Training Log Archive: cmorseIn the 7 days ending Sep 20, 2009:
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Sunday Sep 20, 2009 #
Orienteering race (US Ultralong Champs) 2:46:17 [5] 14.65 km (11:21 / km) +455m 9:49 / km
shoes: Adidas Response Trail 14
Plan for the day - conservative pace, safe route choices.
S-1 - started with PG on Brown - followed him to the triangle, then opted to take the trail all the way around and read the map a bit to get a feel for things before venturing off into green woods - a good choice. Hopped off the trail one reentrant too soon, but corrected quickly and gracefully hitting control cleanly with numerous others hunting in the circle
1-2 - long leg, up trail a ways to get to whiter woods, then careful bearing and jogging aiming for the pond on trail just N of line, did well for that distance, coming out on trail about 100m S of pond, but knowing exactly where I was, behind pond, follow reentrant up looking for second marsh - hesitated as there were actually 3 distinct marshes long this reentrant and I paused to make sure there were no flags on the second one before heading further up and hitting the third. Feeling confident so far.
2-3 - first instinct was to go to trail for safe attack. But straight went over top of hill which seemed distinct enough from the area of #2 - so opted for the straight shot - hill quickly became very indistinct and a lot of unmapped rootstocks make the going slower than hoped. Found myself hunting and decided to head uphill to relocate from road or pond - must have been lower than I thought because it took a while to hit pond, from which the control was simple. Should have gone with Plan A.
3-4 - Original plan was to run trail to clearing beyond pond then stay above rentrant system until I got to distinct spur then attack carefully from there - instead a number of folks were going into first clearing and picking up indistinct ride so I opted to try that instead, down along stream then cross to NW side and run to reentrant junction. Should have been a short 200m bearing, but I must have screwed that up as I'm pretty sure I got too high, nothing matched and I hunted a bit, decided to relocate off pond to S and headed that direction and lucked into the control enroute. Once again, should have stayed with the original plan
4-5 - down past pond, out to road and attack from water stop - easy to do from that angle, but extra distance and climb involved - but safe...
5-6 - up road to trail junction with another water stop, then up trail to end of open area then up the hill through white woods shooting for white gap at hilltop - worst case I hit trail. White gap quite evident, so crossed trail and went 80m into woods and contoured so I wouldn't miss the reentrant too high - spiked it. Nadim (started 2m behind me) coming in as I'm leaving.
6-7 - trails all the way around, coming in via field from N very clean attack and spiked it once again - Nadim still behind me, but gaining ground (different route as I never saw him on trail)
7-8 - out the way I came in, trail to clearing S of control, then veg edge down hill and spiked it just ahead of Nadim.
8-9 - slow climbing hill to water stop, Nadim passing me on the hill, then find myself on the same trail I started on enroute to #1 - cut off trail, across reentrant and spiked the rootstocks. No sign of Nadim
9-10 - long trail route up the hill - ran most of it - Nadim visible in distance on early part, then I lost sight of him - either he outran me, or cut in earlier. I ran all the way to parking area and distinct edged pond, around in open, the rides/trails and hit marsh in the middle - read clue of NW end, looked NW and there it was, about 20m distant in the shade. Cool...
10-11 - quickly out to road, down to clearing just before pond, over hilltop and down spur and spike - no sign of anyone
11-12 - sweet run down spur, staying above reentrant to L, then across stream shooting roughly for the water drop, but just hoping to find safe passage through the vague green marsh - hit some open water, but found a fresh beaver dam to get through the worst of it and climbed up the hill to trail popping out just as Nadim coming up the trail from the W. Only about 50m from the water but not much energy and I had to stop for a drink so I let him go. After watering myself, up trail then across through white woods and down to pond - a slow, but satisfying leg given the various chances for messing it up.
12-13 - opted to head S to nearest open hoping for mown fields and easier running as the cramps were bristling beneath the surface. Not so much - pretty thick and slow - then into the narrow white woods, second field mown and faster.
13-F - down the hill and done. nuff said...
