Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Track! This felt … not great. On my own, too, and a little warmer than expected, but okay, I guess. I figured I'd just do 5x800. First one was 3:00. Not great. Next one was 3:04. Really not great. Now I figured I'd try to focus, and if I couldn't make it under 3:00 I'd go home.

2:55.

Better. But really pushing.

2:57. Okay, staying under 3. Oh, and the new watch doesn't seem to have a lap function (!) so I had to look at splits. I think a new watch might be coming soon.

Last one. All out. No watch looking … 2:51.

Okay, so that felt a little better.

C • Track 2

Run there, back and interstitials.

We were supposed to go slow and chat. So I went slow and chatted.

Stayed up in Maine an extra evening since it was supposed to be mostly sunny in the morning. Well that was a nice thought, but it was cloudy all morning and a bit misty. Still, the roads dried off some and I had lugged my bike all the way north so needed an excuse to use it. Which I did.

Down to North Wayne, then to Winthrop. Along the next lake, where the road was nice but pavement wasn't great, then rolling up the hills in Readfield. Nice riding, lots of hills, basically no traffic other than 133.

Out for a long run in the afternoon … when the rain was supposed to be lighter or more intermittent (it was not supposed to start until after noon, but the morning downpours put an end to that.

60s and moist for the first five miles, then downpours. So I got wet. Felt fine, but certainly not fast, and pretty sluggish near the end, but I'll blame the weather.

Out to Chesterville for some skiing … figured I'd go easy on my legs after yesterday's fun, probably the right decision. DP out, with some speeds, then skating back. Nice roads!

Hard time making decisions today. I was up at 0615 and Lincoln was doing a Presi Traverse, and I almost jumped in to action for that except I would have had to a) not sleep two more hours, b) the weather on the ridge looked cloudy and windy and c) Labor Day weekend = crowding. My parents' friends were visiting and one of them was going up to Saddleback to do something (which would have worked well had I wanted to repeat last summer's 33 miles sufferfest) but that seemed like a bit much, even if I now have a water filter. Plus he was leaving early and then hiking with an AMC group with an unknown pace/finishing/meeting time. The decision was to go back to sleep.

Good decision.

I decided to head to the Wild River Wilderness. Reasonably close, new trails and, I figured, less crowded. I was right: I pulled into the Burnt Mill parking lot at the trailhead and I was the only car there. So I set off jogging. Steep bits up the trail and I attained the ridge seeing no one (saw maybe 20 people all day, about 1 MPG which is not bad for a holiday weekend) and then shuffled along the ridge. Climb up West Royce, then a long descent, and then a rolling ascent. Portions runnable, some nice views, and a lovely day.

I got up to the Baldface Circle trail, which had more traffic, and took a right down Eagle Link, which had decidedly less. This was the slowest going of the day. The trail was overgrown with bushes which made the footing hard to see, so I spent a good deal of time making sure not to trip. It was interspersed with nice woodsy runnable sections, but the overgrown sections were tough. The availability of raspberries did not help my speed.

But right around mile 10 of the whole thing, I hit the runnable trail. From there on out, with a couple of minor exceptions, the whole trail was runnable. I kind of knew this but it is always nice laying down 8s and 9s on a trail, you feel like you are flying. Then I hit the road back to the car and raun some sub-8s, which was good, because I need to do marathon training, and running sub-8s at the end of a long "run" is probably not too bad.

On the way out I pulled off by the side of the road and ran down and lay in the river which was refreshing but decidedly not cold. Then I saw a car stopped in the middle of the road by a bog and I figured "there must be a moose" and yup browsing across the bog was a moose so I looked at the moose.

It was Indian(a Jones) runs today at NP. I went out with the front but my legs were maybe tired. Lasted three full repeats of the hills and then dropped off for the last one (and went and took the stairs up). Glad I'd gone hard, though, was plenty warm enough to jump in the pool.

More garbage GPS. GPS gave away nearly 100m of elevation (luckily I know how much each hill is) because, who knows. One issue is that Garmin/Strava doesn't ground truth, so if the barometric elevation is off it just keeps the garbage. But really have not been impressed with this watch (and may jump ship to a Suunto).