Training Log Archive: Charlie

Event: WCOC Huntington State Park
 

Red Course at Huntington. Nominal distance 6.9K. Really nice course set by Niels Lyng-Olsen. Woods were wet, but very little snow, almost none. Mix of some good legs and bad. Two errors on #2. First I got off on the wrong trail, heading SE isntead of crossing to go E. Then once I had that figured out, didn't check my compass when I was going along the wall and left it at the SE corner going in the direction of 3 rather than the NE corner headed to 2. Lucky enough to stumble on #3 and figure out where I was. Then 4, 5, 6 straightforward enough. For 7 I looked in the reentrant 1 to early, had to keep going. 8 was fine, right on. Then I had a plan to go around to the right to 9, but lost my concentration and left way too early, headed way too far L, and wasn't so sure where I was for a while. Finally figured out I was near 17 and went by 17 to confirm. Then I was fine for10-13, although things were very wet in the northern part of the map and I was going to some effort to find the relatively drier spots. Stopped a bit short on the way to 14 on a more or less parallel feature. Lost some time there before I relocated on the big marsh to my N. Then 15, 16, 17, 18 were all pretty easy for me to find. Good execution to 19, aiming to stay along the side of the hill, getting just a little farther E than I wanted to, but no problem. 20 was easy.

Nice ride down and back with Bill.

Map and route:

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Red - Splits

A bit of an unsettled night, and a busy work day, but Rhonda was hoofing it over to our friend Jackie's to cadge some rosemary from Jackie's nice indoor overwintering plants, so I went along. On the way back we brought some plastic bags back and picked up a bunch of sparkly blue Bud Light cans, winking in the snow at us. In these parts, Bud Light is by far the preferred beverage of sub-morons.

Finally got around to scanning my maps and putting the routes on them from the trip to Cyprus and Turkey:

Mediterranean Open Championships

Day 1 in Cyprus, south of Nicosia half an hour or so:

finished 15th out of about 24 in M-65. Foot bothered me a fair amount, but got better every day after that.

Day 2 in Cyprus, sprint in the old city of Nicosia.
i
finished 9th. No major errors, just a few bobbles.

Day 3 in North Cyprus

after crossing the border, big boom on #2, and my worst day, 21st place. Not so bad after #2, but that was 20 minutes on a leg that should have been no more than 2.

Park World Tour Cappadocia

Day 1 in Cappadocia, after going down in the underground city in the morning:
just training, no race, but really cool features on this map, Mustafapasa.

Day 2, Aciksaray area

in Cappadocia, Aciksaray area, beautiful rock formations, and 1000 year old houses carved out of the cliffs. Fascinating. 11th place.

Day 3 in Goreme, Cappadocia


Rainy, muddy, steep, cool area, finished 10th

Istanbul Spring Meet

Day 1, after flying from Cappadocia, checking into the hotel, taking a stroll down to the race area and back, maybe 5K total
night sprint in old city of Istanbul, area of Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque. Awesome, finished 9th.

Day 2, Belgrade Forest outside the city, a bit rainy, cold
Belgrade forest outside the city, finished 9th.

Day 3 Sprint in the Grand Bazaar:

This was the most fun of all and by far my best race. Only "mistake" was I didn't see a staircase on the map, ran up it thinking it was a different one and was surprised to see my control at the top instead of around the corner, so maybe saved a bit of time compared to what I thought I was doing. Otherwise very clean, 4th place. No satellites in the Bazaar, I figured, so no track.

around the neighborhood with Rhonda, mostly walking briskly, stopped to chat up a friend who was driving by, and jogged a couple of downhills.

This was hard, and perhaps harder than yesterday, but the time includes a loss of about 35-40 sec in the middle when I got up to answer a call, which turned out to be spam anyway, so on average a sub-22 pace by a little.

Preferred activity today was going to be a snowshoe run, but not enough time between calls. Probably not enough time at the end of the day today.

Well, this wasn't so successful. Snow too soft, tracks I thought I might follow too melted to see. Nice to be out, though.

dog loop with Rhonda and Sassy. Still over a foot of snow in most places, although Zack has been gadding about in the Polaris and has chewed up some of the nice snowshoeing. I wonder what conditions will be at Huntington on Saturday.

Somehow this was a fair bit harder than yesterday, although I did finish a bit faster today. Just didn't feel as snappy today.

Very surprised that after a month off I had this much zip. 21:01.8, best of the rowing year so far, beating my 21:10.3 from last May. Lagged a bit in the middle, and unwilling to dig deep enough in the last 1000 to try for under 21. Another time. Maybe after another month of recuperation.

Weight about where I left it. Not surprising. Last year I lost a few pounds, but there was more eating this year, and certainly less running. Sleep is more or less an aggregation. Zack picked me up at JFK last night at 11:40 (plane was late) and I got about an hour on the rte 8 stretch, then about 3 hours of actual sack time before getting up at a late hour for Ratlum, 5:45 am. It will probably take a while to get my clock straight.

C • Breaking 21 3

At Fiumicino, awaiting first leg to IST, then a longish layover and heading to JFK, theoretically arriving 955pm. Cab to Jess's place where I will meet Zack and drive home with him. Figuring home maybe around 3 am +/-

C • Buon viaggio di ritorno a casa 2