Friday Sep 29 |
 | Orienteering 1:00:34 [3]4.8 km (12:37 / km) | |
| |
| Orange course from my Norwottuck meet a couple of years ago. 2-3 minutes of mistakes. Seems I always mess something up running on this map, usually involving unmapped or poorly mapped trails. |
Thursday Sep 28 |
| machines 40:00 [3] | |
| |
| 10 minutes on elliptical. Foot started hurting almost right away, so switched to the bike for 30 minutes. |
Wednesday Sep 27 |
| Road Run 33:56 [3]4.1 mi (8:17 / mi) | |
| |
| UMass loop after dark. Slow start, but a decent pace the last two miles. Foot started hurting just a few minutes before the end. |
Tuesday Sep 26 |
| machines (elliptical) 30:00 [3] | |
| |
| |
Sunday Sep 24 |
| Trail Run 6:31:17 [3]26.2 mi (14:56 / mi) | |
| |
| My Greylock Trail Marathon. A grand tour of the mountain with five major climbs, about 6000 feet. They put this race on once before in 1998; I didn't do it then, but thought I'd like to do it once before I die. (Once is enough.) Dewpoint and temp were well into the 60's at the 8:00 start; but it rained a bit and started to cool near the top as a cold front came through mid-race. Slow pace, but exactly what I expected and wanted (4 miles per hour average). Walked all the major ups; jogged all the flats and downs. No one went by me over the last 10 miles. I was with Wayne S for much of it, but I left him behind on Adams Road. No bonking at this pace, just very depleted and tired legs. And lots of foot problems.
Left foot: I wore o-shoes because I don't usually get as much nerve pain as with trail shoes; but it was painful on the ups after the first hour, and just barely tolerable on the downs. And I really felt the lack of cushioning on the rocky trails.
Right foot: I had a blister from earlier in the week on the side of my foot, a button size hole where the outer layer of skin had ripped off. By the 8 mile aid staion, the bandage I had on it had come off, and I was heading for a level of pain I couldn't deal with. After trying to make a wet spare band-aid and some old, non-sticky duct tape work, without success, I thought I was done. But then they found a thin red tape in the trunk, just wide enough to cover the hole, and just long enough to wrap all the way around my foot. I tied my shoe as tight as I could and, miraculously, it held for the rest of the run. But it turned out there was a pebble in the shoe under my foot that I had to leave there for 18 miles: couldn't risk taking the shoe off!
Fred Pilon was there, apparently healthy again and training. He passed me at around 15 miles on one of the steep uphills, moving well, and finished in about 6:10. And Eric Moore, my former student and running partner was there, in pretty good shape after doing triathlons over the summer, finishing in 5:45. Ben Nephew won it in just under four hours: pretty impressive on that course! |
| |
| C • Congrats for finishing, though... 7 |
Saturday Sep 23 |
| Note | |
| |
| An hour of squash with Adam. Fun: first time I've played in many years. It used to be my main game from when I was a grad student at Princeton, through my nine years teaching at Yale. But it's too high brow for UMass. |
| |
| C • So maybe we ought to have a sq... 6 |
Friday Sep 22 |
| Note | |
| |
| Felt like crap: cold worse, and long work day. |
Thursday Sep 21 |
| machines (precor elliptical) 20:00 [3] | |
| |
| Developed a secondary infection from the cold. So it won't go away any time soon. |
Wednesday Sep 20 |
| Road Run (hills) 52:39 [3]6.0 mi (8:46 / mi) | |
| |
| Around Amherst, with four repeats of the steepest hill within a couple miles (Clark Hill Road, between N. and E. Pleasant). Not much energy, but put out a decent effort on the hills. Cold pretty much gone already, but left foot still bothering me.
