Training Log Archive: JanetT

Event: NEOC: Baldwin Hill
 

Brown course at Baldwin Hill (Ashburnham, MA), straight line 3.0 km. Green was 5.2, and if the conditions were the same as yesterday I might have taken the bait. But it was showery and low 50s and I thought about an hour (therefore Brown) would be enough of that. I would have been a bit closer to an hour without bobbles, but it was slow going (lots of wet downed branches and logs as well as rocky ground plus occasional patches of laurel...) and I made some mistakes. Glad to be done and get into dry clothes.

Thanks to Ian Smith for the courses, and other NEOC volunteers for sitting out in the cold breeze. Ian cleverly made the advanced courses more challenging by removing the stone walls (but the ruined stone walls, a different symbol, still appeared on our maps). This was mentioned before we went out so I knew to ignore them.

Delayed starting because I checked in right after Trisha U., who was also on Brown, but who dawdled and kept looking at the map before actually starting. So I ran around in the grass a bit, getting my shoes nice and wet. Finally she was off. It was an approximate 500 m leg, and about halfway there I noticed her checking out one of the unmapped stone walls, while I kept going to the trail and the mapped stone wall corner, my attackpoint. She was just behind me to 2, and faster up the hill (6 contours) to 3, ahead to 4, and I saw her off to my right to 5 (#120, reentrant; also on other courses) but I then proceeded to go too low and get into the rocky reentrant, and never saw her again. I had to climb back up to the proper reentrant, then head back down the slope (7 contours) on the way to 6. Finally, some more open running, at least for a few minutes. Neglected to properly identify where I was on the trail between 6 and 7 and checked out some other boulders too low before returning to the trail to use the bend as an attackpoint. Better this time. Fine on 8, a hill whose flag I could actually see from a distance, then proceeded to get to the proper reentrant for 9 but didn't see the flag near the humongous boulder! Perplexed. So I went around the other side of the megarock, and then saw the flag, which had been blocked from my view by a smaller rock... Grr.

Route to 11 wasn't optimal so I lost time there too, but didn't have any trouble finding the control. Then back down another hill, through laurel and across the stream (on both crossings I managed to find good stepping stones) and back to finish. Good practice, I guess, dealing with adverse conditions and poor visibility. Saw Marty H-T on my climb up to 3; I think he was surprised to see me there. :-)

Brown - Splits

Event: WCOC - Sessions Woods
 

Every time we head to Sessions and I see signs for the Tunxis Trail, I think of this. :-)

WCOC Green course at Sessions Woods. Temps around 70, overcast, with the sun coming out at the finish. Thanks to Bill Duncan (with assistance fom Charlie DeWeese) for the courses, and for thinking to "blow up" the southern portion of the map to make it a bit more readable. :-) Nominal distance was 5.3 km. No FR track, since I forgot my watch!

Did fine for the first few controls, slow in the newly harvested area, but then mistook one trail for another and ended up 90 degrees off from where I wanted to be on the way to #4. When I passed the very large distinct tree (nowhere near where I thought I was) I went west to the road to relocate, and ended up attacking from that angle (the double boulders near the road) and didn't have trouble in the circle. Lost maybe 8 minutes en route.

Poor map-reading (map?) to 5, and now thinking maybe it was hung on the big cliff south of the circled one? To 6 I checked out the huge cliff NE of the proper one first. In the circle to 7 I thought I'd looped south of the huge cliff and climbed up to attack from the south, but when I hit the bare rock I had to turn right to reach the control. Maybe there's another huge cliff there? Or I misread map here too. Several more minutes lost on 5, 6, and 7.

Anyway, from here on I did better, though running on the trail (and there was quite a bit of trail running from 7-10) was difficult because it was quite rocky and/or steep; only a few sections where I felt I wouldn't trip if I sped up a bit. And one spot where a large tree takes up most of the space between two boulders where the trail climbs down a steep hillside!

Good attacks on the rest of the controls (plus Tony being visible at one), so I didn't have any other troubles. A bit longer than I wanted to be out today, but I wanted more than 3.8 km (brown course) and to visit the south side again.

Green - Splits

Used the rings today. Lunges were hard but not impossible.

1021 m

Pulldowns and leg presses; enough other adductor work in class (plus sore muscles from Tuesday) that I felt no need to use the machine.

October already????

Good class, using weights as today's tool. Only had a problem when I went to get into position (all fours) for back work/leg presses, and put weight on my bruised left shin (from falling in the stream at the Lowlander). Intense pain, and then throbbing for a good five minutes before it settled down. Did the exercise from a prone position instead. Youch.

Hill intervals on the elliptical. 30-plus minutes is longer than I'd been doing lately. (It's nothing, however, compared to Sandy's stairmaster and hiking-in-Colorado workouts lately. :-) Maybe next year I won't be so broken.)
1.37 + 0.1 "miles"

Plus pulldowns, adductors, and leg presses

Since I had an annual physical this morning, I missed exercise class, and deemed it a rest day since I had an adventurous weekend.