Training Log Archive: Ari-o

NP Chi has PR day on the last Friday. Still pretty shot from a long week and some beers and from the burpies, I wasn't about to set a PR. So I ran the circuit, chatted with people, and on the 7th lap, as I attempt to go up the big steps, I slipped and slammed my right shin in to the step. By the time I got back to the start I had an extra kneecap.

It looked real bad. Not broken, since I was walking, but like what happens when a cartoon person is hit on the head and it just swells way out. Someone had ice, so I stopped and put the leg up and iced it. It didn't hurt that much, but I figured it would come later. The swelling went down, when you hit a bone it can only swell out. But it looked real bad! Took the train home.

To the train, then to NP, then back to the train.

Core with NP. Various things, choose your own adventure, and then 7 minutes of burpies. I lost track of how many, but it was good.

Out to WaWa to warm up with the juniors for Alex's WaWa time trial. Legs still a little tired, but we'll see.

CSU time trial! I went out at the back of the pack, pretty slow, to feel my legs out. They felt pretty okay. So I started pushing up the pack. I passed a bunch of kids, giving mostly encouragement, and L4ed most of the way up the hill. Wachusett is definitely trail running! Legs pretty shot near the top, though.

Then a group hike/jog down the hill. Then ice cream. Watch band broke.

Up to the Bigelows with Lincoln and Jess. Picked them up at B21 after Lincoln and I took a spin to check out snow conditions. Looked not too bad, but definitely snow on the north side.

We started out at a nice jog and got a hill a mile in at which point my legs remembered that marathon 6 days ago and a couple of miles away. I'd be doing some hiking up the hills. We went up to Horns because the pond looked beautiful (and was) and then up to the South Horn, with some snow and postholing. We debated going across the ridge and decided that a) there might be a lot of snow and b) my legs were not up for it. So we jogged down from whence we came, and that's such a lovely trail.

Turns out we passed someone on Strava who did the ridge, and her post was "so much postholing" so … yeah.

Last year on May 24 I ran the Franconia Loop in the afternoon. It was dry.

The report from today: "There is deep snow on the Falling Waters trail. Those attempting the loop should bring snowshoes and micro spikes."

And it's 25˚ on the summit right now so it's not about to melt out.

Went to NP for pack day (packboard fits well in a Hubway basket) but my legs were not up for many stairs.

I did carry Joev's gravel to his car afterwards.

Would be more fun >3 days post marathon.

Run, strides and drills around the campground, then a walk with friends I found back to the start.

So. Goal was 2:55, B goal was sub-3, C goal was 3:03 BQ-2 (should be fine with the new standards).

Cool, cloudy, spitting rain. They lined us all up at 7 and then the start was delayed because of some late-arriving buses. At 7:05 I asked "when are we starting?" and someone said "7:10" and then 100 people ran in to the woods to pee (me included) so, you're welcome.

Gun went off and I started strong. 6:25s, legs felt good, weather great. Holding this would be about 2:50, and no reason I couldn't right? Low L3, good turnover, feeling good.

That lasted about 4 miles. My calves got tight. That's not good. Something I could run through, but early. I started getting passed some, and fell apart a bit on the hills, 7:20s there. So with a strong PR out, I settled for staying under 7s and going for goal B. It was raining more by now, my feet were wet, and I really couldn't run hard down the hills. Pretty quickly I realized that all I really wanted was the BQ, so off to goal C it was.

I ran several miles with Mark Vautour who was shooting for about the same time. We dragged each other through 7:15s once it flattened out, passed some people who had died, got passed by some people who were going faster, and finished in 3:02:49. Also my watch died at mile 26.

Which means my last three marathons have all been 3:02s.

Wasn't particularly happy with the race, but then again after stressful school time and not great training and the Billygoat trashing my legs and not great sleep, I'll take it. Then I ate a lot of food at the end, and got one of the massages, and was behind a guy in line who was bitching about the race and other races and, dude, just be positive about this, you are standing up, you ran a marathon, so yeah the weather wasn't great, but it's Type 2 fun and you're done. My mom talked to him some which was good because I couldn't take it. Also while I was getting a massage my parents took my wet shoes off: I was very pampered.

