Training Log Archive: cmorse

Event: Sprint Series Final & US Relay Champs
 

First of two nicely designed courses by Joe Brautigam. I felt good, had good flow in the woods, but made two unforgiveable errors costing me beaucoup time... Damn...

First, on #6 I debated the L/R options leaving #5 and decided to go R and try and find a less green corridor in the light green, but it looked pretty nasty - lots of greenbrier and quite a bit of deadfall. Wound up swinging wider R than I realized (easy to do at 1:4000) and wound up the section E of where I wanted to be - trails didn't feel right, but it didn't click immediately until I was almost up to #14 (just before the wall), turned L but then didn't see the control at first and came in from the worst side - thrashing in the green to get to it.

Then, heading into #8 I checked my exit and realized it was a short jaunt over the stonewall and along a paralell wall. But I didn't see MY stonewall and instead focused on the one uphill, crossed it and followed the paralell wall straight up to #14 (again), realized what I had done (90 degree error and not reading contours) and turned around and bolted for #9 - right through the substantial patch of greenbriers (pay for that, you fool....)

Rest of course was ok, gradually increasing speed, overtaking a couple people and pulling away from them to the finish - but they never should have caught up with me in the first place...

So felt I ran really well on my good legs, just had a couple of costly fubars along the way...

2nd sprint, and another fine course by JoeB. Ran very well on all but one control, but that was another unforgiveable mistake...

Ran strong on first leg, but Ross passed me about halfway having started 30s behind me. A little slow into the bag due to the rocky ground and upon leaving I was focused on picking a clean line out of the rocky ground and wound up drifting R. Intended to take the trail R around marsh, but being too wide I ended up on trail going R around big hill instead - realized what I had done, but decided to push hard on trail all the way around past #3 and into #2, punched and the flew from #2 back to #3 with what may turn out to be one of the faster splits for #3, up and out and slowed up headed to #4 to regroup my thought process and decided to tune out the black features and run on contours for the most part. Up over hill into circle to #5 and hesitated to realize what the clue was, then rest of the course went clean and fast with the exception of slightly slower in the rocky areas which I just can't seem to negotiate at speed.

So I ran most of the legs really well, but the one major boom cost probably 75 seconds so I think had I not made that mistake I would have been under 15... that would have been sweet....

assorted warmup jogging, stretching and such before each of the two sprint finals.

Sprint A Course 3 (R/B) - Splits

Sprint B Course 3 (R/B) - Splits

4 point relay - Leg 3 - Green - Splits

skipped work early to come home and go for a ride. Somewhere along the way I passed the 1000 mile mark on the Slipstream. They say that it takes 800-1000 miles to get your 'bent legs' as different muscle groups are employed compared to upright bikes. Maybe, maybe not - but todays ride certainly felt brisk and many flat areas I was easily doing 30km/hr or better without any undue effort. Stayed in the middle ring the whole day, even on the short steep climbs up past the mills in Rockville.

Speaking of climbs, Wednesday night we were supposed to play host to a couple doing a bike tour from Maine to Florida along the Adventure Cycling Atlantic Coast route which runs on 140 up the end of the street. Offered a place to pitch a tent and other cyclist amenities. Anyway, got a call around 7pm that they weren't going to make it as they were still in Union. Apparently they had heard nasty rumours about the hills in Bigelow Hollow and tried to find a way around and after a few misguided attempts found themselves right back at Bigelow facing the hills. According to their blog they had to walk their bikes up the hill out of Bigelow Hollow and to their reckoning its the first time they've had to walk their bikes in something like 8000 miles.

Makes me feel not so bad about bitching about the hills around here :-)

Good nights rest and then off to see what damage we can do at the Sprints tomorrow...

Another brief session up and down the street before bus time.

Just tooling up and down the street before bus time.

Had a list of stuff I needed to do, but the afternoon was too nice not to get out and do something, plus I hadn't put the rebuilt wheel back on the bike yet (one of the todo items). So I took care of that then rode out to the lake and back. Water level in the Snip is way, way down. Need more rain. Then back home for bus time and some household projects.

Event: NEOC Great Brook Farm
 

A good solid run for me today. Biggest time loss was on #15 in a poorly mapped section (lots of good orienteers complaining about the map here so its not just me.) Other time losses were mostly hesitations and not seeing the flag/feature immediately upon hitting the circle. Quite a bit of white pine sapling growth which is easy to run through, but creates crappy visibility. Also got distracted by a few spurious unmapped objects (#15 notwithstanding where 'few' should be replaced by 'mostly')

Red - Splits