2:12, 2:05. 2:02, 1:58. |
Tuesday Sep 19 |
| Trail Run 57:25 [2]6.0 mi (9:34 / mi) | |
| |
| Frost to Juggler and back. Warm and muggy. Very slow pace, mainly because my left foot neuroma was bothering me the whole way. Dump the shoes? |
Monday Sep 18 |
| Note | |
| |
| The cold that had been coming on all weekend has blossomed big time. No running today. |
Sunday Sep 17 |
| |
| Event: 2006 Sprint Series Finals
|
| Orienteering race 13:49 [5]*** 2.4 km (5:45 / km) | |
| spiked:14/14c |
| Sprint Finals, round 1. A very good run. But I had three faster runners in my heat - Patrick Shannon, Gerald Yip, and Jeff Saeger - so no chance to move to the A group unless someone choked. Patrick and Gerald were a bit ahead. I traded places a couple times with Jeff early on, but then they all dropped me on the long open field run to 11. Then I was on my own until I caught up to George at the end (he started 2 minutes ahead). Maybe if I had had fresher legs? In any case, this is the fastest per k time I've ever raced, though I don't pretend I would have gone that fast entirely on my own. |
| Orienteering race 21:38 [5]*** 2.3 km (9:24 / km) | |
| spiked:11/14c |
| Round 2, lots of woods running, so a lot slower than round 1, and my legs were pretty tired. But still a good run, only a little over a minute in mistakes. Had Dave Onkst, George, and Valery in my group. We scattered going to three, then I caught up to Dave at 4, but he blew 5 and I never saw anyone again until near the end of the race when Karl Alswede, and some Heat 1 guys caught me. First in my group, so moved on to the B final. |
| Orienteering race 28:25 [5]*** 2.6 km (10:56 / km) | |
| spiked:8/15c |
| B Final, with Karl, Charlie, and Dean. The A loop went OK, but went totally brain dead on the B loop. Many mistakes, including two big ones where I couldn't relocate in the maze of buildings and small trails. Awful. Not a good way to end an otherwise fine weekend of orienteering. |
| |
|
Sprint #1 - short - Splits |
| |
|
Sprint #2 - short - Splits |
| |
|
Sprint FINAL - short - Splits |
Saturday Sep 16 |
| |
| Event: 2006 Sprint Series Finals Festival
|
| Orienteering race 1:30:54 [4]*** 8.6 km (10:34 / km) | |
| spiked:19/19c |
| DVOA weekend at Hickory Run, Farsta and sprint finals. Three good races, and then a total bomb. The best was the Farsta. I wasn't moving all that well in the often thick and rocky terrain, but I made no mistakes to speak of (just a few hesitations, and came into the rocky reentrant a bit high, maybe 15 seconds to run down to it). I don't think I've ever done that before for an advanced course. |
| |
|
Farsta - Splits |
Friday Sep 15 |
| grass 28:56 [3]3.8 mi (7:37 / mi) | |
| |
| 4 laps around UMass field, comfortable pace (though it felt a bit humid again). 7:33, 7:10, 7:03, 7:10 |
Thursday Sep 14 |
| machines (elliptical, h13) 30:00 [3] | |
| |
| At Smith, after dark. Couldn't get away from work during daylight yesterday or today. |
Tuesday Sep 12 |
| Track (tempo) 19:57 [4]3.0 mi (6:39 / mi) | |
| |
| Smith track, unseasonably cool. Steady hard effort, but enough slower than race pace to be comfortable and in control. Every 200 was within a fraction of 50 seconds; then a final 47. |
| dirt 22:00 [3]2.75 mi (7:59 / mi) | |
| |
| Two miles before with Rich G.; short cooldown after. |
Sunday Sep 10 |
| Orienteering 1:22:25 [4]6.3 km (13:05 / km) | |
| spiked:6/11c |
| Red course. Put a new contact in, and it felt fine. Not a lot of energy, especially going through the thick stuff, and lost 3-4 minutes being sloppy on #2, and maybe another 3 minutes total on 4, 5, 6, 7, but mostly felt I was reading the map and navigating well. Nice course, with a mix of challenges. |
| Note | |
| |
| Got home from Pawtuckaway and had to go straight to the department picnic (after showering!). Played about hour and a half of softball, frisbee, and bocce, but not aerobic enough to log the time. |
| |
|
Red Day 2 - Splits |
Saturday Sep 9 |
| |
| Event: UNO Camping Weekend
|
| Orienteering 26:20 [2]2.3 km (11:27 / km) | |
| |