Then we went to camp, where we got a fiddlehead quiche on the way (unbelievable) and I took a shower (also unbelievable). Still in the "fuck marathons" stage but that will pass! NYC in Nov.

C • Woo! 3

Forecast for Sunday:

Race start in the low 40s. Rising to about 50.

Calm.

Cloudy.

This is pretty damn close to perfect for me.

A couple of errands to run, so a shakeout running around Cambridge.

Quick run when I had time (barely any) to stay sane.

30 30 60 60 30 pickups on the other side of the river.

Tapering is going exceedingly well!

Event: Billygoat 41
 

So, last time I went to O at Burnt Mountain was a couple weeks in to grad school. My orienteering was not good. Thierry won in 1:25 and I finished in nearly 4:00. (He beat everyone by 15 minutes, of course.) Way overtime. Lots of lost. No following.

But it's fun terrain, at least.

So this time, my goal was to get a t-shirt. How long could it be? How hard could it be? Oh, hard. Wet. Fun.

They gave us 20 minutes to get to the start which was a 4 minute walk, so lots of standing around. Finally they said go and I put my head down and ran with the pack up a trail. Follow to 1, up a hill, see who I can stay with. This worked well. I had barely any idea where I was, but I at least was with the leaders. I'd even checked the map, skips looked like 17 and 23.

Then to 2. Got there with the pack. As it was leaving, Wyatt said "is there a stick in my eye?" Well, yes, there was. About 1" long. It took me a couple of tries, I got it out, and he darted off. I ran off behind him, trying to maintain pack contact, except a) he was faster and b) I didn't want a stick in my eye. So I lost the pack.

It took me a minute to figure out the contours to 3 (oh, the actual hill) and then ran with Balter and some others to 4 and not a great route to 5 (but I think south was right). Punched there and 6 with Jimmy, then cut out to the upper trail to 7 with him, after some discussion if we should go to the lower one which another runner did. Good decision. Very bad execution. We somehow never found it, and ran parallel to it, down some big cliffs, and then finally found the lower trail, losing 8 minutes in the process. So now we caught Magnus and the Halls and ran 9-10-11 (overran 11) with them.

For 13 I ran the road and then in to the woods, which was just as fast, thej 14-15-16 with the pack. Jimmy and I almost skipped 17 (which would have been a good skip) and I led to 18. Everyone there was going right to 19, but the attack to 20 looked horrendous, with the Halls mumbling something about a plan. But that looked silly, so I went my own way.

Navigated pretty well to 19, a bit south and had to run up along the swamp (didn't want to go through) and fell and bashed my leg. Well, yay for long pants? Great run down to 20 and then didn't find the control in the circle (so many dot hills) and then on to 21. The map didn't show the impassable, brand-new beaver dam which was ankle deep, so my shoes were nice and soaked, and then ran 21-22 and bumbled my way to 24 (23 being a pretty mediocre skip) and the finish.

Turns out the pack went from 19 to 21, on a trail, which looked splendid, while I was bashing and falling and going through swamps. A good plan indeed, and worth about 10 minutes.

So, a couple of big mistakes, a bad skip, and some mediocre navigation. Plus a dog tick and some blood. But it was fun!

Billygoat - Splits

Warm up, cool down

Crazy day staying crazy. I had to drop my car at MIT with my sister to bring my tires to Melrose, so I ran from there. Got to the other side of the river and wanted to do 2x10 minute intervals at my reach goal marathon pace.

Marathon goals (edited, thanks Cristina):
Reach 6:40 - 2:55
A 6:50 - 2:59
B 7:00 - 3:03

The intervals went well: negative splits, L3 but not L4, and legs felt pretty good. Right about where I was before I PRed the half last fall. As long as the weather holds, I should be in good shape.

Now, Billygoat, and then just a whole lot of taperfesting.

C • Marathon goals 3

Interstitials, strides, drills, etc.

Track! Legs still feeling Sisters, so I was going to play it by ear.

