Training Log Archive: Wyatt

Event: DVOA French Creek East
 

French Creek East.

Another day where I've learned bad vegetation reading habits - e.g. for vegetation, I totally ignored the map, except for remembering a place where last year I got totally hosed in green. The greens - light, medium, vertical slash (ferns), and a bit of dark - were extensive - and almost entirely uncorrelated with the few patches of medium green shown on the map.

And then there was the frequent small feature (e.g. charcoal platform) 100+m away from anything, which requires good compass work from something - and the good compass work isn't helped by the green, so you either:
a) weave a lot, and often lose your line, and then spend more time wandering in the up-to-dark-green, or
b) go straight through total crap, incl. even more dark green.
I have briar scrapes where I've never had them before.

I chose a bit of a & b and I still missed moderately to bad a few times. Quite the challenging day, and Clem managed better than most - at 104 minutes, vs. Eddie & I at 116 minutes, and Jon T. at 150 minutes - for 10.6km, and not too much climb. Restore the terrain to the condition it was in when the maps was made, I imagine a time around 70 minutes for any of us would've been plausible.

What to do about French Creek? In lieu of restoring the tree canopy, which is presumably elusive (apparently there are new bugs?), we could (1) avoid using it in the summer, and (2) hire someone qualified to map the green that persists in the Spring/Fall.

And I can certainly review my own race further, which was far from perfectly executed.

C • Course analysis 2

Warmup to AJ's start, AJ's white, and back to start. Little cooldown. Didn't run that hard most of the race, ex. when Clem was starting to catch me at the mid point, and much later when he passed me and I passed him back.

Randy's FCN training for the WOC teams - thanks Randy!

Was planning to alternate better easy (2) and hard (4) pace - two controls hard, two easy, but it was so darn tough to nail those bags even with the streamers. I'm amazed Randy found them w/o the streamers. Found #15 after 10 minutes of struggle, and heard that Clem gave up.

Was learning though, and this definitely helped the next day as I knew how careful I needed to be. After another few days of this, I'd hope to be good at it. If I wasn't so scratched up :)

3x~7 minute surges, 1st & last up big hills...
R-knee inside edge a bit sore again today - during and after run. Just a smidge, but I thought this wave was done :(

From Great Valley Nature Center, west on the Horseshoe trail and back. Uncomfortably close (1m) to getting hit by a van that was driving right against the vegetation (hitting leaves) where the trail I was running on popped out onto a narrow road, in the midst of medium green... gotta slow down on those onto-road exits a bit better...

50R, 30L hip squats, and various stretches for the L-knee, which is only mildly sore now - nothing sharp on the inside edge

So the menu today at track said 4x (800, 400rest, 300, 100 rest).

And we had a new guy, Joe, in group 1, who was a decent HS track/XC runner, and is getting back into running now after finishing college, where he did crew. I think I led the 800's, but not most the 300's. Good to have the pressure on. Brady also ran in group 1 for a change (up from group 2.) And Laszlo & Maggie where there too.

Extra pressure was inflicted by (1) my decision, just last week, that 800's over Cristina's PR (2:48) no longer 'count', (2) my decision to try to set another PR in the 800 on the 4th one, (2b) my collision with a runner spacing out and veering back and forth just after finishing her interval, as I crossed the 600m mark in that 800, and (3) Maggie's decision to try to pass Joe & I at the 200m point of the last 300m interval, which inspired both Joe & I to really sprint... yet Maggie stayed right behind us (order of Joe/Wyatt/Maggie finished within a second or two.)

2:46, 64
2:47, 60
2:43, 58
2:36, 52

L-hamstring a little tweaked starting around 11:30pm...

Nice & hilly long run. Found some fun new Mt. Bike trails in the northern portion of the Mt. Misery map.

50R, 20L hip squats, and various stretches for the L-knee, which is only mildly sore now - nothing sharp on the inside edge