Training Log Archive: Ari-o

New activity type! My mother and sister wanted to go on a long walk, but not a really long walk, and wanted to be "dropped off five miles away." Instead of driving them, I paddled them! On the way, I shared the load with my sister who contributed maybe 10% of the power (I should have sat up front and just stroked away) and on the way back I kneeled in the middle of the boat and paddled myself in to a headwind. Canoeing is fun!

Another day, another deck.

I was wicked sunburnt from yesterday's hike, so by the time I got my act together (feverish a little, dehydrated) to rollerski it was raining and I didn't really want to. Did core, then jumped in the lake in a light rain, and a loon surfaced maybe 30 feet away, and we looked at each other at eye level for a while. It was cool

After tarrying about in the morning (not on my head) no one wanted to run but me (since my pack was lighter, since I hadn't brought all the things) so we hiked out slowly.

There was apparently a minor miscommunication as to the day's activities. I wanted to trail run, everyone else wanted to do trail without all the running. A good climb up Caps Ridge and then across the cornice and over to Clay. Some running; but I was the one who had to initiate all the running and people weren't always that excited about it. (But I know all the rocks! Just follow me!) Lunch from Seth at Lakes, then "we're too busy digesting to run the best part of the Presidentials" towards MIzpah and then "it's too rocky now that we've digested" down the Crawford Path. Needless to say this took an hour longer than I'd hoped. But a lovely day, if a bit less strenuous than I'd imagined.

So today at NP was what I call wind sprints: a pace line of people where the back person sprints to the front of the line. Except on steep hills. Yeah.

In preparation, I had been running late, run out the door and realized that I'd left my keys in the house, behind the locked door. I figured I could find someone to lock my bike at NP (and I did) with the backup of stashing my bike along a fence and disabling the brakes so that anyone who tried to steal it would be sent hurtling down the hill at breakneck speed to crash in to a trolley car and die. Probably. None of that happened. I was only a little late to the workout since I made every traffic light (got there in 12 minutes, which is quite fast including the hill) so I was winded from the start.

So we divided in to groups based on Bojan telling us stuff and then he sent us off. I was in the second group. We started out with eight people. which was okay because it meant you were only sprinting an eighth of the time, which was once or twice per downhill and uphill or so. That was doable. We went out pretty hard but not as hard as I've taken the last couple of downhills, and then started to pick up the pace.

And then the group started to fall apart. First we dropped to seven guys, then six. And then pretty quickly to four. Guy four dropped off on the second-to-last big climb, and three of us tackled that hill. I lost contact near the top but sprinted down the back side and caught up with the other two guys for the little uphill, but lost contact again with them there. (No idea if the first group held together; everyone got mixed up enough there was no telling who was where.) Times for miles were 7:33, 7:21, 7:07, 6:46 (the last an overall climb) and then, once I lost touch, 7:47, but a respectable pace of 6:53 for the last push with a guy who had dropped off the group, puked, and come back to run with me. Yay?

Splits for each hill (1.35 miles, 285 feet of climb) were:

10:25
9:55
9:20
9:57

So, yeah, no wonder it got harder as time went on. A pretty awesome run, though, with some certainly hard bits.

Running in to meet roommates at a camping site. Tunnel Brook Trail west of Moosilauke. Kind of sort of light when I started, certainly dark when I finished. Satellites kicked in about half way, but the track from the next day shows the full distance. I started blowing my pack whistle near the ponds and then spotted their fire, and was so excited to see them (well, people; I hadn't seen their car as they had parked elsewhere) that I ran straight for them, and straight in to a swamp the beavers had made over the trail. Wet feet, and then I burned my socks drying by the fire.

C • Burned socks?!? 2

Quick run with the roommates.

It was PR day at November Project (a pig is involved, and I am really quite perplexed, especially that someone has a pet pig) and it was way too hot for me to hit a PR, but I kept going in 70 degree heat at L3 (probably, really need to get the HRM out one of these days) and finished about 1:15 off my PR (*), which ain't too bad, considering I barely kept from completely overheating by drinking lots of ice water. Not even so much for hydration, but holding it in my mouth to cool down. Fall will be nice.

And then I went home and had pig in the style I prefer: bacon.

