Training Log Archive: runninghils

First Catalina crossing. They told us that it would be 27 miles plus a 4 mile warmup to the race start. Actually was 31 miles plus a 4-mile warmup so 35 total miles. So tired! I steered and only came out for 20 minutes which made a big difference. The wind and swells kept taking us to the right so I was on the left pretty much the whole race. My left leg and glute are so sore. Right side is cool. We had a coed team, which was pretty fun. Early in the season I was told that I wouldn't steer for 9-man and definitely not for Catalina, but my AR experience paddling and steering small canoes was enough of a base for me to build up the skill in outrigger. Plus apparently I'm "brave" with steering.
Our group did a great job of staying positive and working together. The swells got pretty big from time to time but it was mostly chop. We did flip once but we recovered fine from it. The weird thing was that it was pretty calm when it happened. I think we let our guard down. There were several times that we popped the ama up but we refocused on where our weight was and got it under control. At the end of the race, it was weird because we had to tie the boats in the harbor and swim to the stairs with all of our stuff including paddles etc.

C • Wow! 2

Same route as last week. Almost exactly the same pace, but not as beat up this week. I tried to take it a little easier on the big hill. Maybe having 2 more people helped during the road sections. Last week's TE was 5, and today was only 4.5, so that's cool.

It was still super challenging, though, and I let the guys do 98% of the pulling on the flats. A few more weeks of this and I'll be ready to contribute a bit more. I couldn't help but think... hey, I'm riding with 3 guys, it's like an AR. Maybe I could turn these guys into my local AR team.... it would be a tough sell, but we'll see. We talked about getting Nusil jerseys after the ride.

Hiked the Chumash trail with Kelly. It was definitely intense for about the first mile up to the flag. After that, it was a nice easy hike. Afterward, I bought a NatGeo map of the Santa Monica mountains. Pretty nice. I think I'll try to start incorporating some of these trails into runs. Probably the first part will just need to be a hike because it's super steep, but once you're up there, the trails are nice and rolling to flat. Good for running.