Sunday Jul 31 |
 | Note | |
| |
| Full Goose - Centennial Trail. Less spectacular but still not at all bad, particularly over Goose Eye Mountain in the early morning. 16 miles, some of it on roads after we bailed from Gentian Pond when one person's feet (not used to the Whites) started to get painfully bruised. |
Saturday Jul 30 |
| Note | |
| |
| Backpacking the Mahoosuc section of the AT with two Australian friends. Not pushing it too hard. Grafton Notch - Full Goose campsite. No geese, full or otherwise, were sighted, though the views were spectacular. 10 miles. |
Thursday Jul 28 |
| Running 1:00:35 [3] 8.08 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
| ahr:165 shoes: bruce |
| Memorial Park: yellow - orange - orange - Ho Chi Minh - green to Mem Drive (28:37) and back the reverse direction (30:00 ish) plus a brief warm down. Hot and humid although not as bad as Saturday (93F, dewpoint 70F). |
Wednesday Jul 27 |
| Bike 45:00 [3] | |
| |
| indoors at Claire's new apartment building. Astros vs Philadelphia. this bike measures distance differently from the other ones I've used: rather than the 1 minute = 0.36 miles no matter how hard you pedal rule, this one actually seems to respond to pressure! The wonders of technology. |
Tuesday Jul 26 |
| Note | |
| |
| spent all day moving Houston apartments. i appear to be allergic to something in the mothballs, and it was also 94F, sunny and humid. great day... but the new place is definitely a big improvement. |
Saturday Jul 23 |
| Running 1:03:05 [3] 8.41 mi (7:30 / mi) | |
| ahr:157 max:165 shoes: bruce |
| Memorial Park. KHOU reported 84F, dewpoint 75F. Under the trees at Memorial Park with the past week's rain still pooled everywhere, relative humidity must have been more like 100%. One of the more unpleasant runs I've had recently... although enlivened towards the end by fielding a phone call from Claire. Only problem was that the mosquitos were too ferocious to allow me to stop to talk, so I kept running (ahr 153 this section) and talked as I went. |
Thursday Jul 21 |
| Running 57:03 [3] 8.45 mi (6:45 / mi) | |
| ahr:170 max:178 shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| Fens loop. 75F/ 64F, light west breeze, earlier than usual and sunny. Working hard. |
Tuesday Jul 19 |
| Running 1:00:00 [3] 8.12 mi (7:22 / mi) | |
| ahr:162 max:171 shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| Museum / Weeks footbridge loop. 82F, dewpoint 71F. Would have been a real struggle if I hadn't been making an enormous effort to slow down and keep my heart rate below 164 (more successful in the second half), or if there hadn't been a 10mph westerly breeze providing a little relief. 8pm, darkening. Ugh. Although it's amazing how easy on the body 7:20/mile feels. I barely feel it at all the next morning, despite the weather conditions. |
Sunday Jul 17 |
| Orienteering 1:00:00 [2] **** 9 km (6:40 / km) | |
| shoes: sarva |
| Setting courses at Pawtuckaway with Matthias. The sprint series finals will, to overuse a phrase, be sweet, and you'll see Pawtuckaway in some ways you've never seen it before... and there will be some outstanding spectating to be had on the final sprint.
We spent about 4 hours out there; I've logged one hour for the running equivalent. Warm and humid (79F, dewpoint 70F at MHT); a couple of drops of rain but it held off until the drive back. |
Friday Jul 15 |
| Running 59:08 [3] 8.06 mi (7:20 / mi) | |
| shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| evening run at the fells. not pushing nearly as hard as yesterday (ahr probably in the low 160s). started off on the SW trails, cut to the Skyline going clockwise, then when it got dark near the northern end of the loop, switched to the MTB loop for a while, then back to the Skyline through the Sheepfold area and then back along the fire roads. 70F, still, dewpoint 64F. |
Thursday Jul 14 |
| Running 1:00:00 [3] 8.78 mi (6:50 / mi) | |
| ahr:169 max:176 shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| Olmstead loop. 81F, dewpoint 68F, 7:45pm. No wonder I was working hard - for some reason I didn't think it was quite that hot until I looked it up now. Not an unpleasant run, and quite productive of ideas.
The Globe had an interesting article about Japanese knotweed, that is, the leafy green plant that is choking waterways in the Fens and Olmstead Park. It's certainly doing a good job - it's pretty green and leafy in there. |
Wednesday Jul 13 |
| Note | |
| |
| apparently I am now a permanent resident of this fine country... |
| |
| C • 6 |
Tuesday Jul 12 |
| Running 49:11 [3] 7.08 mi (6:56 / mi) | |
| ahr:165 max:167 shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| Science Museum / River St loop. Cruising nicely. Cool but humid (64F, dewpoint 60F), and getting dark. Two days off after the weekend have fixed both any lactic acid and the flesh wounds from the spill. |
Saturday Jul 9 |
| Distance in terrain 44:00 [3] ** 4.0 mi (10:59 / mi) | |
| ahr:148 max:167 spiked:2/3c shoes: sarva |
| Genesis 12 hour AR, Cockaponset SF, Haddam and Chester CT, plus the Connecticut River and 10km of orienteering on Hurd SP. First co-ed. One nasty mtb spill making typing a little tricky this morning. Otherwise fun...
Total distance allegedly 8 miles paddle, 10 miles foot, 23 miles mtb.