* Apparently it's faster to go slowly and lopingly (sort of a long stride/fast hike) up the stairs, and then go quickly down them. This seems counterproductive. Instead of treating it as a bunch of short intervals with short periods of recovery, you put yourself in a high L2 maybe L3 situation. It's good for, say, doing the stadium faster, but doesn't get you the strength you can get (although it's probably good for downhill strength). When I don't need to use every run down to dump heat (November?) I'll try going fast up and fast down the big steps …

Deckaday prep. Hot, indoors, fan. Lots of sweat. But I have a place in my room for this (I've been banished from doing lots of core in common areas of the house) at least!

So it's 86, my roommate already ran, so if I go for anything it would be some junk miles alone (too late to bike, rollerski wheels too broken to roll). Might just do some core and call it an evening. Mmm, sweaty core!

"Warm up" run to NP (late, so kind of a wake up sprint) and then some sprints/plyos/whatevers.

Oh, fun, a real, live deck. None of these circuits, 21 minutes of hard core deckage, with burpies instead of sit/push on aces. Then we finished and joined another group for a couple more. I need to do this more for strength, but I finished with a positive balance in the bank* today, so that was good.

( * If there's downtime early I'll bank a couple extra push ups or sit ups for the run of 30 or 40 where I don't want my form to totally go to shit.)

Pretty dead after the deck, slow run home.

Ride bikes! I got new bike shorts today, white Pearl Izumis, replacing the black Cannondales I've had since middle school (or *maybe* ninth grade). In any case, my roommate said she could see too much of my "pitoonie" and that I shouldn't get a replacement at Lululemon. Lincoln said bib shorts were never in the E store and if they were he'd buy them for himself, but to try the Clymb, where everything was 50% off. So, yeah, new bike shorts.

Also, I biked 45 miles this past weekend and saw not even a blinking flashing light. In 6 miles today I went through about 20, most of them red.

Planned out a route and wrote a cue sheet out and then biked it. Lovely day for a ride. Lots of hills at first, and then I crossed Route 17 and the road had brand. new. pavement. After 4 miles, the cue sheet (which was stuffed somewhere, but writing it out let me memorize the route) said go right, but the new pavement went straight along an esker. Guess which way I went?

I figured I'd take my next right or turn back when the new pavement ended. Neither of these occurred for 8 miles. But that was okay, it was lovely riding, light breeze, rolling hills, and no traffic. Perfect rollerskiing! Then I came out on a road I knew and it was 20 miles home, with hills, and I realized I was hungry and had no food or money. So I managed to tough it back. Riding bikes is fun.

Alas, it is the last ride for the old bike shorts, which my roommate says are a bit to lululemon-y to be worn in public. I think they date to middle school. New ones (bib!) arrive tomorrow. Now I need to find a suitable jersey.

Went out for a long rollerski and except for the humidity/sweat and uberbonk, had a lot of fun. Nice day for a ski going north along the lakes, and was glad I had 1.5L of water with me. However, at the top of the long hill coming back I bonked really hard, and was really glad for the two Snickers bars. The kind of bonk where I had barely any balance and hit a crack and almost went ass over teakettle in to the grass, but not quite. Anyway, mad it back in one piece, sort of.

Other issues, though. One, Garmin decided to have buttons right near my rollerskis glove, but that might be because the velcro on the glove is shot and it barely stays on. More of an issue: coming down the last hill where you have to scrub speed (the only hill you need to do that on) I found out that one of my wheels is on its very last legs. Time to replace them. Wondering if I can use Ed's, or should go with Marwe's best. Maybe an excuse to stride. #FirstWorldProblems indeed.

Great NP this morning. They said we were racing and I raced Harry down the hill and made the bottom in under 2 minutes (0.4 miles), then charged back up, down the stairs and bounded up them two and three at a time to win the first split up the hill and stairs. Then three more times, some box jumps, and finally a last run down and up the hill. And my watch ate it! Ugh. But a good morning, and then we all jumped in a swimming pole, and I got all cooled off and chlorine-y and didn't have to shower. Success.

C • Watch eating workouts 2

So Garmin gacked and ate two workouts. I am not happy about this (especially tomorrow's when I killed the first hill). Really unhappy. But this was a nice rollerski along the river in the evening which, despite some sketchiness, is not bad for a double pole. I will point out that the bike path on the Cambridge side is 5 feet wide—narrower than my ski pole!—and the DCR couldn't give a single shit about that. Not that I'm bitter. OH WAIT I AM.

Biking to a work thing, lovely day for a ride.

And riding home. A couple of hills through the Arb.

