Training Log Archive: JanetT

Sprint relay (US Team fundraiser) at Manitou Lake (CO). Glen and I did a 2-person relay at the 3-leg event; he ran the first leg, I ran the 1st 4 controls of the 2nd leg then handed off the map and dibbler at a spectator control (knoll near the road) and waited for Glen to return for the next handoff, and then ran the whole 3rd course.

I managed to mess up my first control on the 2nd leg (C course); I aimed directly for the tree I was supposed to go to but then about 40 meters short of it, I second-guessed myself (mis-identifying the mapped trail) and ran around a bit until I decided I was right in the first place and headed back to the tree--time lost about 1:30 (on a sprint!). I also messed up control 10 on course B; I ran down the correct spur but drifted a little to the left of the line and when I got to the reentrant didn't look far enough up the hill. I ended up going almost to # 11 before realizing what I was doing and turned around. In the meantime Nancy K. and Mark Dominie passed me as I was trudging back up the hill to 10. Oh well. We still managed to beat the H-T team by about a half a minute.

John F. had set up a short string-O course with about 15-20 controls, which crossed over itself a few times, and challenged runners for a donation to the team. We watched a number of variations besides just fastest (43 seconds?) -- 3 legged; blind (J-J holding the string); 1 legged (hopping), etc. Lots of fun for the spectators too. :-)

Sprint B - Splits

US Long course championships at Saylor Park, CO. I felt better than yesterday (when I was still adjusting to 8500' elevation and was headache-y and hot), and wore a sleeveless top for greater cooling, plus I think it was cooler because of even higher elevation and more woods today.

Booboo on # 1 because we had 1:15000 maps (which they didn't tell us about until at the start when they handed them out) and I hadn't adjusted my thinking to 'go farther'. I checked out someone else's control before readjusting my mind. Good route choice for me to # 3, taking the long way around on the road rather than shorter, but slower?, through the woods--I had a great attack point and had no troubles.

I saw my 1st place competition coming into 3 and 5, coming out of 6, the whole way to 7 and most of the way to 8, where she left me in the dust after a steep hill climb. Then I proceeded to mess up 9 by not being careful in the detailed area of spurs and reentrants. Easy in from there. I finished 6 minutes behind 1st place (Yelena Krasnov from BAOC) and an hour ahead of Barb D., for 2nd F50 (out of 3).

In retrospect, I was ahead of Yelena at 5, but probably lost time to her on my route to 6; while I knew where I was almost the whole way on this long leg, it probably took longer execution-wise, letting her catch up to me.
It doesn't help that I bobbled 9 either. :-P

I changed the color of my hike graphics bar so it's easier to pick out from the orienteering. :-)

Green - Splits

Middle/Short-O championships at Manitou Lake. The one control I didn't "spike" cost me 1st place - I figure a 4-5 minute error (while I checked out other control flags in reentrants; mine was up higher...) and I finished second to Barb D. by 39 seconds. Ah, well... I was clean on the rest of the controls but was just very slow on the uphills (mostly from # 4 - 6). It was very sunny and felt really hot, plus I was still adjusting to the 8000'+ elevation (headache) and didn't push it any more.

Hope it's less hot tomorrow for the Long...

Green - Splits

Trail O Demo course at Garden of the Gods. I'd never tried it before, and was pleased that I was able to get them all right (except for the one that was thrown out because the map we were given didn't match the course setter's map and one bag was mis-hung relative to the demo maps). I took more time than I should have on the timed control (29 sec) but got it right, too. I used as much information as I could to determine the right answers.

We took over an hour for the walk, and stood around a lot (some of it in the bright sun), so there wasn't much exertion involved. :-)

2007 Night O championships. I would have won no matter how long I took, as long as I finished, since no one else on F50 was running. :-) As it was, I was a little low on the hill for # 7, and hesitated going into # 10 (though I was where I thought I was; however, in the dark if there's extra stuff in the terrain that's not on the map, you might double-check). Total time lost maybe 1:30.

