Training Log Archive: bishop22

Next Regaine leg was the one I had been dreading. I've never been out between 2am and dawn-ish time during a Rogaine (or during a hash, or anything else in the woods, for that matter). I had picked out a couple of "foolproof" controls for this time period. For the first hour, I alternated running and walking to get C49. Most of the leg was easy - all roads to a stone wall - but finding the stone wall was a bit of a challenge. Many of the walls were not actually visible from the road, so I pace counted from a stream, left the road a bit early, and found the wall right where I had expected it! I then grabbed C58, which was mostly road/trail, but then I had to go on a bearing to the corner of a marsh. I kept getting pushed right by marshy ground, so when I had gone far enough, it turned out that I was too far right, and had to go into the marshy area to get the control. C51 was right at a road intersection. I had planned to get C53 and run back in, but that was when I thought I was going to be slower and it would be getting light, so I decided to just grab C20 in the dark instead, which took much too long, and picked up C21, which was a piece of cake in the daylight.

The resulting 199 points was best for the 2-6am shift, and since the lead team's runner set his alarm for PM instead of AM and missed his shift, we moved within 70 points or so.

Splits: 60:32, 33:34, 39:23, 31:49, 47:45, 16:59

When I got back, I woke Nate up for his 6am-10am shift. He wasn't ready to headd out, so he had some breakfast and chilled until about 6:50. He planned on replicating my 10pm-midnight shift, but did better than that, as he grabbed 41,17,18,21 and 10, and got back just after 8:20. He had another hour and 40 minutes, but not enough energy to try for a nearby control or two - having had run most of this shift.

Final shift for the Regaine: 10am-noon. Not really any good loops left, so I planned another out-and-back. I thought I could run out to 34, pick up 56, then decide which of 44, 33 and 14 that I could get on the way in.

I managed to mangle 34 - I couldn't stay on the intermittent trail that led down to the penisula. I found a really nice penisula that turned out to be just west of the real one, so it was almost 45 minutes to get the first control. I still wanted 56, so I started down, again losing an intermittent trail. This time I was smart, I took a bearing from the last place I knew I was. Un fortunately, the map had E-W lines in addition to N-S lines, and I made a 90 degree error. After I discovered this, I started retracing my steps and was about to just bail, when I hit a property boundary that relocated me. I slogged thru some nasty muck (fallling once, to gain full appreciation of the slop and smell) to the island and up to the control. Now I had only 45 minutes left - not sure I could make it back around very easily, so I decide to take a short cut - the other end of the island can't be much worse than the end I came in.

Oh, yes it can. I got to the edge of the island, and the closest point of land on the other side looked to be only a little over half of the 100m that was mapped - great! So, thru the "uncrossable" swamp - up to my waist in places (with my shoes, and half my shins at times, sinking into the muck at the bottom of the water). I get to dry land, only to realize I had a whole other section of swamp to cross. Ouch!

C • How did you do? 4

Event: CNYO Regaine
 

CNYO Regaine. Arrived later than planned due to traffic problems on 104 after Oswego (first major route choice error of the day - should have taken Rt 3 to avoid that stretch).

Maps handed out at 11:55, so only 5 minutes to plan a 2-hour route for Nate. Tried to start him off with an easy control - #27 (trail-stone wall-marsh-reentrant-hilltop), but it turned into a disaster (I tried twice on the way back to base to find this one, and failed. Heavy fern growth hid the subtle contours - 2.5m on a 1:30 map - from my lame eyes). So, Nate just grabbed one control in his shift.

My first leg was 4 hours, and I had plenty of time to plan. Unfortunately, the execution was lacking and I had several minutes of errors on each of the first 4 controls - the most painful of which was heading for a nice bump in a swampy area that looked like it had to be the beaver dam for #19, but no, and I was left with a 75m slog thru the muck.

Things went really smoothly after that - lots of running on trails and roads, and I wound up with 369 points - highest of any 4-hour scores. Route: 12-16-19-48-31-(skipped 28 due to time)-35-55-57-46-50-(skipped 47 - no good route - and failed to find 27, so skipped 11 due to time).

Nate then went out on a 4-hour shift 6-10pm. He came back after a little over an hour because a) he had not found any of the first 3 controls; and b) he had forgotten his watch, so he was going to have no idea when to be back. Later discussions revealed that he had probably just not gone far enough on each of his attacks - it was the first time he was alone on a 1:30 map. So, he still had a couple of high-pointers, and plenty of time to grab them, so he went out and got 50 and 46 in about an hour.

The next shift was a 2-hour night leg. There was a 41-point control alongside a road at a bridge, and it was just a 5.4K (mostly dirt) road run to get there, so I decided to just head out, grab that, and pick up controls on the way in. Jogged most of the way out, but it still took 42 minutes as I walked most uphills, and a couple other places where I tried to identify attack points for the return trip.

On the way back, 17 was easy because there was a trail from the road along the start of the stone wall that led to the control. C18 was much tougher - I had to pace count along the road to guess where the marshy area, where I wanted to leave the woad, was. I then did a careful pace count into the woods, and when I didn't see the control, I figured, correctly as it turned out, that I must have drifted right (slightly downhill), so I turned left 90 degrees and found the control after about 60m. I was going to grab C21 next, but the woods looked too forbidding from the attack point in the dark, so I grabbed C10 instead - my feet had remained dry all night, but when I saw the reflective tape 30m away, I went straight towards it - unfortunately that meant thru the marsh. So, that gave me the chance to go straight home, wading the stream (which turned out to be 3 - no I didn't cross the same one 3 times), rather than taking the road route around - plenty of fun going thru marshes and stream in the dark.

After I got back, Nate had to check out and midnight, then check back in, to keep the relay intact. Sleep was more important to him than getting a few points in his 12-2am shift.

Planned on swimming today, but my back was still sore from that swing thru the rough yesterday, so I rested ahead of tomorrow's Regaine.

Another nice turnout for GTA(route): Scott, Frank, Howie, Erik, JV, DV, Lawrence, Vinnie and Darren. First 1.5 miles were relatively easy (7:30 pace), then did several gradual pickups that thinned things out occasionally (Lawrence and JV even dropped everyone on Hillside, though Howie had a late reaction to their surge). I averaged about 6:45 for those 3.5 miles - some was slower, so some was faster. The last couple were about 7:15 pace, but that included going up Cobbs Hill Dr and coming in easy. V & D dropped back and I stayed close to Scott, but was 45 seconds down on the pack at Hillside and Winton - closed back to within 21 after the hill, but went easy from there.

86 (42 for the league, then 44). Hurt my back/neck on 14 hitting out of the rough (but made the green), then somehow crushed my drive on 15 - almost 300 yds - so 214 to the green which I've never reached. Left the club open, so I was pin high but 40 yds right and took a 7 - very painful (more so than my back).

Letting hip rest a day.

Couldn't make it out right at lunchtime, so I started to do a great demonstration of Newton's First Law - was even thinking about taking the day off - until an outside force showed up in the form of a fire alarm (that's 2 in 2 days here).

So, it was off for an easy run up the river - the path was fairly empty, being an off-peak time. Trail Tally:
bikers: 4 (including 1 Uni Nymph)
peds: 4
fishermen: 1 (yeah, good luck with that)
runners/joggers: 0
DRUNKS: 2 (including 1 passed out, with his hand still reaching for the can)

to/from:
path: 5:17 4:50
old mile: 8:59 8:40
UR ped xing: 6:26 6:20

BTW, weight blip is due to the sumptuous pizza that Chris made last night, and all of the various liquids that were required to wash down the jalapen~os.

At least the weather was nice.