Training Log Archive: bishop22

Red Day 2 at the Western States Champs. A disaster. Brain cramps galore on top of heavy legs. The lack of sleep and abundance of training definitely caught up to me for this one.

More later...

Red2 - Splits

Event: Western States + Intercollegiate Championships
 

Day 1 of the Western States Champs, south of Tucson, near Kentucky Camp. I took a conservative start, following the dry stream bed about halfway, which helped me get a feel for the contours. Was cautious going over the hilltop to C2, to make sure I was finding the correct reentrant. I had a bit of a miss on C3 - didn't pick out the "scattered trees" boundary very well. C4 was great, but C5 was a big problem - Greg Balter was catching me on the short trail halfway to the control, and he left it to the right of me, but I wasn't sure that we were on the same course, so I sort of ignored him. Too bad, since I blew about 2.5 minutes searching to the left and not being able to make the contours line up. Gabe S came into the control right after me. We were near each other going to C6, but I went right near the bag and he went left, and had to circle around.

The next stretch was slower than it needed to be, since my legs were feeling quite heavy from all the training. Gabe passed me at C7 when I stopped for a drink and I couldn't close the gap when I saw him intermittently on the way to C8. Going to C9, I crossed the power line right on the line, as planned, but then I went left of the line and did too much up and down on the last few spur/reentrant pairs as I kept changing my mind on whether to stay low or not - lost 1.5 minutes according to WinSplits. Power line was also a nice cheat in getting to C10. I got to C11 by going the road until it turned sharply, where I cut across and then stayed left of the scattered trees until the last big reentrant.

Legs remained heavy, but the last 3 controls were pretty much follow the line. Not a bad run, but it looks like I need some additional conditioning, or zero mistakes, to be competitive in M45+ - the competition was much tougher than in M35+ or M40+!

Sprint Race at the Tucson A-Meet. My legs were even more worn out than this morning - imagine that. Went left around the reentrant to get to C1, then went right of the line to hit C2 nicely, then spiked C3 as well. I went to the right of the hilltop on the way to C4, but feet pointed out that I was near the bigger hilltop, not the little one that I meant to aim for. My pace count eventually ran out and I looked to my right, and there was feet punching. He gave me a good line to C5, but then he was gone. I ran just left of the curve in the road on the way to C6, but that meant I was too far right, so the 2 people that I had passed slipped back by me. I passed the woman on the way to C7, but not the guy. We were then back-and-forth the rest of the way (even though he only had one working arm, he was running about my speed) - I was getting the jump on him leaving each control as, by now, I was successfully using Nate's thumb compass to get a quick reading on a departure bearing each time.

Finished 2nd in M45 and about 10th overall, so not a bad result considering the state of my legs. I even managed to beat Samantha, which has been a very rare occurrence.

Various w/up and w/dn stuff

Sprint - Splits

Red 1 - Splits

AM Training session at Arthur Pack, north of Tucson. It was a precision compass exercise is very flat terrain, and I was able to keep very good lines. The cacti are now my favorite navigation features - I was able to use them to often verify an intermediate point on my bearing / pace count path.

Model event at the Western States Champs. I walked all uphills and all unfriendly terrain - there were lots of the former, but not much of the latter.

The contour exercise yesterday helped me look thru the map and see the contours; the open nature of the terrain allowed me to match the contours on the map with the contours in real life.

Event: US Team training activity
 

AM Training activity in Tucson. I did the morning training with Zach, and we walked most of the way - partly because it was a contour-only map, and partly to make sure we didn't wear Zach out.

The first section was a line-o and we stayed pretty close to the line most of the way - just a couple of sketchy turns where we may have veered off a bit. We found both bags that were out on this stretch.

The course then became a regular course, but on the contour-only map. That should be very good training for this weekend because overlaying the vegetation doesn't really help me, since I can't really tell the difference between white, rough open and scattered trees around here. And on this map, there were not many trails. Also, the afternoon showed that I still can not tell the difference between rocks that are mapped and rocks that are not.

PM Training in Tucson. We did a sampling of "strength intervals", which are tough enough that they will probably be included in Webster XC training next fall. This includes the running portion of the training, which consisted of 7 repetitions of about 200m. Between each interval, the recovery consisted of a different core or leg strength exercise.

The 6 core/leg strength exercises between the intervals included:
- sit-ups (15)
- skating jumps (20)
- push-ups (10)
- sidewinder jumps (20)
- reverse sit-ups (15)
- jumping squat thrusts (10)

I hope I can recover from these by the weekend.

We only did 1 set of these, Tom's club started with 2 and now does 3.

PM Training in Tucson. Middle distance training course with a relay training component - interval mini-mass starts, but I wound up on my own most of the way (which is my problem on mass-start events, I lose contact and the advantage of navigating with others). Nate and I ran an unmapped trail on the way to C1, but it went farther right than we really wanted, so we lost some time. Struggled a bit with C2 but by the time I found it, Nate was still looking in the wrong spot. Tom caught me on the way to C3, which I found by seeing C4 across the way. I couldn't keep up with Tom on the way to C4 (my legs were pretty heavy from the intervals). I didn't see many people after that: Samantha was headed for the finish when I was going to C9, then I saw Cristina to my left as I was headed toward the last control.

w/ups before the AM and PM training sessions

Phoenix Full Moon Hash. Saw bits and pieces of the eclipse while on trail. If I had wanted to watch the eclipse thru persistent clouds, I would have stayed in Rochester. It even rained (a brief downpour) as the circle ended.

Ran much harder than planned on trail. The pack was much more mobile than I am used to in Rochester and Buffalo. I could stay with the FRBs, but it took quite an effort at times.

Played some two-man (the boys and I smoked Walt and Wilbur - the kids can play). Then played some basketball. Since Nate and I were the only ones who could sink free throws, it kept being Nate and I vs Walt, Wilbur and Zach. I think we always lost; Zach was clearly the high scorer. Also played some 21 and thru the donut frisbee around a bit.

After playing some basketball with Walt, Nate and Zach, I did some running, instead of playing 21, then I did some more running, instead of playing tennis.

When I returned, Nate was bouncing the ball on his racket, pretty high, and it went over the fence and just about hit a car that had recently pulled in. When I went to retrieve the ball, it was clear that the occupants had not noticed, as they were engaged in other activities (PG only, luckily, with children around).

C • interesting story, coach 1

I know I entered this already, but it disappeared.

We hiked up Pikacho Peak (or Peak Peak as we say north of the border). We were about 63 minutes going up and about 49 minutes coming back down. To get back from the peak you have to do a surprising amount of climb to get back over the saddle and head down.