Broken Runner Orienteering

How's that for a title?
Yesterday I went for my first weekday run since January, it was wonderful.  It was also raining pretty hard.  It was the first time I felt like I had enough energy to go for a run, I think I'm finally getting better!

Back in December I started having back pain, it went away right before the Tinkerbell half and I didn't have any pain while in CA.  But about a week after I got back so did the pain and it got worse and worse.  The doctors believe I have a herniated disc and after a week of steroids and (so far) 3 weeks of PT I'm getting better!

I have been orienteering on the weekends.  I figure running in the woods is less impact than on the roads.  (Although I ran at a meet by West Point in NY, and rocks are not easier on the back!)

One of my new favorite things is RouteGadget!  After a meet the maps are put on RoutGadget and runners and upload their GPS route.  If other people use it you can compare their routes to yours, there is even a race function where you can start all the routes at the same time and see where you gained/lost time; or how someone else's route helped them.

I thought I'd share 2 screen shots of my routes.  The first was at the actual race and the second is from a week later (Dad and I went back and ran the course again)  This was an orange course.

After the meet I was really frustrated, I felt that the course from 4-5 was too hard for my level, and I let it get to my head during the race.  As you can see from the map I did an awesome job in that section.  It wasn't the best route choice for my level, but it worked.  After talking over the course with Dad, I felt better about my route choice on this one.

 

 

 (I didn't adjust the GPS after uploading, I did hit all my controls)

The red line is me, the purple the straight line between controls.  The start is the triangle and the finish is the double circle.  As you can see I almost made a really bad mistake leaving 4 (heading the wrong direction), but I caught it and got headed back into the right direction.  One thing I learned from this, is that I have no concept of distance!  2-3 I though I was further down on the creek than I really was!

I made a few changes to my route on this run; 4-5 obviously and some others. Without controls I hit everything except 9 (which I barely found the first time around)

I did my second A meet this weekend, so once I get my GPS uploaded I'll share those.  They are vastly different.

~Maggie