Blue Hills Traverse and Thanksgiving Camp

This year's Blue Hills Traverse went to new parts of the Blue Hills, starting on Ponkapoag and transitioning to BH West. It was a nice course, with legit features (though 17 was annoying), friendly running with not too much green or pointy stuff or steep hills.

My plan for the race was to start reasonably fast, cruising on some of my marathon fitness when on trails and roads. I knew I hadn't been in the woods much, but was hoping the residual strength would carry me through, as long as I didn't do anything too stupid. That was all going swimming well for the first five minutes, and I was near some faster guys and feeling relatively comfortable. Five minutes isn't very long. Leaving #1, I was still debating a left/right route choice as I cruised down the hill, tripped over something crossing the trail, and rolled my ankle pretty bad. Youch. Had to stand there for a while, trying not to say bad words, to let the pain fade and determine if I could run. Eventually I decided I may as well start walking down the trail, and soon I could run again, if gingerly. The rest of the race, off-trail and and wobbly rocks were bad news.

By #2, I'd caught to the tail end of a group containing Aaron, Bo, Neil, and importantly, Rachel. I don't care about the boys, but I really want to beat any women, and Rachel has some serious orienteering chops. She also has two young children, which can put a dent in your training volume and quality, so I thought that given the mass start nature of the course, I could probably out-kick her. But you never know, and now that my ankle was iffy, my confidence was shaken.

We were basically together the rest of that side of I-93, with occasional placement changes as we all took different micro-routes. I had fallen a bit off the end as we emerged from the woods and onto the overpass to cross the highway, and used the stretch of pavement to catch back up and move to the front of the group. Gotta play to your strengths, so I also used that time to scout some other paved or trail running routes for later in the course.

After the butterfly loop, I chose the right-hand road route to 15, dropping Rachel, and was behind Jimmy and Ernst climbing the hill toward the trail to 16, where they solidly dropped me, despite lots of huffing and puffing on my part. I wasn't alone for long, as Aaron caught up around there, and helped me blow less time on 17 than I would have done alone, wandering on the hillside trying to find a little boulder.

We went left to 18, but the trail was rocky, and my ankle was bad, and then I got confused by the cliffs in the circle, going to the unmapped one first. D'oh. From there, Aaron went up to the road, and I went straight, and stopped early, not quite making sense of things. By the time I actually got to 19 I could see Rachel approaching. Dang! She caught me at 20, and we ran together for a bit before hitting a road, where I knew I had one more shot. I was clearly faster on roads, so I just had to make the break stick this time. Took trails up toward 21, and I was thinking about running fast, more than my navigation, which is never a good plan. My brain, deprived of both oxygen and common sense, thought I was on a different trail than I was, and I ended up running all the way to the junction south of the control before realizing it, and had to hook way back to get the control. Luckily didn't waste time on it once I realized my mistake, but I knew Rachel wouldn't be far behind.

I had to be cautious running through the woods toward 22, and as I crossed the trail and started climbing, I saw Rachel pop out of the woods just south of me. I had maybe a 10-second lead, and I wanted to push that to 20-30 seconds so that I was out of sight. Ok, this really is your last shot now. I pushed HARD up the climb to 22, catching and dropping Aaron and Jimmy, then blasted away before anyone could latch on, following the index contour (it's the big obvious one on the ground) toward 23, gasping and stumbling and yelping the whole way. Basically running scared. I chanced a glance behind me at 23, didn't see Rachel, but didn't let up down the hill. The effort paid off, and I ended up with a nice 1.5min lead, and the winner's gingerbread man! To be fair, I don't think Rachel was going quite as all-out as I was, but a win is a win, and it was a lot of fun to have to fight so hard to defend my title at this race.

A blue-lipped smile

Thanksgiving Camp
After a nice Thanksgiving celebration at Ed's aunt and uncle's place (only 27 folks at dinner, a small gathering this year for them), I left Ed at home and headed up to Craftsbury for our three-day mini camp with the juniors. Craftsbury had gotten a couple sweet dumps of snow over the last week, so we had some really excellent early-season conditions. Race skis all weekend! We got in some excellent distance skiing, and then topped it off with either a time trial or some hard uphill skate intervals on the new 5k south course. Good times.

Forced family fun includes Thanksgiving walks at 15 degrees F

It wasn't all just blissful skiing, though. One afternoon, we had nearly the entire group together, doing a speed workout as we made our way around the 5k course. This is a thing we do all the time, all teams do it, it's great practice to race down the hills with your buddies and learn how to ski aggressively.

I don't think anyone was doing anything wrong; the boys were sort of jostling coming down a hill,  and probably somebody miscalculated or misjudged or misstepped or something, but really I think it was just bad luck. One of my boys hit a tree at full speed, and things got real pretty quick. He was out cold, and it really freaked out all of his teammates. Luckily, CSU has a lot of doctors, level-headed kids, and wilderness response experience, and we were all there. So, Maile took most of the kids off on a race to get the medics on site, the doctors stabilized him, checking vitals and clearing the scene, someone else blocked the trail with some skis, and we got some jackets on him. Within about 20min the snowmobiles had arrived and gotten him to an ambulance, with at least one CSU doctor in tow.