Decent run I think, my only major fubars were deviating from my original plan and taking risks. I certainly wasn't running fast, but I haven't done much O this year at all, and my running has either been weekly long slow runs (spring) or intermittent periods of faster, short runs.
RouteGadget
S-1 - started with PG on Brown - followed him to the triangle, then opted to take the trail all the way around and read the map a bit to get a feel for things before venturing off into green woods - a good choice. Hopped off the trail one reentrant too soon, but corrected quickly and gracefully hitting control cleanly with numerous others hunting in the circle
1-2 - long leg, up trail a ways to get to whiter woods, then careful bearing and jogging aiming for the pond on trail just N of line, did well for that distance, coming out on trail about 100m S of pond, but knowing exactly where I was, behind pond, follow reentrant up looking for second marsh - hesitated as there were actually 3 distinct marshes long this reentrant and I paused to make sure there were no flags on the second one before heading further up and hitting the third. Feeling confident so far.
2-3 - first instinct was to go to trail for safe attack. But straight went over top of hill which seemed distinct enough from the area of #2 - so opted for the straight shot - hill quickly became very indistinct and a lot of unmapped rootstocks make the going slower than hoped. Found myself hunting and decided to head uphill to relocate from road or pond - must have been lower than I thought because it took a while to hit pond, from which the control was simple. Should have gone with Plan A.
3-4 - Original plan was to run trail to clearing beyond pond then stay above rentrant system until I got to distinct spur then attack carefully from there - instead a number of folks were going into first clearing and picking up indistinct ride so I opted to try that instead, down along stream then cross to NW side and run to reentrant junction. Should have been a short 200m bearing, but I must have screwed that up as I'm pretty sure I got too high, nothing matched and I hunted a bit, decided to relocate off pond to S and headed that direction and lucked into the control enroute. Once again, should have stayed with the original plan
4-5 - down past pond, out to road and attack from water stop - easy to do from that angle, but extra distance and climb involved - but safe...
5-6 - up road to trail junction with another water stop, then up trail to end of open area then up the hill through white woods shooting for white gap at hilltop - worst case I hit trail. White gap quite evident, so crossed trail and went 80m into woods and contoured so I wouldn't miss the reentrant too high - spiked it. Nadim (started 2m behind me) coming in as I'm leaving.
6-7 - trails all the way around, coming in via field from N very clean attack and spiked it once again - Nadim still behind me, but gaining ground (different route as I never saw him on trail)
7-8 - out the way I came in, trail to clearing S of control, then veg edge down hill and spiked it just ahead of Nadim.
8-9 - slow climbing hill to water stop, Nadim passing me on the hill, then find myself on the same trail I started on enroute to #1 - cut off trail, across reentrant and spiked the rootstocks. No sign of Nadim
9-10 - long trail route up the hill - ran most of it - Nadim visible in distance on early part, then I lost sight of him - either he outran me, or cut in earlier. I ran all the way to parking area and distinct edged pond, around in open, the rides/trails and hit marsh in the middle - read clue of NW end, looked NW and there it was, about 20m distant in the shade. Cool...
10-11 - quickly out to road, down to clearing just before pond, over hilltop and down spur and spike - no sign of anyone
11-12 - sweet run down spur, staying above reentrant to L, then across stream shooting roughly for the water drop, but just hoping to find safe passage through the vague green marsh - hit some open water, but found a fresh beaver dam to get through the worst of it and climbed up the hill to trail popping out just as Nadim coming up the trail from the W. Only about 50m from the water but not much energy and I had to stop for a drink so I let him go. After watering myself, up trail then across through white woods and down to pond - a slow, but satisfying leg given the various chances for messing it up.
12-13 - opted to head S to nearest open hoping for mown fields and easier running as the cramps were bristling beneath the surface. Not so much - pretty thick and slow - then into the narrow white woods, second field mown and faster.
13-F - down the hill and done. nuff said...
Decent run I think, my only major fubars were deviating from my original plan and taking risks. I certainly wasn't running fast, but I haven't done much O this year at all, and my running has either been weekly long slow runs (spring) or intermittent periods of faster, short runs.
