Training Log Archive: BigWillyStyle

From Seward Park up to Madison Park along the lakefront. For my money that is the best cycling route in Seattle.

I have a working theory which states that each athlete, given enough repetitions in any athletic endeavor, will every so often enter what I have provisionally dubbed Power-Up Mode - a fleeting period of time when he or she unexpectedly and inexplicably gains a surfeit of additional speed, strength, stamina, or the like and performs well above and beyond the normal limits of his/her abilities. I hypothesize that modern science can neither predict nor precipitate these episodes; when, where, why, and how they occur remain shrouded in mystery even to the athletes who experience them, and all attempts to manually re-enter Power-Up Mode by replication of conditions end in failure.

There are many things we do not yet know about Power-Up Mode. How long can it last? With what frequency do Power-Ups generally occur? What, if any, are the variance factors from athlete to athlete? It may well be that the majority of Power-Ups are "wasted" during random training sessions (since athletes generally spend far more time training than racing/competing/playing) and go unnoticed beyond "Hmm I feel really good today for some reason." In not pushing themselves to the limit, they are unable to take advantage of their temporary athletic largesse.

However, the laws of probability also state that some number of Power-Ups must indeed occur during full-effort competition; this may be where the proverbial huge PR, the Beastquake run, or the 82-point game come from. Unfortunately, to date the Power-Up theory provides us with little actionable information, but one can hope that further physiological advances will shed greater light on the problem.

C • Hot Hands 7

Bonus training at Long Pond in the Fells with Ian; we did the blue middle from the 2010 (?) A-meet. Quite an easy pace, just trying to work on good map-reading habits. Hit most control locations well but wasn't sure about two or three spots. Lovely woods and sunny day out. The notorious mountain laurel don't impress me much, but this greenbrier stuff is nasty enough to earn my respect.

M: O-training
T: Easy cycle
W: Cycle commute
T: Rest day
F: Easy run
S: Teanaway O'
S: Lick Creek O'

Billygoat 2016! A few weeks ago I was looking at my calendar and saw that I wasn't doing anything the weekend of May 7-8, then I happened to see that the fabled Billygoat (AKA the granddaddy of them all) was that weekend, and I tried to think of a good reason why I shouldn't go, and I couldn't, so I went.

My goals were severalfold: 1. See some great people; 2. Have a fun adventure; 3. Run a solid race; 4. Get at least an introductory idea of what a New England forest looks like before Team Trials. As things happened the race fit my purposes almost perfectly; I was able to run completely solo 85-90% of the time, only being accompanied/led by young Isak for the first three controls. Before arriving at 3 I made a very deliberate decision to skip 4 and strike out on my own, regardless of whether 4 was the best skip or not - this on the calculus that holding hands with a Swede for the whole course wouldn't do much for the big picture/goal 4.

I then led the race from 5 to 11, which is exciting because all of the top eight or so had used their skip by then (most skipped 10, which was a substantially better skip than mine to boot), but then I lost ~2:00 minutes on 12 and got passed by Isak. I actually saw him off to my left, but again made a conscious decision to disregard him and figure my own ish out.

After that I was alone in second (though I did catch one more glance of Isak on the way out of 14) until taking a poor line to the trail on the way to 22 and seeing Will Hawkins bust out some 20 yards ahead of me. I had a bit more in the tank than he did, so was able to re-pass and finish ~30s clear.

Other mistakes included ~2:00 on 16 (bad route choice which led me way left of the line smack into the big green hillside near 7, plus hesitation in the circle) and ~2:00 on 20 (dumb route choice through swamps), and the usual assortment of small bobbles. Quite happy with the run overall though - seven top splits and 11 second place splits out of 23 total, successfully stayed ahead of the pack by doing (almost) all my own navigating, and accomplished all of my goals. I also got tantalizingly close to swiping the honorary ugly goat doorstop for the Cascade trophy case, but to no avail. Next year...?

Many thanks to Alex and Ed for organizing and for setting a fantastic course! And great to see and hang with Boris, Ian, Kseniya, and others. Well worth the trip!

C • Whoa! 11

Control pickup

Billygoat - Splits

travel day :O