While he's going to be fine, and is making a speedy comeback already, it was a really scary situation. Things could have been really different. The kids were understandably really freaked out, but I was really impressed with how well they acted in the moment. Thanks to the juniors reacting maturely, having half our coaching staff be medical professionals, and having the accident at one of the most on-top-of-it ski areas meant that this sort of situation couldn't have gone better. But I hope it never happens again on my watch.

Now we're solidly into the shoulder season, hunting for snow and stoically weathering the cold rain. T-12 days to the first race!

Blue Hills Traverse

The third race of the unofficial orienteering triple crown, the Blue Hills Traverse is traditionally the last Sunday before Thanksgiving. I was in a position to win the overall triple crown, given my victories in the Billygoat and the Highlander, if I could just hold it together for this final race. The Billygoat had been a hard win, barely eked out ahead of my US Teammate Hannah, but the Highlander was more of a survival game, with Kseniya setting the course (and thus not running it) and Hannah out with a broken wrist. Right now, we are the three US Team members in the northeast, and it's been great to challenge each other at races. For the Traverse, Hannah didn't make the trip, but for the first time I would be battling Kseniya in a long race.

The weather cooperated with my desires on Sunday morning, chilly but not truly cold, somewhere in the 40s, with no rain yet. I noticed during my warmup that I had a spring in my step, and adjusted my mantra into an aggressive one, out to win it or collapse trying, and take some scalps among the men. I'd had a good month of training, finally, and was feeling confident and ready.

First map: click for full map

We took off speedily, and I quickly found a comfortably hard pace, behind the speedier-starting boys. The first map consisted of a lot of trail running, but luckily that wasn't aggravating any niggling injuries that I've been trying to kick. I spent most of the first four controls chasing Bo Nielson, a very fit master runner who I've battled with before. Knowing that I probably had the advantage of trail speed over Kseniya, I was pushing this part of the race very hard, wanting to put as much distance as possible between the two of us on the non-technical controls. She is a master in the forest, so I knew she'd be closing that gap as soon as we had to actually navigate.

The race had been pretty flat for the first four controls, but leaving #4 things angled upwards. I continued to make a conscious effort to go faster, and finally passed Bo, and started to catch glimpses of a CSU jersey ahead - Ari! I caught him and 3-4 other guys that I didn't know at control #5, but then we had some more fast trail running, and they pulled ahead. I was starting to notice the pace, and the fact that I haven't done any hard straight running in a while. My shoulders were cramping from the effort of breathing, and my hamstrings were starting to protest the speedy strides. Uh oh.

Second map: click for full map

I finished the second map trailing behind a pack of 5-6 guys, that included Ari and Ian, from CSU. Naturally, I wanted to beat them all, but there's desire and then there's ability. I slowed down a bit on the two butterfly loops out of the drinks control, in part because I'd nearly choked to death on some gatorade - air in one tube, liquid in the other, dummy, you've been doing this your whole life! Luckily, my brain took back over, and in a good mind-over-matter moment, I wound back up to race pace, back into the aggressive mindset. I'd seen Jordan, the men's leader, just one butterfly loop ahead of me, so I realized that this pack of Ari and the other two guys were probably the chase pack. As I was finishing my second loop, I saw Kseniya starting what I hoped was her first loop, which spurred me on. I didn't have much buffer, but it was enough for now.

Meeting with Kseniya while choking on gatorade

Unfortunately, I lost two of those buffer minutes on the way to 17 - I'd pulled to the front of the chase pack, but momentarily lost focus and lost contact with the map, leading to much confusion and wandering about in a low-visibility area. I think this is where Neil Martin got ahead of us, as three others of us wandered. Mad at myself for that lapse, I pulled it back together, only to lose another 45 seconds at 19. What is this, it's almost like I'm tired and making mistakes! Even with that mistake, I'd managed to pull away from two of the guys in the pack, because of more woods-running (yay!), and I caught back up to Ari at 21. He was walking, having just twisted his ankle badly. It was a reminder to me to keep moving carefully - we were traversing the side of a mountain covered in loose pointy rocks under loose leaves - I did not want to injure myself now, so close to the finish. I finished traversing the slope, and popped out at the bottom of the ski slope, in the clear, as far as I could tell, from any other runners. Sweet. Two more controls, and I kept the gas on, worried about a late-race charge from one of the men behind me, and then I was at the finish, in third place!

Kseniya finished close behind, having matched or beaten nearly all my forest splits. It was a good thing I'd pushed the trails as much as I had, and I was lucky we'd had so much trail running. I was really pleased to have finished a long race feeling strong and aggressive the whole way through. And I won a giant gingerbread cookie!

This marks the second year I've swept the orienteering triple crown. These long races are a blast!

Blue Hills Traverse

I won the Blue Hills Traverse last Sunday.  I won it last year, too, but this year was considerably more fun. Probably some combination of warmer weather, better course setting, and I was more rested coming into the race, but either way, it was a great day to be running through the woods! Not only was I the first woman, I was also third overall, which kind of just speaks to the lack of depth in the field, but, you gotta show up to win =).  