RouteGadget
Note
Comparing my climb adjusted paces - my ultralong pace wasn't much slower than my sprint pace - pretty damn sad....
Saturday Sep 19, 2009 #
Event: US Sprint & UltraLong champs
Orienteering race (US Sprint Champs) 24:21 [5] 2.6 km (9:22 / km) +60m 8:24 / km
shoes: NB 790 {green}
A very poor outing. Numerous stupid amateur mistakes adding up to a bottom of the results placing.
S-1 - OK, up the trail, down along the vegetation edge
1-2 - S in white woods turning E and attacking up the hill from the trail junction aiming for small saddle on the line to #2, must have been more nondescript than I thought because I wound up in the vicinity of #5, the corrected on the E side of form line knoll east of control which seemed much more distinct than the contour knoll saddle I had been looking for -
2-3 - leave control up over form line knoll running hard to make up lost ground - next thing I know I'm looking at a sizable water feature - the pond N of #4 - WTF? Take a careful bearing and run to #3 through #4
3-4 - OK, I've already been here, so I get to post the fastest split on the Red course for this one... (not counting M/F21 which were actually on the same course)
4-5 - totally shaken now, careful and slower - spiked it cleanly, but certainly not at sprint speed
5-6 - straight and careful - fine...
6-7 - trail to the S, then up along rocky ground
7-8 - another boom - thought I was going straight at it looking ahead for clearing, wind up at the distinct tree on the clearing by trail beyond it, back on trail to bend and in - sure didn't look like open yellow to me.
8-9 - mentally disgusted with myself, slowing to a jog to save energy for a later race, all the way around on trails and in from junction. Early start so no herd paths yet.
9-10 - pretty slow, picking my way through untracked vegetation
10-11- around on trail since rough open was really slow
11-12 - straightforward, not motivated to push, even with feet's encouragement on the PA
12-13 - yellow gap to SE, then up the trail
13-14 - trail S then up through start triangle and in from junction - picked up Nadim in here (or rather, he caught me up)
14-15 - tried to pick up the pace to give Nadim a race for it, he stopped one copse too early and I did the same. Head not in the race...
15-16 - diverged route choice from mini-train I was in - got to the control in front of Nadim and a couple others
16-17 - I could see the road and bolted for it, trying to read the map at a full on sprint and hoping that side wasn't taped OOB. Got there and cut early to avoid the finish chute tape - aha - legal route (which I note most of the M/F21's seemed to have taken as well) Definitely a better option than Nadim and Co. were about 14s slower on this leg.
17-F - half hearted effort to sprint in the chute.
So... 5 mind boggling errors in the first half, then a deflated effort in the second half left me 8 minutes behind the leaders - in a 16 minute race - damn pathetic....
S-1 - OK, up the trail, down along the vegetation edge
1-2 - S in white woods turning E and attacking up the hill from the trail junction aiming for small saddle on the line to #2, must have been more nondescript than I thought because I wound up in the vicinity of #5, the corrected on the E side of form line knoll east of control which seemed much more distinct than the contour knoll saddle I had been looking for -
2-3 - leave control up over form line knoll running hard to make up lost ground - next thing I know I'm looking at a sizable water feature - the pond N of #4 - WTF? Take a careful bearing and run to #3 through #4
3-4 - OK, I've already been here, so I get to post the fastest split on the Red course for this one... (not counting M/F21 which were actually on the same course)
4-5 - totally shaken now, careful and slower - spiked it cleanly, but certainly not at sprint speed
5-6 - straight and careful - fine...
6-7 - trail to the S, then up along rocky ground
7-8 - another boom - thought I was going straight at it looking ahead for clearing, wind up at the distinct tree on the clearing by trail beyond it, back on trail to bend and in - sure didn't look like open yellow to me.
8-9 - mentally disgusted with myself, slowing to a jog to save energy for a later race, all the way around on trails and in from junction. Early start so no herd paths yet.