So this week is "stay off my feet week" since I have a small cut healing on the bottom of my right foot and after a trail race, it seems like a bad idea to abuse it more. So, no stairs, maybe no hills on Friday, and riding bikes and rollerskiing instead: lower impact. I'd been out biking and guess what: more bikes! Carbon frames are faster than old steel mountain bikes, too.

Rode with Melissa out the Mystic Lakes and then took her up the Johnson Street Hills (a couple route-finding hiccoughs, first, I need to remember the road that goes from Mass Ave in Arlington straight across to the Mystic Valley Parkway—Bates—and then I brainfarted and missed the turn on Wildwood towards the hills). I pushed the first hill a bit and then tried to really pound the second, to which my legs said "excuse me, we just ran a 14 mile race two days ago, this is not about to happen" and we slowed down somewhat. We (Melissa and me, not me and my legs as the previous we referred to) then took Mass Ave down through Arlington and went to get burritos which we rode home with.

A couple of things I've learned. 1) I have become much safer with red lights and the whole not running them unless it's really safe (one side of a T intersection) thing, my roommate not so much, especially since she jumped a couple she didn't know and then didn't know where to go beyond them since I'd stayed behind. 2) Speaking of behind, apparently my I've-actually-had-them-since-middle-school bike shorts need to be relegated to the garbage heap, and Lincoln suggested I look on the Clymb for bib shorts (after I asked if he ever saw them in the E store and he said that he didn't and would buy them for himself if he did) and I found some for 50% off plus some Clymb credit so basically free, well, not really, but they sure do look nice. So those should come next week!

So here's the deal. When NP says to get there early, you want to go. Even if it's the second straight day of waking up at 4:55. Why? Here is a picture.

Basically, running and then paddling a kayak. I partnered with Harry and we were killing it until someone going out turned in front of us and we had to stroke hard to keep from totally T-boning them. Kayaking is fun, even if you get covered in dirty Charles water.

Then at the end I was supposed to do more running, but my foot hurt, and I decided the CRC&K (i.e. Ski Track) people needed coffee, so I went to the nearest coffee place (ABP) and got coffee and muffins. Win.

Ran out the first bit of the course to check things out. Didn't feel particularly ducky, but okay.

Oh, wow, this race is great. Alex had said just that, and I believed her, but whoopie woo. These super-chill Grand Tree races are really quite fantastic; I feel for the people throwing $50 at a 5k (or $150 at a Spartan race, really?) when for $25 you can do this.

Also, I stepped on something and had a little cut on the bottom of my right foot. I've done this a couple times before and it hurts, but not that much running. Should I be running on it? Absolutely not. Was it a perfect day for a trail race. Indeed.

Left super-early—pre-dawn wake up at 4:55—and picked up the Ed and Alex for the drive out. Slightly longer than necessary drive (should have taken South County Road) but Route 2 is so nice I really don't mind it. Plus, no traffic north of the Pike. Or at stupid o'clock on a Sunday. Short warm-up, and then we all start running.

I was in about 7th and then decided to run and catch up with the two guys out front. Which I did, and settled in to an almost-sustainable pace. But the lead guy went off on a downhill, and I settled in behind guy #2. At the first feed he stopped for a glass of water, and I ran on with a water bottle in my hand. At this point the lead woman (Kelsey) got behind me on a downhill, but I pretty quickly dropped her on the ensuing up. She caught me again on the next downhill, but I again went up well ahead of her—the longest uphill of the course, about 500 feet, culminating in the assault on the peak which was a bit of hand-over-hand, the only time I regretted a water bottle (later in the race I'd bounce it off my thigh and catch it midstride, and drink all the gatorade).

And then it was downhill. Kelsey caught up with me and we traded hills, which were rolling and punch, and then Kehr, the second woman, caught me. Long downhill to the turnaround? They both passed me. Fearless downhill runners they are, and this was a pretty good downhill course. Damn. The lead guy was only about 2 minutes up, and if I'd felt super-ducky (I didn't) I'd have hammered the ensuing uphill and tried to catch him. But I was only able to catch the ladies and put a few seconds on them, which meant that I was going to have troubles keeping them behind me on the downhills. Trail is great, pretty runnable, but even still the downhills are just not that easy for me. Really fun, though.