This year, Jeff Sager, the course setter, designed to "butterfly loops", which is a technique to spread out runners so that there is less blatant following.  Everyone runs the same distance, but does certain loops at different times, from a common control.  It was a neat way to spread the race, and I still saw a ton of people out there, without feeling like I was leading a train of followers from one control to the next.  

We started out on the eastern side of the park, ready to traverse our way over to the west and Judy's hot chicken soup.  It was a bit of a long trail run to begin, and some of the boys took off ahead of me.  I wasn't feeling super up to chasing them down this early, so just let them go, and settled into a loose pack with Giovanni, Katia, Ernst, and Will.  We were together until 2, which was where the first butterfly loops started, and it seemed that everybody went off in a different direction than me, so I figured I'd be on my own loop.  Off the trail towards 3, but then Will appeared as I punched, so evidently I wasn't totally alone. We took different routes to 4, and I got there a little ahead of him, but I was slow and sucking wind on the climb back up to 2, and he got ahead again. There were many more people in the vicinity of 2 when I got there this time, so I just focused on my own race, not wanting to get confused.

Ari appeared as I headed towards control 6, as Will disappeared in my rearview mirror, clearly faster on the trails than in terrain.  Ari was faster than me on the uphills, but I would close the gap on the downhills and when we went through the woods on anything *not* up, so we were together for most of that loop.  I was really enjoying the forest in that area, nice and open and not too rocky underfoot, it was really fun to run through!

Then back up to the common control, and it was uphill, so Ari dropped me.  I saw one of two stragglers just coming in, but nobody that I recognized from earlier in the race, so just put my head down and tried to coax some speed into my legs as I trundled off to 10, and the second map.  Approaching 10, I saw Ari again, evidently he'd made a bit of a mistake, and we were together down to the road for a long waddle towards the western part of the map.  When I got to the water stop, Jeff and Hillary were manning it, and they told me that I was in 4th. This was exciting, and I started to get visions of grandeur and of podiuming in the overall race; all I had to do was beat Ari!  Who was now well out of sight after the road run.

The western portion of this park has a much more up-to-date map, which is nice because you can rely on it a little better.  I kept seeing Ari as we'd take different routes to controls and arrive at the same time; his default seemed to be "climb ALL the hills!" while I tried to go as straight as possible while avoiding hills.  I didn't have much pop in my legs, but it felt good to carry on with a fast aerobic pace, and I was happy at that speed.  Unfortunately, leaving the common control for the butterfly on this map, I made a stupid rookie mistake, and Ernst and Giovanni and some guy I didn't know caught up.  Shoot! There goes 4th, 5th, and 6th places!  I pushed hard through the rest of that loop, closing down the distance to Ernst, who'd created a bit of a gap, but we never saw the other guy.  I ran down the hill with Ernst and Giovanni, and then up the other side was a bit of a climb on a trail, and it was definitely a mental game trying to keep myself running.  Would have been so much easier to just walk!  Just keep running, just keep running, just keep running...

Eventually we reached the top of the hill, and I was still with these guys. We hit some thicker underbrush, and I had to walk, but I wasn't losing too much time.  We'd just run into Tim and Katia, who were on their first butterfly loop, and the group of Tim, Katia, Giovanni, and Ernst were all drifting uphill from the little cairn, which was a nice solid point feature showing me exactly where I was. The map didn't look like I had to go uphill from there to spike 19, so I let them drift, pushing on along the contour, and though I bounced off the trail before punching the control, I had created a gap.  Quick! Escape before visual contact can be made!

I careened down the hill to 20, totally spiking the control, and I knew that now, with no more major climbs in my near future, I had this game in the bag, if I could just hold it together for the navigation.  At 21, I saw Ari again, and I suspected that this was still his first butterfly loop, but I wasn't entirely positive. He took off when we hit the road and the climb back to the common control, but I didn't have the legs to keep up. Well... there goes a place if I was wrong about the loop order.  I tried to keep the gas on through to the finish, but my oomph-o-meter was definitely keeping me from pushing to true race pace, so I suspect it looked like I was just sort of cruising in to the finish. But! This was good enough for third place!  Ethan and Ian had taken first and second miles ahead of me, but I had managed to outsmart or outrun everyone else!  I was pretty pumped about this fact, and I won a giant gingerbread man.  Score! Results.

Third place: me. First place: Ethan Childs. Second place: Ian Smith.

Ed finished strong for 12th place, and felt pretty good about his race. Yay!

Some other photos from past fun things that didn't make it to the blog - 

We had a reporter show up to the Troll Cup for the NYT; we'll see what he comes up with for a story on the local orienteering scene!

I rollerskied up a mountain with my juniors (Mt. Kearsarge, in NH).  It was a pretty chilly day, but we saw some great performances.  I can attest that if you don't rollerski all fall, and your first hard workout is a 35 minute continuous uphill race, you will be SORE the next few days.  

View from mt. Kearsarge. Love November in the NE...