I added a new Workout Of The Week (WOTW). Last week was a armchair map reading. The latest WOTW is tougher -- hill running.

The WOTW homepage includes all of the WOTW (so far there are two). Go to:

http://www.geocities.com/colosseum/field/7306/wotw.html

The newest WOTW was designed by Peggy D.

-- Spike (meglin@juno.com), February 13, 2000

Answers

I did the first WOTW during some downtime at work last week. I rather randomly picked out a map from my stash; turned out to be an M21A race from the '86 Finnish 5-Days. The area was partly flat with marshes and lots of straight streams and partly highly detailed with bare rock and contour detail. Luckily, there were also lots of trails. I found the exercise to be difficult but not impossible. It really made me focus on the big picture. I did the course once with 30 second looks at each leg; about a half hour later I tried it again with just 10 second looks. I found that that wasn't enough time but that I did remember some details from the previous time I'd done it. That surprised me! Good exercise, I'll plan on repeating this one. --Peggy

-- Peggy Dickison (Pdickison@aol.com), February 14, 2000.

I did the second WOTW today. For a few weeks, I've been walking on an out-and-back course I designed on the horse trails at Wyandotte County Park. The course has several hills. My goal today was to walk up each hill without stopping. Normally, I can do this on the small hills, but not on the 11-contour hill that comes about 2/3 of the way out. Usually I try to power my way up the hill, walking faster with bigger strides. I have to stop at least once on the way up. I find, also, that I stop to asses how far I've come and how far I have to go, mostly as an excuse to rest. So today, I changed my strategy. I took smaller, slower, deliberate steps. I looked at my feet, concentrating on moving, and didn't look up to see how far I still had to go! This also helped my footing, which is tough on the muddy horse trails. And I was successful! I made it up the big hill without stopping! Someday I'll have to try my course in reverse, so the big hill comes almost at the end, to simulate a tough hill at the end of an O course.

-- Mary (maprunner@juno.com), February 15, 2000.

I did a hill run this evening. I've got a hill at Wyandotte that I try to run about once a week. It is a good long hill (I typically run it in between 3:30 and 4:00 minutes). I tried to go "race pace" - - which for me means a steady jog. When I come to a big hill in an O' meet, I try to pick a pace that I'll be able to keep for the entire hill. It usually feels too slow at the bottom, about right half way up the hill, and too fast at the top. I jogged back down to the bottom of the hill. I did the hill six times.

My legs are tired.

I ran tonight with my headlamp -- which always makes the run a bit more interesting. I saw a large group of deer, a couple of rabbits, and two angry looking possums. The park police looked at me, but for a change they didn't stop to find out who I was and what I was doing.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), February 15, 2000.