Training Log Archive: Mr Wonderful

Event: SMOC - Yankee Springs - NOD
 

Did the lower part of Yankee Springs singletrack. Apparently, you are supposed to ride these trails with a Niner, as that's what everyone else had. Lots of sand at the bottom of hills, just in case you were thinking of keeping any momentum. This was part of a soft-core adventure race simulator, since we would be orienteering when we were done.

I brought my good friend Ed with to see if he might like orienteering. We naturally selected red. Go big or go home!

#1 should've been straightforward, but I drifted off a bit, hitting the ridge closer to the start, then ended up going back up the reentrant a long ways to the flag.

#2, I let Ed take the conn and we went straight there. Fun scramble down to the point, and we elected to stay at that elevation and pick up #3 that way, which would be mildly more tricky nav but much less work. Good choice - for flag pickup I tried it the other way and that climb was lung sucking.

#3, very easy, nailed

#4. I'm not really sure what happened here. I thought we were in the right direction; I found an unmarked ditch so that could've been the top of the reentrant. Then I'm really not sure how we missed it. We overshot it, got up on the trails, then followed them for a long time to reacquire our location, then I was confused why my Moscow Compass was pointing in odd directions, so I was having trouble taking a bearing from the switchback on the trail. We thought about wandering around one obvious feature to get a better attack angle, then said forget it, and cut over. Found one of the rock piles, then was able to get to the reentrant. ARGH.

#5 was also off trail a bit, but I followed my compass and could've tripped over it had I been blindfolded.

#6 - meandered a bit. At one point when we hit the trail, I said, "Ed, here is where the pros would avoid the elevation and skirt around this part." Naturally, we saw Rick Waldo doing just that. But I wasn't 100% sure we hit the trail where it turned out we did, so we took the amateur route, and took the trail to its turn, then cut over. We didn't lose much time to Rick here, so it worked out.

#7 was a nice easy shot. Here I handed the map off to Ed to bring us home on the second half.

#8, we should've walked faster. Fun shortcutting to it, and it seemed more east that I would've thought from the map.

#9 - for fun, I thought I should take the land bridge between the swamp. It was fun, but not efficient - some crawling around the solid plants on it. Looping around to the north would've been much faster.

#10 - pretty straightforward - cut down to the swamp, loop around a little. Cake.

#11 - easy cut to this one behind the cabin.

#12 - we veered a bit south but corrected up and found it.

#13- we looked at the map, south looked shorter, but we failed to note the elevation gain. North might've been the better loop. Of course I think the swamp was pretty dry - Brian from Michigan Adventure Racing cut through, and got some time on us. I was tempted by the swamp shortcut, but since we were dry and I have a stupid blister, no harm in going around.

#14 - straightforward

#15 - the trails out of 14...well the one shown north didn't look very much there. I looked, didn't see it continue, and went on the northeast direction back to the start/finish. Some hikers indicated that Brian also had done so. So we were a little surprised to go through start/finish. Then exiting the start/finish to the north, we eventually got up to the level up #15, but not in the intended way since we missed a trail - several trails looked more like "places trees haven't grown". Then we looped around a little and came back at it.

#16 was very hidden. We located the feature, which was a lot more dry than the map suggested! but didn't see the flag until we were right at the bottom. Grabbed it and trucked back to the finish.

2:52...yeah we didn't win, but we walked. I just need to avoid those stupid 20 minutes losses on #4.

Also, Ed did extremely well. He was doing a very good job reading the map - his super car navigation skills translate. I hope he takes up the hobby!

C • Yes, trail out of 14 was no... 2

1 mile @ 4 mph
1 mile @ 6 mph
1 mile @ 4 mph

Easing into running to avoid stress fractures, at least when stuck on the 'crete.

Weirdly, I blistered both heels. In running shoes. I walk all over in all kinds of footwear - 12 miles in a July adventure race didn't cause blisters. Argh.

No more screwing around - time to stop hitting snooze and start getting in shape for the next two ARs and the fall O meets.