| Started the camping weekend doing a yellow with Adam, letting him navigate, making sage comments when appropriate, and a couple of major corrections. |
| Orienteering 1:20:00 [3]5 km (16:00 / km) | |
| |
| Then I did the green while Adam did the white. First DNF in 5 years (when I injured my hip at Paugusset), and normally I would finish a course even if I had to crawl, but this race was special. Here are some of the problems I had. Something was wrong with my contact from the start, and it was irritating my eye; that, and the lack of focus where my footing was, caused a couple of really nasty, painful falls early on, and a slip off some rocks into an ankle deep marsh. By the time I was approaching 8, I had lost about 5 minutes on a small reentrant at 4, and a minute on 6. Then I got nailed by a swarm of wasps. Second time this has happened to me at Pawtuckaway. Counting the welts on my body now, I'd say I got 8 stings: legs, back, and one, on the back of the neck, that was especially painful. After outrunning the wasps, I just walked for a while to assess the damage. Then I rubbed my sore eye and, poof, the contact was gone and the map was a blur (no magnifier). I found 8 (after maybe a 2 minute error), walked to 9, checked my watch and saw I would be really late for Adam: I had told him I'd be back in 60-70 minutes at most, and didn't want to piss him off. So I went straight back. |
| Orienteering 42:00 [3]3.5 km (12:00 / km) | |
| |
| Vampire-O with Adam. Got all 18 controls, thanks to getting a fast start and being the first to #11 with the holy water (pretects against vampires). Downside was that I had to carry the gallon jug of water around for most the course (filled 2/3 up). Thought about dumping the water and refilling at the end, but the pale yellow color of the water would have given it away (Hmm, pale yellow, that suggests a way to do this ... nah, that would be cheating.) We kept up a jog the whole way, but after the first few controls, Adam was content to have me do the navigating. We were the second team, one of only two teams to get them all (first was Childs mom and younger son, who got the ghost sheet): but that's because without protection, you always get vamped. We would have been vamped at least 5 times. Lots of fun. |
Thursday Sep 7 |
| grass 20:42 [4]2.85 mi (7:16 / mi) | |
| |
| 3 laps around the (now shrunken) UMass fields. All I could fit in between teaching and Adam's birthday dinner. Legs felt good again (finally). 7:17, 6:51, 6:33. |
Wednesday Sep 6 |
| Trail Run 51:32 [4]6.2 mi (8:18 / mi) | |
| weight:148lbs |
| Frost to Atkins Reservoir and back. Left quad not quite right, but put out a decent effort anyway. 8:27, 5:08, 2:25, 6:22, 5:00 (27:23), 5:14, 4:51, 2:13, 4:26, 7:24 (24:08) |
Tuesday Sep 5 |
| Trail Run 38:20 [2]4.3 mi (8:54 / mi) | |
| |
| Frost to the stone wall, then back via the tree farm and the fourth hole of the Cherry Hill golf course. Very stiff and slow to start - Wapack did a number on my quads - but moving somewhat better by the end. |
Monday Sep 4 |
| cycling 1:12:46 [3] | |
| |
| Westhampton-Leeds loop, easy pace on sore legs. But seems to have helped. |
Sunday Sep 3 |
| Trail Run 3:54:56 [3]18.0 mi (13:03 / mi) | |
| |
| Wapack trail race, third time. Drove up with Peter -- otherwise I might have bagged it given how hard it was raining in Northampton at 6:30. But I didn't want to be the one to wimp out. It rained for most of the race, and the trails were very wet and muddy, and the rock slippery. I felt fine to the turnaround, which I left at 1:43; but I had some problems on the way back. 1. Came off the wrong trail from the top of Watatic (fooled by some old faded blazes); lost at least 5 minutes. 2. My Morton's neuroma was very painful from about 2 1/2 hours on; I kept fiddling with my shoe, eventually leaving the laces totally loose, but nothing worked. 3. Too long for me, given my lack of weekly mileage and long runs! Still, strangely, I'm glad I went. If nothing else, it's good training for the Highlander. |
Saturday Sep 2 |
| Trail/Road Run 46:32 [3]5.5 mi (8:26 / mi) | |
| |
| Outer loop, easy pace. |