesterday I thought I had some energy and planned to run, but things got in the way. Today, not so much. Starting to wonder if the accumulated effect of all the tick bites I have encountered is dragging me down. I'll try to get it checked out.

C • Ticks?!? 10

Here is the map from Saturday's Western Mass Rules meet at Sessions. There were 18 controls in total, options of any 5, any 9, any 12, any 15 or visit all. Visit all was the most popular choice. Next time will be about right for a couple of map updates, as the yellow clearcut in the middle of 38, 39 and 41 will be turning greener, and the currently dark green area between 42 and 45 will need to be much lighter. Still slow going, but all the scratchy stuff has been shaded out by growing saplings by now.

A little challenge with cousin Matt. He went out too fast, ran out of gas. He would be good with a little practice and discipline.