Training Log Archive: bishop22

I didn't leave my cube all day (from 8:05am to 8:40pm): no meetings, no lunch, no exercise, not even a bathroom visit. And I still didn't quite catchup from missing Friday. I think I got out of my chair a couple of times, but I'm not sure.

Red - Ultra Long - Splits

US Sprint Champs, Part I at Miami University (of Ohio) - part of the Flying Pig. Not a bad run, but it showed me just how out of shape I've gotten, as Nate beat me by 2:22. Of course, that was probably Nate's finest run ever as he was just 29 seconds behind feet and even closer to Jon T and Eric B, and even beat Wil Smith and The Power. Zach had a mp, which was too bad, since it took away some of the meaning for the afternoon. He got confused briefly, relocated, then forgot he was on his way to C14 and went to C15 instead.

I had some minor hesitations, especially on the first couple of legs, but then got into a decent rhythm, until I went down the wrong set of stairs at C8 (the control circle mostly obscured the stairs that I took, the others were just a few meters away). I also lost some time going to C12. I was taking a corner on a sidewalk and lost an edge when stepping on a pile of mud that was obscured by some brush at the corner. Took a few seconds to collect myself and make sure the blood on the map was from minor wounds.

Early on I was hurdling most of the chain fences, but later I had to step over a couple and chose to run around a couple of others. Definitely reminiscent of the steeplechase days, where it took a couple of seasons to be able to hurdle all off the barriers (well, except the water barrier of course).

US Sprint Champs, Part II, starting from some student apartment complex. Interesting mix of terrain for this sprint: open fields, woods that were sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and the apartment complex.

Everyone had run down a trail from the start, so I did the same, finding the control on the map shortly before punching 23 seconds into the race. I overran C2 slightly in the field, but C3 was the spectator control that I had already seen, so that went well. But then I cut in behind the apartments from a light post at too weak an angle and missed the correct trail and had to cut thru brush and cross a reentrant to get back on the trail towards C4.

I also lost time leaving C5, thinking I was going to go slightly left thru a rough field, but I saw the woods were not friendly enough and, more importantly, the reentrants were much more harsh than they looked on the map, so I went up and around to the right, taking advantage of open fields. I also lost time going to C8 too far right. I was slow climbing to C9 (I think it was 9), then couldn't stay ahead of Eugene on the way to C13 - I need to dig deeper when it's time to run hard.

In the end, I was 6 seconds behind cmorse in the PM, which meant that we tied for 2nd in total time for the day. My second US Champs medal! And on a day when neither Nate nor Z picked one up. Z due to his mp in the AM; Nate due to his nearly 6 minute error on a 30 second leg that put him 47 seconds off the podium, and, sadly, may have cost him a JWOC spot. We're holding our breath for the rankings to be posted, but I'm guessing he'll be about 0.2 points out of 6th, with the afternoon race costing him about 0.8 points.

C • Woo Hoo!-) 1

After I finished the PM race, I followed Luke around as he did the Rec-White course (same course as Zach). It was a lot of fun; I hadn't seen him orienteer before (well, except in our yard). He had a good system going: use the compass to point the map north, look around, then sprint in the direction he thought he should go. He stopped at most trail junctions to look at his map, then sprint again. I think his only real trouble was leaving C4: he had his map and compass not level and didn't get a good reading and took the trail E instead of S. He stopped after a while and I asked if he knew where he was and he pointed to the precise location! He then went back and headed S, but there was a slightly hidden continuation, while the main trail bent around to the west. He went a ways on this trail, to another junction and couldn't figure out where he was, so he went back towards C4 and found the S trail continuation. I really enjoyed seeing the wheels turn the rest of the way - it was the same pattern: compass, look closely, start sprinting, pause en route, then sprint again.

He needs some serious punch improvement. There was no punch card, so he had to punch the map and it took him an average of 25 seconds to punch when the punch was hanging down and 15 seconds when it was mounted to the control stand. But his next race will be e-punching at the US Middle Champs.

Total w/up and w/dn before and after the sprints. Most of it before the first sprint.

Red/Blue Sprint 1 - Splits

Red/Blue Sprint 2 - Splits

Event: Flying Pig XII
 

Spike count is an estimate for now. I had one really bad control that was in a labyrinth of clearings after a run thru indiscreet light/medium green. More later...

w/up and w/dn. The jog to the start was 2km, and I did some before that to check out the finish. I also managed some very light jogging afterwards, hoping that I can recover a bit for tomorrow.

Did the model course after dropping Nate, Zach and Chelsea and Luke off at the gravel road to cut their 2km walk to the start to under 1km.

Unfortunately I forgot to give Luke a compass, so he had to do the Rec-White without a compass. Zach pointed north for him before he started, and he managed to make it around fairly cleanly, with Chelsea just watching him. I wish I had his sense of direction.

Blue - Short Pig/WRE - Splits

We scrimmaged Thomas and I got roped into timing lane 2 for all of the lame events (100, HH, 200, 400), so I just squeezed in one short jog to loosen up. Not really log-worthy, but I did it, so...

Since I was a little busy at work, a day off seemed like a great idea.

Various jogging around Wayne HS during the scrimmage. The wind was fierce. I had planned to do some tempo running, but the conditions were too ridiculous.