9-10 - pretty slow, picking my way through untracked vegetation
10-11- around on trail since rough open was really slow
11-12 - straightforward, not motivated to push, even with feet's encouragement on the PA
12-13 - yellow gap to SE, then up the trail
13-14 - trail S then up through start triangle and in from junction - picked up Nadim in here (or rather, he caught me up)
14-15 - tried to pick up the pace to give Nadim a race for it, he stopped one copse too early and I did the same. Head not in the race...
15-16 - diverged route choice from mini-train I was in - got to the control in front of Nadim and a couple others
16-17 - I could see the road and bolted for it, trying to read the map at a full on sprint and hoping that side wasn't taped OOB. Got there and cut early to avoid the finish chute tape - aha - legal route (which I note most of the M/F21's seemed to have taken as well) Definitely a better option than Nadim and Co. were about 14s slower on this leg.
17-F - half hearted effort to sprint in the chute.
So... 5 mind boggling errors in the first half, then a deflated effort in the second half left me 8 minutes behind the leaders - in a 16 minute race - damn pathetic....
Orienteering (Model Event) 15:00 [1] 1.2 km (12:30 / km)
shoes: NB 790 {green}
easy jog around sprint model in the early AM - a number of friendly ungulates hanging around on various portions of the course. Spent a half hour picking seeds out of my tights though.
Orienteering race (Middle) 41:22 [5] 4.6 km (9:00 / km) +220m 7:15 / km
shoes: NB 790 {green}
An attempt to redeem myself after the mornings failure.
At the start I note the first few controls are water features, and the terrain around the start looks pretty bleak and featureless - mantra - start slow and safe.
S-1 - no contours whatsoever - nor any real point features. Take a careful bearing and start jogging - slowly. Then I note the wet trickle to my L and run along that right to control. Hesitant as my head wasn't into 1:10,000 yet and I kept looking around to make sure control wasn't hidden behind some vague vegetation clump. Finally hit it cleanly.
1-2 - straight line proved no attackpoint and nothing but solid light green, so followed my trickly around past my #15 and then straight at the control. The control was on the far side of a dried out water feature - looked like I might get an inch or two of squishy mud and one step across and I'm in. WRONG! One step and I'm faced with immersion up to my armpits in a muddy cesspool of muck, can't move my shoes, can't reach the edges - flounder for a minute or so before rolling myself up and out. I'm a total oozeball - compass, magnifier, map,descriptions - everything illegible. Try to wipe things clean and move on.
2-3 - bail straight for the field and run around, taking the time to wipe my map on the grass so I can figure out where I'm heading. Into the woods at the road/clearing corner and up broad spur, cross trail and along top of slope, then down - slight hesitation as I didn't see the flag at the bottom initially - Nadim coming in behind me.
3-4 - climb and stay high, then trails and around, Nadim catching me near control
4-5 - was going to go high to trail (should have) but a deer path evident from control so took that - but the constant up and down was certainly longer than the trail option. Nadim leading through here
5-6 - climbed to trail this time, straight in from junction. Saw Nadim searching too low - but the last I'd see of him on this course...
6-7 - trails, easy control
7-8 - trails, then in past green - herd paths evident here.
8-9 - uphill to hilltop at trail junction, then trail down to junction - map shows it to be straight in from junction, so straight in I go - but get into reentrant, see no bag, but a side reentrant quickly clues me in that I'm one over - perhaps 15s lost
9-10 - straight, reentrant counting
10-11 - over the top of the hill and around pond
11-12 - via trail and #14 (for the preview)
12-13 - contouring via deer trails - again I think up and over would have been faster
13-14 - out to trail and running hard, attacking the control from the same direction I had passed through it enroute to #12
14-15 - out to trail, then to base of steep slope - something seemed wonky though because I came to trail along base and saw a trail headed up slope but when I got to the top, nothing matched? Trail junctions SE of where I thought I should be, but decided that it was a long leg with a huge open area in front - so just run hard in the general direction on whatever trail presented itself and figure it out on the fly - got to the open and recognized the smaller one S of the large one - up road and hard across the open area, through a gap in veg edge and into #15 (which I had been to enroute to #2).