Very dumb navigation mistake at CP2 (half asleep, very far off line left). |
| |
| C • 5 |
| Bike 1:16:00 [2] | |
| shoes: shimano m-180b |
| Through Cockaponset to Haddam Meadows SP. Mostly doubletrack, some sealed, more downhill than up. |
| Paddling 1:32:00 [2] | |
| shoes: sarva |
| Upstream to Hurd SP. We made a cunning plan to stay in the main channel to avoid what we thought would be excessively low water. We achieved a slow time due to paddling against an unnecessarily strong current. duh. |
| Orienteering 1:31:00 [3] *** 10.5 km (8:40 / km) | |
| spiked:19/22c shoes: sarva |
| Two loops at Hurd SP. Beautiful forest for New England in July - didn't even regret not wearing long pants. Screwed up two easy stone wall controls and was slightly unsure on another small re-entrant. Successfully ran away from NEARA... |
| Paddling 59:00 [2] | |
| shoes: sarva |
| back down with the current to Haddam Meadows. |
| Bike 2:07:00 [3] ** | |
| spiked:6/6c shoes: shimano m-180b |
| back uphill back to the finish. then back to CP18 which we had missed. then back to the finish again. beat EAS across the line the first time around, but not the second time!
took a spill coming down some loose rocks on a trail under the powerlines, which made me a bit wimpy for technical riding for the rest of the course. sounds like Joe crashed at the same place, so at least I wasn't alone... |
Friday Jul 8 |
| Note | |
| |
| Google Pedometer says my Arsenal loop is 9.80 miles. What did I say on 6/14/05? Answer: 9.80 miles. Not bad... |
Wednesday Jul 6 |
| Running 1:02:30 [3] 9.15 mi (6:50 / mi) | |
| shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| The rain which affected Boston all day broke off around 6pm and allowed me out for a Fens loop. Checked out the war memorial and the Kelleher rose garden nearby. The Muddy River was flowing like I've never seen it do before - at least below the Brookline Ave bridge (above it it was a larger lake than ever before - the lower trails were flooded in four or five places). Water level probably 2 or 3 feet higher than usual, which is a lot when it's usually only about 2 feet deep (I guess). It wasn't the only flooded area - Storrow Dr eastbound was closed for about 6 hours, and the Green line D branch for an hour or two.
Very enjoyable run - enough wind, not too hot (62F, dewpoint 61F), so much water around anyway that it was hard to notice any sweat, positive thoughts (and not about running or times), no bugs, and it just felt good in a way that only one run in a hundred does. |
Monday Jul 4 |
| Running 1:58:21 [3] * 14.79 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| ahr:156 max:166 slept:6.0 shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| I was going to go to Pawtuckaway today but just didn't feel like it. So I went out to Bradley Palmer State Park in Topsfield and Hamilton, MA, and did a tour of essentially all the trails (the thin black line is my route - it begins at the bridge in the center of the north edge and starts with junctions 4-3-5-26-...). Warm in the sun but not unpleasant running conditions (Beverly reported 69F at 9am rising to 73F by 11am, with dewpoint 54F); plenty of shade.
Didn't take it too hard ever; for the first 15 minutes I was deliberately going slow with a bit of lactic acid in the legs from yesterday, but after 25 minutes I settled into a nice steady pace. One gu at 67 minutes in. Carried a hydration pack. Then the game became to tour all the numbered junctions except a couple on the map edge (15, 69). It looks like I forgot 22 (technically) and 46-48 (the last because of the 48-49 trail being under water). Very few bugs, incidentally. Don't know what all you Western Mass types are complaining about.
I didn't run off trail, but the forest looked mostly quite nice but extremely bland (I only saw one mappable rock all day). What this area would be good for is mountain bike orienteering, though (particularly since it links to Willowdale SF across the road - that is a run for another day). The trails are a mix of fast doubletrack and singletrack that becomes slow when muddy (otherwise fast). It would be great.
Three deer, a few chipmunks, a squirrel, some small birds, and some miscellaneous but not irritating insects. The nicest parts were the reflections of the pine trees in the river, the views across some of the old fields (still mowed by the look of them), and the fact I saw about 10 people in 2 hours. |
Sunday Jul 3 |
| Bike 2:00:00 [2] | |
| shoes: michael |
| Riding around Martha's Vineyard with Lachlan. Mostly on roads / sealed bike paths, but with a small amount of dirt roads and about 400 yards of overgrown single track in the state forest in the center of the island. Vineyard Haven - forest - Gay Head - back to forest - Oak Bluffs - Vineyard Haven. Maybe 30-35 miles. Logged as two hours of training, though definitely more saddle time.
I can't say I really see the attraction of Martha's Vineyard. It's pretty, but it's basically just an island with scrubby forest and a few beaches, a couple of colorful cliffs, and some stupid-looking wooden houses. I was hoping for something more Scottish-looking (bogs, windswept marshes, and the like; maybe some sand dunes too). Is Nantucket the same or different? Any point in me going given my revealed preferences? |
| |
| C • small world 2 |
Friday Jul 1 |
| Running 57:30 [4] 6.9 mi (8:20 / mi) | |
| shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| Middlesex Fells Skyline. First time in sixteen months. Pushing quite hard; felt good allowing for the humidity and yesterday's running. 57:30; about a minute behind my real PB and 1:41 behind my notional PB of 55:49 (adjusted) - conditions much tougher today though, so not bad. It's been a while. I'm not sure running this very often is good for you, but once in a while isn't too bad. All those rocks... Nearly rolled my left ankle a few times, but kept on the safe side of injury each time. 69F, dewpoint 66F, on the edge of what one could call 'foggy' (could barely see downtown from Pine Hill). |
| Running 11:00 [2] 1.22 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: engelbert humperdinck |
| warmup/down. warm down was up to the Pine Hill tower, then gazing at the view (no bugs up there in the breeze) and then back down. |