Saw lots of others' lights out there, and people at some of the controls. It was quite dark, but my lights worked well (Petzl headlamp with an incandescent bulb, plus a little mini LED lamp for reading the map and distinguishing the white from the yellow, which really helped).

Walked along the Gunnison River below Morrow Point Dam (out and back); the canyon gets pretty narrow here. No water coming over the spillway (probably a good thing) :-) . There's a hydro plant here too. Cool and breezy, with the most breeze just below the dam.

Rest of the day was spent driving back to Colo Springs, so we could eat and get up to Elbert for the night-o.

Hiked at Black Canyon of the Gunnison, north rim (after driving 1-1/2 hours from Montrose to get to it). We first went to ! :-) and then continued on to Green Mt., another 2 miles, for a total of ~3-1/2 mi each way (plus a few out and backs to outlooks on the rim). We took sandwiches and ate them at the top of the trail (Green Mt.) though I'm not sure it was at the top of the mountain.

Along the trail, in a washed section (meaning water flows through when it rains and moves stuff around) I found a very unusual white rock, and it's not quartz (which can be white), but an almost pure white and fairly easily broken down (so sedimentary; I know that much). I'll have to look it up somewhere (or maybe Cristina knows?).

After we finished out hike, we drove out to some of the other outlooks on the north rim. Black Canyon is an awesome National Park. One of the outlooks we visited was at 1700+ feet above the canyon bottom/river!

I'm glad this was our last long hike--I'm bushed, and need a break before tomorrow's night-O back at Peaceful Valley.

AOWN: Saw a hummingbird (greenish) and a mourning dove along the trails, and chipmunks and rabbits in the road.

Day off from orienteering. :-) We hiked at Curecante National Recreation area near the Gunnison River, between Gunnison and Montrose, CO, on the Pinnacles Trail, ~1.95 mi each way and 600' climb. It didn't actually climb any pinnacles, just to the base of them, from the Blue Mesa Reservoir. Very nice view of the reservoir. Part of the climb was fairly steep, along a reentrant ("riparian zone"), and the rest was just gentle ups and downs as we crossed other reentrants at the base of the pinnacles. Temp was in the low to mid 60's, mostly sunny.

C • Curecanti National Recreation Area 2

In addition to our hike, we drove into the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, on the south rim, and stopped at various lookouts (some of them were 100-300' away from the road, but I won't count that as exercise). Tomorrow we plan to drive around to the north rim and hike to Exclamation Point, among other places. :-)

Unfortunately, I don't think all this exercise is having any effect on the "j", since we've been finding nice little brew pubs -- Rockhouse in Castle Rock; Gunnison Brewery in Gunnison; and the Smugglers(?) Brew Pub here in Montrose -- followed by Starbucks frappuccinos (for the caffeine). I suppose we could switch to regular coffee after the beer, couldn't we?

Event: Scottish 6-Days
 

Day 2 of Colorado 5-day, at Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch. Overcast almost the whole time I was out made it feel more comfortable than yesterday's sunny weather. I managed to mess up 3 controls (one more than the other two) for a total of just over 4 minutes of error, enough to drop me to second place in F50 (by 33 seconds) and 13th overall on Green 1 (from 1st/F50 and 12th/26 yesterday). Errors on # 2, 3 and 5, with 5 being the biggest. It was a route choice error which cost me about 2:30 overall--fast running down a spur, but then up the wrong hill. Felt better physically than yesterday and ran a little harder, I think. Good effort despite my bobbles.

Day 2 Green A - Splits

Day 1 of Colorado 5-day A-meet. The control I'm calling a non-"spike" was actually one where I had gone the right distance but was about 25 meters too far to the left. I stopped an looked down the hill (I was looking for a 1.5m boulder on a hillside), didn't see anything that looked the right size & pondered; then looked to my right and saw it across the way--time lost, about 45 seconds (a guess). Otherwise I found the control placement to be not too technical (in my opinion). :-)

Controls were placed generally in the wooded and/or rocky areas of the map, but there was a lot of Colorado-typical running across grassy fields. Several barbed-wire fences to cross (slip under) slowed me down. Good courses by Virginia and Bob Lehman.

Day 1 Green 1 - Splits