15-16 - up spur slightly, then into open, good herd trail led me in.
16-17 - woods straight ahead looked fine - so bashed away through light green
17-F - 18s in the chute - fastest chute time on Red
A much better run than the AM - only WinSplits 'error' is #2 and I spiked that at full speed - the time loss was due to extrication from the pit of despair. Felt reasonably in control the rest of the way around with decent, but not blazing, speed. 5th in M45, well back of the leaders (Brautigam, Balter, Velichko) but satisfied with my efforts.
At the start I note the first few controls are water features, and the terrain around the start looks pretty bleak and featureless - mantra - start slow and safe.
S-1 - no contours whatsoever - nor any real point features. Take a careful bearing and start jogging - slowly. Then I note the wet trickle to my L and run along that right to control. Hesitant as my head wasn't into 1:10,000 yet and I kept looking around to make sure control wasn't hidden behind some vague vegetation clump. Finally hit it cleanly.
1-2 - straight line proved no attackpoint and nothing but solid light green, so followed my trickly around past my #15 and then straight at the control. The control was on the far side of a dried out water feature - looked like I might get an inch or two of squishy mud and one step across and I'm in. WRONG! One step and I'm faced with immersion up to my armpits in a muddy cesspool of muck, can't move my shoes, can't reach the edges - flounder for a minute or so before rolling myself up and out. I'm a total oozeball - compass, magnifier, map,descriptions - everything illegible. Try to wipe things clean and move on.
2-3 - bail straight for the field and run around, taking the time to wipe my map on the grass so I can figure out where I'm heading. Into the woods at the road/clearing corner and up broad spur, cross trail and along top of slope, then down - slight hesitation as I didn't see the flag at the bottom initially - Nadim coming in behind me.
3-4 - climb and stay high, then trails and around, Nadim catching me near control
4-5 - was going to go high to trail (should have) but a deer path evident from control so took that - but the constant up and down was certainly longer than the trail option. Nadim leading through here
5-6 - climbed to trail this time, straight in from junction. Saw Nadim searching too low - but the last I'd see of him on this course...
6-7 - trails, easy control
7-8 - trails, then in past green - herd paths evident here.
8-9 - uphill to hilltop at trail junction, then trail down to junction - map shows it to be straight in from junction, so straight in I go - but get into reentrant, see no bag, but a side reentrant quickly clues me in that I'm one over - perhaps 15s lost
9-10 - straight, reentrant counting
10-11 - over the top of the hill and around pond
11-12 - via trail and #14 (for the preview)
12-13 - contouring via deer trails - again I think up and over would have been faster
13-14 - out to trail and running hard, attacking the control from the same direction I had passed through it enroute to #12
14-15 - out to trail, then to base of steep slope - something seemed wonky though because I came to trail along base and saw a trail headed up slope but when I got to the top, nothing matched? Trail junctions SE of where I thought I should be, but decided that it was a long leg with a huge open area in front - so just run hard in the general direction on whatever trail presented itself and figure it out on the fly - got to the open and recognized the smaller one S of the large one - up road and hard across the open area, through a gap in veg edge and into #15 (which I had been to enroute to #2).
15-16 - up spur slightly, then into open, good herd trail led me in.
16-17 - woods straight ahead looked fine - so bashed away through light green
17-F - 18s in the chute - fastest chute time on Red
A much better run than the AM - only WinSplits 'error' is #2 and I spiked that at full speed - the time loss was due to extrication from the pit of despair. Felt reasonably in control the rest of the way around with decent, but not blazing, speed. 5th in M45, well back of the leaders (Brautigam, Balter, Velichko) but satisfied with my efforts.
Friday Sep 18, 2009 #
Other ('bent test riding) 2:00:00 [3]
Spent a couple hours at the BicycleMan in Alfred test riding a variety of bikes in anticipation of trading up in the near future.
