Training Log Archive: GlenT

Green X Day 2 at Mountain Lakes (5.8km, 205m climb). Same wonderful open woods. Similar map printing. Course design significantly better than yesterday with some nice technical stuff in the northwest section of the map and some good route choice legs (6 and 10 in particular). My only criticism is that there seemed to be very heavy use of controls 6-7-8-9 and their connecting legs, so I'm sure that some people had more "help" finding controls than others. Weather a bit cooler (50ish) but good for running.

A good run except for one leg. Lost 6-7 minutes going from 4 to 5. Apparently my brain took a break and failed to notify me. Looking at the GPS trace, I was on the line headed toward the powerline and for some reason turned and headed east, thereby missing all the nice linear features I would have crossed in about 80 meters. Things weren't making sense but I continued on, even running along a trail for a while (not headed in the right direction). Then I saw an uncrossable fence which I couldn't find on the map (along the border so under the olive green border symbol). Still not thinking, headed north and got lucky by getting to control 2, from which I started navigating correctly again. Doh. Also dropped a minute on #11 drifting too far down the hill and had to climb up 2 contours to get to the control.

Ended up 3rd in M60 for the day and for two day combined time. Third place turned out to be the place to be however. While 1st and 2nd got trinkets as prizes, 3rd place got a half dozen apple cider doughnuts. Woohoo! Mmmm...doughnuts.

Good job organizationally by HVO and WCOC, and special thanks to Geoff Connor who I assume found this gem of O-forest and made it so we could all enjoy it.

Green X Day 2 - Splits

Event: HVO/WCOC A-event "Love The Lakes"
 

Green X course at Love the Lakes A-meet. FR battery was low, so no track (also no cheating!). Distance and climb above are as shown on the control descriptions. Mostly open woods with terrain typical of the Hudson Valley (hills and rocks). Excellent weather (sunny and 60F). Leaf cover made the footing tricky at times.

The map was less than stellar. While printed at 1:10000, the symbols seem to be at 1:15000 size. And, there are lots of them. The printing was such that things appeared a bit fuzzy, so it was tough to distinguish boulders from cliffs.

A so-so run with smallish misses on three controls (6, 8 and 10) - probably lost 4-5 minutes on those plus some small execution errors. Seemed like I had to walk a lot and didn't feel like I could push the pace. 3rd in M60, 10th on Green X. 3 minutes behind Ron, 2 minutes up on Phil, who's promising to run faster tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the course design was not A-meet quality. The only other course I've seen is Brown X and it was similarly weak. Several doglegs, an intermediate level leg with about 7 contours of gratuitous climb (on a course which already had plenty of climb), and a leg (8-9) which used esentially the same approach as #1 (control 1 was a logical attack point for 9). Maybe it's personal preference, but I think a longer leg (1km+) and fewer 300m legs would have improved the course. And putting a water stop on the bee line from 5-6 rules out a couple of route choices on what is otherwise a pretty good leg. Assuming that the course consultant did his job, what went wrong?

Green X Day 1 - Splits

Rings.

Rainy and cold outside, and this was convenient. Got to see some Fox News so caught up on the Obama-failure-of-the-day.