Training Log Archive: Tundra/Desert

Managed le Grand Tour. Ran into Nadja Dessinova (with skiing poles, no less) who I hadn't seen in ages. It was a bit icy, which helped with the marshes.

Towards the end, closer to the metro elevated, not particularly deep into the woods, there was a large group of male youths in dark outerwear having some kind of semi-disciplined gathering. I don't know if they were Putin Youths or something more or less sinister. Certainly a contrast with carefree packs of orienteering/xc-skiing kids one would normally encounter in such environments.

This is all I could manage for the week... going to shoot for 8 hours for the next week, not sure how well it will work out with the NY/Chicago trip.

Interfax today wrote about some Moscow City construction being frozen effective today.



I looked out the window, and sure enough, the mega-project next block appeared stalled. They must have stopped just yesterday. The cranes are still up. A lone worker was loading construction garbage in a truck. The guest workers must be pondering the choice of a return to Dushanbe vs. unemployment on Moscow streets.





I should blog more, I guess. I should blog, period, now that I have so much time on my hands to witness the slow (or not so slow) decay around the world. Anyways, in some very detailed analysis the Moscow Times on Wednesday made a believable case that Russian collapse may ikely go by the pathway of the failure of the electricity distribution system. It has been freshy privatized, is loaded with debt, has no cash and customers are withholding payments.

I remember getting a ride with my boss in oh say 2005, maybe early 2006, and how while passing through East Palo Alto we talked about this exact thing happening, down to the details of the credit markets freezing and bank failures, and the only thing that remains to be seen is whether the Treasury defaults soon or in 10–15 years. If I had money I would bet on the latter, but now it looks like all things are possible. We are in uncharted territory. This reserve balances chart should give everyone pause.

C • I thought everything was frozen... 6

Ran to the Avangard for an interval session. Workers were digging ground in the park for new benches and something that looked like it could possibly be a nature walk. At least the city still has money.

The stadium (which belongs to the Ministry of the Emergency Situations) was nearly empty, only a few dog walkers, kid walkers, and Emercom types mulling around. The types didn't kick me out. There was fewer traffic on Enthusiastov, less exhaust; drivers are supposed to have switched to winter tires by now and I'm sure quite a few can't afford it.

The surface was as challenging as ever, with just a bit of ice in addition to the usual holes between the twenty-year-old tiles that had gathered some pools of water. I ran 3×1600 at T with one-minute rest, under a freshly painted sign that said "SPORT IS POWER, YOUTH, BEAUTY, HEALTH." On the bleachers, three youths were initializing some beers. I was the only one on the track.

The times were 6:48, 6:47, 6:46.

Ran back. It was still well before dark at 4 pm.

It snowed all day, at times heavily. And, I was low on energy, having not eaten much protein in the recent days. So I cooked some burgers, ate them, and fell asleep.

So shortly after I woke up, at 4 am Friday, I went running the loop. I found four people in the park and one dog (with one of the people). It was pleasant. Most of the snow had melted and it felt warm.

The atmospheric pressure had fallen so much that the altitude measured over 250 meters too high. HR readings were erratic.

Spent all morning trying to recreate the Middle day of FPXI (that's 2007, at Miami Whitewater North). Got to a point that I only had one leg that I was quite unsure where I was, in the middle of it. For the rest, I kept remembering enough things to draw the route more or less confidently; I was, however, aided immensely by the Polar altitude record. This is probably the most I can abuse my memory, as I hadn't as much as looked at the map in the 20 months since the run, trying to forget my miserable adventure at #17.

Ran The Loop at T, or the best approximation to T I could put together after sitting on my butt all day and doing nothing. It was past dark. I was the only runner in the woods with a lamp; there were quite a few others. Snowflakes were falling but the pavement wasn't yet frozen.

Not particularly productive today, either.

A very sprinty Score-O in the morning in Izmailovskiy Park, right by the apartment. The start was at a playground at which the only known pictures of me at age 4 were made.

This series of events is called Snezhnaya Tropa—Snow Trail—but there is still no snow whatsoever. There sure were lots of trails. The format was get 17 out of 22. I took one sneak peek at the map just to see which way to go out of the start, but didn't do any planning before punching the start unit. Turned out my guess for the way to go was suboptimal. Right afterwards, I thought I hit the sequence this time quite well with the only exception of the first control, #52, which was best taken next-to-last.

I thought then that my choice of the 17 was correct. But then after perusing the split analysis, it turned out that it wasn't worth it at all to go to #52; getting #45 instead of it as the next-to-last saved 29 s to the Superman, so would have saved some 36 s to me. The Superchoice included some farther-out controls but the above, ending 45–46–F, was only 5 s Superslower.

After the finish, Kolya Sytov awarded me with a mug for my 3rd place in M35 for the MosMeridian... second season I do it (first time was Spring of 2002), and second mug! wow. The first one is currently brightening up the SRS lunchroom.

Ran to the hash, assembly place at metro Novogireevo: 1 (took exactly the same route as on Thursday night to the orienteering, but stayed on the east side of Svobodny), 2. The altimeter noised up.

The hash (or something like it) in the afternoon in Park Kuskovo. The group was small and the highlight was a missing beer stop; the beer runner ended up in the wrong park!

Climb is from the O-map of the park, with some guesses for the non-park portion.

We found the randomest place for a down-down, a summer cafe with a few millimeters' thick layer of dust on the tables and benches, across the elevated highway from the park. The owner, though, was super nice, and seemed to get what the whole gathering was about. I left after the down-downs, taking the subway.

This town is definitely best taken slightly drunk. Note slightly.