Kelsey, who had always been ahead, came by first. She found a downhill and came by. Kehr mostly stayed behind, trading spots a couple times on the big downhill, but I was mostly able to put time on her on the uphills. I was tired, and not opening gaps. The last two miles of the race is all downhill, and she used her low center of gravity to get by me and try to chase down Kelsey, but she was a minute up. I sauntered in, behind one man and two women—2:30 off the win. Not bad for not feeling perfect.

Then I ate food, cheered Alex, ate food, went swimming and cheered Ed and went home.

And a very slow cool down with ACJ

Ran to JP, slowly and through some woods (potential for some great ParkO terrain along the Emerald Necklace) and then to the T, to go to the airport to fetch a car. Long story.

So, it took FOREVER to find satellites this morning (wet leaves?) and I didn't get the first 0.4 miles of the run. Which is too bad, because Harry egged me on to race down the hill ("here's the only part of the course I can beat you on") and I let loose, running down in probably a 4 minute pace or so. Then, well in front of everyone else, I turned up determined to win the split back to the top.

Then I realized I'm running 17 miles on Sunday.

Still ran the rest decently fast, and felt good. Running down hills, it's a thing.

Not the fastest run ever, but we had to wait for people walking their bikes on the bridge, etc a bunch. Good day for it, though.

Two days off (one planned, one not) but a lovely morning to run stairs in the rain today. Cool, breezy, light rain keeping you cool. I mean, I still stripped off my shirt half way through, but I haven't worn a shirt running stairs in months. Lovely.

The deal today was that every so often they rang a cowbell and you had to go back one section. Kind of a fun gimmick. I ran 42 to get around, and then whenever the bell rang the assorted seated folks would go down and run another. I took these pretty fast.

Felt good, can't wait for it to be cool again.

C • Corn Maze Champs 1

Ran down the NiMiBriTri early to go bug Colin over at Great Glen. Had a pretty good time going down the first couple miles, then let loose on the aqueduct road.

Got to the car and wanted to go see the bikes I saw racing the day before, still racing. Wandered over to the tent where people finished and started, found a BikeReg guy, said "hey do you know Colin" and then went and found Colin sitting eating turkey slices and talking about not sleeping and riding bikes. In his element. Talked there for a while before he got to go out and ride bikes again and I ran down to the car.

So, I wanted to go hiking/running, but didn't want to climb back up a mountain (and trash my knees more coming down). I realized there's a trail north of Randolph to something called the Ice Gulch, which is a steep, narrow valley with lots of jumbly rocks. So I went there and parked and started running to the trail. 200m down the road I give a wave to someone and she says "Ari" and it's someone I know. (Who lives on that road; where I think I know three people, but one is out west and one is in Europe and I thought she was in Europe, too.) Anyway, chitchat there and then keep running, think I miss the trail, but run back 100m, then back again, then find the trail.

More climbing than I'd expected but really nice running. Once I was on the trail I saw one (1) moose and zero (0) people. Their loss (the people, not the moose). The trail is really quite nice, and the Ice Gulch is wicked cool. You drop in to it and scramble over and under lots and lots of rocks. And yes, even in August there's still lots of ice with cool thermals coming up. Some bugs, too, so it's hard to linger. Then down to a waterfall, and a run out.

GPS got very confused in a steep valley running east-west; maybe picked up satellites a couple of times. Nice 37 minute mile in there on the scramblies.

Randolph Hill: new pavement, gradual V2 hill, no cars. The plan was to rollerski until I ran out of water. Three trips up the hill was enough to do this. Then I drove to Stearns, filled water, and jumped in the Ravine Pool.

Lovely morning climb up to Monroe and back. Beats working for a living.

"Hey, Ari, do you want to pack?"

"Does the Pope shit in the woods?"

I refused to pack up much refuse, but did take a box of glass I threw at truck at the summit. It had cleared out but there weren't too many goofers there, so it was pretty nice. Some comments from goofers as to the size of my pack up; I'd rectify that shortly.

Then it was time to pack down. I could have taken 60 or 70 and been a help to the croo, but it is probably my only pack of the season, and I was feeling like 100, so I strapped on a 50 pound box of onions and a few more boxes and off I doddered. I packed down in under an hour, and the best part was that I didn't crump. Not a once did I set that baby down: 100 pounds on my back for close to an hour. I felt strong and alive. I am not old!

Running down the Ammy. Decently fast, but still never too comfortable on those rocks up top. Lots of people out on the trails today, too; every parking lot was spilling on to the roads. Drove around to Storehouse and got some lemonade for the Croo (powdered; they'd run out) and went to Carter.

