My favorite part about early-season, winter ARs? They don’t
count for a whole lot. Most people are simply trying to get out for some
early-season training. Me? I’m also looking to work through some early nav
blunders after months away from AR and orienteering. Last month’s second annual Meltdown hosted by GOALS ARA? Accomplished all of those goals.
I was also looking to test out some new training methods
I’ve adopted over the past year. A year ago, Abby and I were preparing for the
birth of our daughter Zoe. Abby would be out of racing until the end of the
summer, but I had a handful of events on the calendar including the five-dayItera in Wales. I’d have to figure out how to sneak in the training while also
balancing work, all while learning how to be a new kind of husband and of
course a passable father…at least. It seemed daunting, but oddly enough, I felt
I had one of my best years of racing, maybe best ever. I attributed this to
three things: 1) I started training less, but I was training harder, 2) for
various reasons, I ended up resting a bit more than normal (and I freely admit
I’ve never been one to suffer from a lack of rest), and 3) I raced less,
further contributing to being more rested.
Toward the end of the season, I found myself listening to
one of Legendary Randy’s podcasts, this one with the always interesting Andy
Magness who talked about his new book, "Ultramental" and the fact that he now
manages to train for something with only 5 seconds a day while remaining a
relatively competitive racer. His story rang true to me in many ways, and I
realized I had already started heading down the path to a less is more, higher
intensity philosophy. So, I determined I’d give it a go, read Andy’s book, and
see what happened over the winter.
By the time the Meltdown came around, I had taken Andy’s ten
minute workouts (OK, even Andy can’t make 5 second workouts work) and adapted
them to my own goals and interests: I was focusing on shorter running workouts,
and found that I was indeed getting faster and that while I wasn’t piling up
mileage, I could bang out a 10-15 mile run relatively easily without more
standard training. Sold!
So, the Meltdown was a test-run of sorts. Thing is, I fell
ill the week before and felt like my legs wouldn’t work properly until the day
before the race. And then Zoe decided to have a fitful night for the first time
in two months the night before the event. Oh, and the Oscars party the night
before, an annual event at our house, ended up being a sugarfest when I was
counting on the potluck to provide a full dinner. Lots of tasty treats, but
let’s just say it wasn’t exactly an ideal way to go into the race.
I do know that for the first half of the race Abby and I
moved quickly about, quicker than we felt we used to (Abby too has adopted some
of Andy’s teachings). We seemed to move fast and we were, generally speaking
hitting our checkpoints cleanly enough, if not perfectly. But about a third of
the way in, we also realized we’d have to drop a handful of checkpoints, and
that brought us to a halt.
The course was essentially three working parts: one big blob
of points scattered about the northern and southern halves of Fair Hill.
Embedded on the edges of this rogaine were two TAs from which teams could
embark on smaller more contained sections, but maps wouldn’t be distributed for
those before the event. So there was some guess work and a ton of strategy to
decide what to skip, when to head toward the TAs, what order to shoot for, all
while judging how the fresh 4-5 inches of snow and slush would affect travel.
Usually, we feel that we manage well with such strategic
decisions. This time, however, we found ourselves staring at the map after a
couple of hours and we just didn’t know what to do. So many questions and
options, and so we started making “educated guesses” since we couldn’t see the
whole course, and in retrospect it seemed that each guess was the wrong one,
ending up with lost time and longer stretches of travel without gaining
checkpoints.
And then, halfway through, my legs decided they’d had enough,
and while I can’t say for sure that I’m just not in great racing shape this
early in the season, I kept reminding myself that a small barrel of sugar the
night before, a night of broken sleep and a body still fatigued from being sick
from what is seeming like an endless parade of day-care parasites might be the
real culprits here, not my training.
Abby kept me honest though, charging ahead and giving me
moments of respite by sprinting out for the checkpoints while I studied the
map, trying to compensate for bad decisions, only leading to more of them. All
that said, we had stretches in which we did well, early on when we raced toward
the first TA, reeling teams in as we saw them ahead of us, escaping many more.
Coming in late to the most remote section of the course and efficiently
knocking off six of the eight controls before a long march back to the finish.
It was a great early season event, and Chris and Bruce did a marvelous job of
challenging us mentally and physically to get the season started.
While we weren’t thrilled with our results, our teammate Jim
covered our butts by defending his title, clearing all but two controls on the
course and assuring that a GOALS teammate would end up on top. Considering that
the course was designed with bikes in mind and then not altered despite the
winter storm that threated to cancel the event altogether, it was an impressive
feat.
Hopefully this isn’t a sign of what’s to come. Abby, Jim and
I will be heading up to Snowgaine this week, and I will be avoiding sugar and
diseases from daycare for this one. And Jim can break snow…
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