Training Log Archive: TomN

Test-running a course at Hemlock. The run was a few minutes long because of some time spent checking stuff out. Then spent some time talking over vetting strategy with Sam L.

Event: QOC Swanson Road
 

QOC Swanson Road Red. Botched up 2 legs, not a terrific showing. Hard to say what went wrong, but not paying enough attention to compass is a leading candidate. It's a new compass, and in my mind that made it untrustworthy. In fact, it wasn't, but the contours were.

Helped pick up controls. In an effort to settle the new compass issue, I repeated one of the legs I messed up using only a compass bearing from the attack point. It worked fine.

Red - Splits

QOC Lake Accotink Green. A nice course by Gary Smith with some good legs and not too much crazy back-and-forth. Almost all of my route was trail running, but even that required a lot of attention because the place is just lousy with trails. Anyway, pretty happy with my performance, but there were places where I could have picked up some time here and there. And places where I conveniently found a need to slow down and study the map when I was breathing hard.

C • lousy 2

Green - Splits

Kensington 8k, my home town race. Over 600 runners this year. I had a disappointing race, and I knew it at the first mile. Even so, I was in the lead among the 60-year-olds until just after the hill, early in the 5th mile. That's the really disappointing part of it. The hill is usually my strength, but I blew up completely and couldn't pick up any speed afterwards. So I just watched helplessly as he pulled ahead. I know the 3rd place guy, too. We work at the same place, and his son knows my daughter.

Two years ago, still in my 60s, I ran this race in 35:29. This year, almost 3 minutes slower. Not for lack of trying. It's just not working for me.

=== MALE AGE GROUP: 60 - 69 (NET TIME) | Showing up to 3, Awarding Top 3 ===
Place O'All Bib Name Age S City St Gun Net
===== ===== ===== ==================== === = ================== == ======= =======
1 79 687 Kenyon Erickson 60 M Vienna VA 38:28 37:47
2 86 183 Tom Nolan 62 M Kensington MD 38:15 38:09
3 133 110 Bill Teng 61 M Burtonsville MD 40:40 40:27

Met with the A-meet planning group to walk through the logistics on-site. Then went out and worked on White and Yellow all afternoon. Somewhere in the floodplain at the far north end of the map I lost my compass. It fell out of my pocket. It's awkward carrying a compass with attached magnifier in your pocket, so the magnifier was hanging out, and it must have snagged on something. I retraced my steps for about an hour, but no luck.

Same run as before, with a half-dozen strides at various places.

Morning run around the neighborhood. Very fine weather for a few days.

Setting out remaining controls and water. The water took a lot longer than I anticipated. It wasn't until about noon that I had all of it out, the Yellow course being the last of it. And this was despite having access via all the side roads to the little picnic areas.

I also ended up putting out more of the radio controls than I had expected. I got to the last of them just as Ryan S. was sprinting into the control. I ran up with the e-punch on the radio pole like a spear, and he punched it like that before I planted it in the ground.

It turned out that I managed to get a couple of controls misplaced, for which I am terribly sorry, and unhappy as well. One was in a difficult vegetation area at the top of a long bland slope. I had trouble finding my own streamer, which might have been a clue. The other was in a prominent ditch right by the start/finish, and was inexcusable. I eventually moved it, probably just in time for the control pickup crew to be able to find it. Like nearly all the others, I had visited it from two different directions, and I hit it straight on each time. It's the easy ones that will get you. I should have looked a little more critically at that big ditch.

Setting out controls at Lake Clopper. All but a dozen are out in the woods now, and the ones left are all on trails. I'll get to them and the water on Sunday morning.

QOC season opener at Occoquan. I don't remember the map last year, but I do remember the score-O a couple of years ago and this map is a huge improvement over that one. Plus it was really nice to run on the blown-up 1:7500 version. I use a magnifier, and like it, but the larger scale still makes a difference in route planning and reading on the fly.

I ran Green, because yesterday I ran the road race, and also yesterday I sprained my ankle (twice: once stepping in a hole in the road warming up before the race, and once on an uneven sidewalk joint on a cool-down run. Vido tells me today the problem is the warm-up -- don't do it.)

The ankle in question (the left one) made its insult known during today's run, but it didn't seem any worse than usual. I had planned to tape it, but all morning I searched and couldn't find any athletic tape anywhere in the house. I know I have some, but where is it?

I was pretty happy with today's run. No issues finding controls, and really, good navigation overall. Maybe I could have made better route choices, I don't know. Probably could have kept up speed in a few places.

C • you don't have any entries for today (it's 9/10) 2

Green - Splits

National Press Club 5k. jtorranc tried to get a QOC team together, but it ended up that he and I were the only club runners. Too bad, because the open team category was apparently there for the taking. Nice course, mostly down Pennsylvania Ave and back, with the turnaround at the halfway point. Unfortunately it was already about 80F and humid at 8 in the morning. The breakfast banquet upstairs at the NPC with the awards ceremony was a great treat.

Just a shade over 22 minutes, good for 2nd in the 60s age group. My VDOT has fallen off a cliff. Seems like sub-22 is doable, though. It would be easy to find a nicer day, but hard to find a nicer course.

********** MALE 5K RUN AGE GROUP: 60 - 64 (NET TIME) **********

Place Bib Name S Age Finish Pace
===== ==== ======================= = === ======= =====
1 1515 Paul Bousel M 61 20:56 6:44
2 1177 Tom Nolan M 61 22:04 7:07
3 1009 Jim Spencer M 62 24:46 7:58

Basically the same route as yesterday. Six "strides" at various flattish points in the run. I can only say "basically" because I made an unanticipated detour yesterday (daydreaming again) and tried to duplicate it today but did something else instead. Here's a guy who can get lost in his own neighborhood. And does, quite frequently.

A light run around the neighborhood. Waking up early these days to get Mei-An to school.

Intervals at Einstein track. It was awful. Too hot, for one thing -- I didn't get out of the house until 10 a.m. and already mid-80s. But the real problem is I couldn't run at all. I'm just getting worser and worser. 3x1000 in 4:24, 4:31, 4:35. That last one was the pace I ran 5k last week. It hardly counts as an interval.