Workout was 8-8-6-6-6-6-4-4-4-2-2

We ran the 800s in 2:50, the 600s in 2:06-->2:03 and then my Sisters legs said no more on the first 400. Plus I don't really need that right now with two weeks to the marathon, so I cut it short there before things blew up. Not quite as fast as last week, but with dirtier legs.

Legs sore, but good sore.

Still pretty happy with yesterday's race, and it should bode well for a marathon in a couple of weeks (and not that much longer of running even with 2.5x the mileage).

Looking at the Stravas, I definitely need to get better at going downhill. I'll give myself a degree of difficulty with the wetness, and my shoes were pretty on-point, but I still lost time on the downs to most of the people. Tapering a bit more would have helped, stronger would have helped, but still lots of fun.

Lots of work for the next two weeks … forced taper.

Walked up to the registration table at Sisters. "You look ready to go!"

"Yes," I said, "ready to go pee."

And that's just what I did.

Let's look back at the past few years Sisters times from AP. (Also, I'm not crazy, Park-O used to be on Thursdays.)

2018: 2:26:45
2017: 2:27:40 day before the Billygoat
2016 (no race because marathon-mageddon, but a 3-ish hour group run later in the month)
2015: 2:32:01 (warm day)
2014: 2:31:30 (day after trail running at Harriman)

So this year was a 3 minute PR. Considering the conditions, that's not bad at all!

My rider bailed so I sailed out the Pike and parked in the usual parking clusterfuck. Said hi to Team Giggles and NP people and then lined up for the start. It had been advertised as 70 and sunny earlier this week, but the short range models kept low levels cool, and we got what seems to be kind of typical Sisters weather: cool and cloudy with the ridge in the fog.

Go and we were off. My legs felt not great up the first climb. Strava will sometimes show me previous efforts (although apparently not all of them anymore without paying, but at least the PR). Apparently I was 25s behind 2015 up this climb. I settled in a bit after that, got passed by Kelsey and then ran for a while with the second place woman. She seemed tentative and asked me if I'd done this before. It was her first time. At one point she ran away: bye!

The trail was kind of sloppy in places but really not too bad. I got passed by a couple of people down the long hill and ran in to the finish right in front of someone. Up to the food table: "ooh candy!" I was the first one to take candy. Stuffed some in my face and started bleeding sugar in to my mouth. Twizzlers, Swedish Fish, etc. This was not too bad.

Most of my times on the way out were in my top three best, and I PRed on the way out, but only by 10s over last year. But I felt good at the turn, and pushed up the hill, passing a couple of guys along the way, and got some water at the road. Some muddy sections what with 600 footsteps, but still nothing too bad. Then there are a couple of "easy" miles from the Summit House to the last water stop (ha, easy) and the the climbs up Hitchcock. Which are brutal. But I had a secret weapon. As I slow-hiked up the first pitch, I grabbed a double-caffeine gel out of my pocket, squeezed it out, and washed it down. Rocket fuel.

I did not feel pain the rest of the race. Caught someone on the hills (I think) and dropped him pretty quickly, and then kept on running where I could to the top, and down. My grade-adjusted pace went up, peaking at a 2:09 (an 11:23 mile up a 45˚ slope, so that may be an estimate). The finish downhill was sketchy as usual, but I made it in to the finish in one piece, not too muddy, and in pretty good spirits. And then ate pizza.

Sisters is such a great race. Super low-key. Amazing feed. Super-duper hard: as much climbing as running up Mount Adams from Appalachia or Washington from Pinkham and down again, and over about the same distance. Just not all at once. And maybe with worse footing. I <3 sisters.

Then we got ice cream.

C • 3-minute PR 2

After finishing, I grabbed a cowbell and hiked up the first hill to cheer!

NP was go out and try to get back, or as I coined it, pace yourself before you race yourself.

Oh and my legs were Not Recovered after track yesterday, not one bit. So I went nice and slow, L1 stairs until I got called out for using the railings on the way back and did a couple sprints just to prove EmSauce wrong.

Made it back with time to spare, so three more sections. Now, 72 hours of pre-Sisters taper.

To/from NP.