Up the Nineteen Mile Brook Trail (NiMiBriTri) with about 30 pounds on my back. I made it to the lake and went for a swim. Not a bad trail to have to go up at a leisurely-but-fast pace.

Taking it easy at NP today after three medium-hard days and some playing in the Whites this weekend (so, who knows what that might entail!). But I ran hard through the gladiator section and embraced the dumb (burpies)

Dumb core.

Left home at 7:15 for a trip to Lakes. I'm hiking in the dark, I might as well miss traffic. Still lots of cars on the road. The hike was great. Cool, dark, a little rain. I had about 20 pounds on my back but no issue scampering right up the Ammy and then eating food in the hut and going right to sleep.

I was going to ride bikes during a long lunch. I came home, started to change, then it was hailing. So there went that. Oh, well. A deck instead.

We put a chicken in the oven, then ran, then ate chicken. This is life at 10 Lawrence.

Woohoo PR for 50 sections, and under 40 to boot! It was cloudy today, thank goodness, so I didn't overheat in the sun (but I had my bottle of ice water with me the whole time and it did wonders; at one point I lent it out to someone who was suffering. Hit the halfway mark at 19:00 and was feeling pretty good, but had a couple of "stop and try to cool off a little bit" moments on the way back. I had 2:33 to complete the last three sections and ran them in under 2 minutes, then went and hung out with a couple of other "go hard on the uphills" types who came in right after. (There are a lot of people who run down the stairs as fast as they can and then fast-hike up the stairs, which is probably a fine cardio workout, and overall faster, but you don't get the springy leg strength you do keeping your body upright, sprinting/bounding up the steps, and recovering going down. Then there are a couple of guys who go hardhardhard up and down; I'm hoping to do this when the weather cools off some.)

96 pulls on the rollerboard. Why 96? Because something got effed up with the board at 96 and it started binding and it was too dark to fix it.

70 pulls on the rollerboard before my hands got blisterdy.

Evening run because I wasn't on top of my game enough to run or bike in the morning. Came across Storrow at the Longfellow and decided to run the 5k time trial from Community Boating to River Street. Ran it in just over 20 minutes going at pretty even 6:45s and felt pretty good, then went and got all the food.

Slow run through the Blue Hills with Alex, Sam, Rob and a couple of juniors. Pretty slow, and a lot of let's-turn-around-to-keep-the-group-together, but that's okay. I did scamper down one downhill and almost keep pace with Alex, that felt good! I need to get better at that.

Traffic jam on the way down due to an accident; if I'd decided earlier I totally could have done the Red Line-240 bus trick (although harder on Sundays with schedules) and gotten there just as fast. Or ride bikes.

Ah, yes, hills. More climb over <3 miles than the previous 7. I moved pretty well up the hills with Sam, and then we waited for Alex and Rob. "Hey Alex, want to run up another hill?" Does the Pope shit in the woods?

C • Yes... And no? 1

Ran to meet Alex and Ed at a highway interchange. Worked perfectly!

Took a run up the course with ACJ. As usual, it's kind of good to check out a trail race course so you don't get lost.

People's Forest race. Really nice park out in a part of Connecticut I'd never been to. Drove out with Alex and Ed, took a warm up, and ran. I'd been lax on getting enough sleep all week an slept a bit on the way out, but was still not feeling like I'd do great. But it was cool and cloudy, and figured I'd have a fun run.

I went out and pretty quickly fell in to the chase pack about a mile in to the race. We had a couple of points where the people leading the pack missed a turn; I think a lot of hiking allows me to see blazes, but a better-marked course would be nice (i.e. flour/lime markings don't work in the rain; streamers would be helpful and easier to see). I was going pretty hard but not killing myself to keep up with the pack, and at one point thought of running ahead but never quite did.

Once we were up the steep second hill, the pack split up, and then reformed when I ran up a blazed trail which we were told to follow, but the arrows pointed elsewhere, and a bit further along a runner who was ahead and had gone straight came back down and met with us. Trail running!

Anyway, I was mostly alone down the last hill and finished in 7th. Still not great at running downhill, but managed to move my legs pretty fast. Also, I can run well on rocks when some others don't, but the long downhills are a bit harder. Then I won some award (cupcake) and did a cooldown and slept in the car (traffic!) on the way home.

Quick cooldown back on the race course.

Three runs up the hill, and then a bunch of ups and downs, and for good fun I bounded all the little hills on grass.