First bike they had me try was the RANS X-Stream - the bike that won the 4-man category at RAAM this year - beating all the upright 4-man teams. They had high-racers on the van if needed for climbing, but the X-Stream proved a good climber and fast elsewhere - 50-60mph on downhills. Bike definitely was nice, but I'm leaning toward a SWB this time around, so most of the others I tried were of that design.
Tried a couple of Volaes, Bachettas, P-38 - I liked the dual 26" Giro the best of the lot - good acceleration, disk brakes, nice low speed handling. Not the lightest of the bunch, but seems light enough for my riding.
Also tried a LWB with a BionX electric hub motor for kicks - pretty nice system - it adds an assist to your pedalling effort - 25% up to 200% - on high I would pedal a couple rotations, then the BionX would kick in and it felt like someone gave me a massive shove from behind - I found it pretty effortless to crank along in the low 20's on the flats - didn't try any hills - but it would be neat to build up a cheapo commuter with one of these systems - adds a ton of weight to the bike, so doubt I'd put it on a pleasure riding bike, because then I'd have to lug all that hardware and batteries around when the batteries died - they're only good for about a 20 mile range.
Would have riddne some more, but didn't want to trash my legs before the weekend...
First bike they had me try was the RANS X-Stream - the bike that won the 4-man category at RAAM this year - beating all the upright 4-man teams. They had high-racers on the van if needed for climbing, but the X-Stream proved a good climber and fast elsewhere - 50-60mph on downhills. Bike definitely was nice, but I'm leaning toward a SWB this time around, so most of the others I tried were of that design.
Tried a couple of Volaes, Bachettas, P-38 - I liked the dual 26" Giro the best of the lot - good acceleration, disk brakes, nice low speed handling. Not the lightest of the bunch, but seems light enough for my riding.
Also tried a LWB with a BionX electric hub motor for kicks - pretty nice system - it adds an assist to your pedalling effort - 25% up to 200% - on high I would pedal a couple rotations, then the BionX would kick in and it felt like someone gave me a massive shove from behind - I found it pretty effortless to crank along in the low 20's on the flats - didn't try any hills - but it would be neat to build up a cheapo commuter with one of these systems - adds a ton of weight to the bike, so doubt I'd put it on a pleasure riding bike, because then I'd have to lug all that hardware and batteries around when the batteries died - they're only good for about a 20 mile range.
Would have riddne some more, but didn't want to trash my legs before the weekend...
Wednesday Sep 16, 2009 #
Note
Stratton Sprint Training 5:30pm
Orienteering (Stratton A) 18:24 [4] 2.0 km (9:12 / km)
shoes: NB 790 {orange}
good first half, good flow and speed. lost maybe 15s on 6 getting slowed by ground debris, then took a risk and ran straight for 7 through green but lacked good attack point and got too low and hunted - probably 90s lost and another 30 on 8 - got confused and miread map. Took middle trail but came out into clear headed for second building and overshot and had to come back when I realized first builing (outhouse) was no longer there -30s. Strong finish - should have been about 15 min
Orienteering (Stratton B) 16:14 [4] 2.0 km (8:07 / km)
shoes: NB 790 {orange}
tired to start, walking first hill. clean to 5, then lost 30s by leaving control wrong / not reading ahead, then got into nice woods approaching 10 and loss of focus ran past - good minute between 10 & 11, indecision on route to 12 failing to just plunge thru stream cost 75s, then another 15s on 14 when did't see streamer on first pass. should have been around 13.
Monday Sep 14, 2009 #
Run - Road warm up/down (SLR) 9:30 [2] 1.8 km (5:17 / km)
shoes: NB 790 {orange}
to/from trail head. chest felt very tight, not congested, just tightness....
Run - Trail (LoDFP) 19:02 [4] 3.75 km (5:05 / km) +65m 4:40 / km
weight:79.4kg shoes: NB 790 {orange}
tight chest to start, but gradually went away and pushed harder and harder as the run went on. Of course the harder I pushed, the harder the breathing became, but it was a different kind of tightness than when I started out. Nice night for a run, but the very low angle of the sun made the footing a little 'invisible' at times...