Saturday Jun 30 |
 | Trail/Road Run 2:25:00 [2] 13.0 mi (11:09 / mi) | |
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| Convinced Peter to do some LSD (as they used to say: long slow distance), the kind of rogaine training where you don't chase a little white ball. Peter wanted to check out Hawley State Forest (aka Kenneth Dubuque State Forest) in the northern Berkshires. It was very nice with an extensive network of trails and unused dirt roads. We took off with no set plan and toured a good number of the trails and roads east of rte 8a. Perfect conditions for it with temp in 70's and low humidity. I wore a camelback, and had plenty of liquid. The pace was relaxed throughout, walking even moderate uphills; and I felt good to the end.
Forerunner lost the satellite in a deep reentrant, so not sure of the mileage. From where I restarted, Forerunner said 7.77, sportstrack said 8.52. Who knows?
I got my revenge today: Blue hat 25, FDF's 0. They never bothered me at all. Combination of duct tape and a hat with better grip worked fine. |
Friday Jun 29 |
| Trail/Road Run 1:21:00 [3] 8.0 mi (10:06 / mi) | |
| weight:142lbs |
| The Headline: FDF'S FIGHT BACK! It's a long story, so hang in there.
I went to Mt Tom, but did something different. From the Lake Bray parking lot I took the trail along the right side of Lake Bray, then over the bridge to the trail on the hillside left of the marsh, then along the river to the open area, to the ski area parking lot (closed off for work on the quarry), to the road, down to Whiting Reservoir, one loop around (about 2.7 miles if I remember; last time I did this was probably doing the Holyoke Marathon ten years ago), then back the same way. Unfortunately, my Forerunner battery died before I got started (so now I know it only goes about 3 hours on one charge), and I had no watch. Time is from the car clock; distance is a guess.
I chose this route partly because I've run into serious FDF activity down along the lake and the marsh, and I was ready to do battle. So I plunged into the belly of beast, but without fear, because I had my blue shield to protect me. But, first, let me back up a bit. I had read J-J's comment about using blue painter's tape instead of blue duct tape and, as it happened, I was in CVS this morning restocking my Advil supply and I noticed they had blue painter's tape (but no blue duct tape), so I bought some and decided to give it a try. But I was a bit nervous preparing the hat at home because painter's tape doesn't have much adhesive strength. Still, it seemed reasonably secure when I set out.
Within minutes of my run, I heard some buzzing, but - not to worry - I had my blue shield. I checked the hat, and there was already some carnage on the backside. Awesome. But then, something totally unexpected happened. I felt a a pinch on my neck. Slap! Got the bugger, but not before he got a piece of me. And then, on the other side, another pinch. Got him too, but this was disconcerting: these FDF's were putting up a fight. But that was the best they could do. When I climbed out of the open area and checked the hat I had 14 kills, making the score 16 to 2 (16 because the two that scored on me also bit the dust). I figured I was still way ahead, and there was no FDF action on the road or going around Whiting Reservoir.
Then, just as I was finishing the very pleasant loop around the reservoir, I saw my shadow and something was sticking straight up off of my hat. WTF? I grabbed the hat to look and, alas, the blue painter's tape had come completely unstuck except for a bit in the back. The top of the hat had soaked through with sweat, and the tape wouldn't stick anymore where it was wet. It was hopeless. I had to just take the blue tape with its 14 kills off, bury it off the side of the path, and continue on, sans protection.
What to do now? They were surely waiting for me back on the Lake Bray trail, and they were going to be pissed. I thought about taking the road all the way around, but no, that would be cowardice. So I plunged back into the belly of the beast, prepared to do battle the old-fashioned way, with my hands. Well, I guess the FDF's won that round, since they annoyed me the whole way with their buzzing and knocking up against my face and neck, and they got one good bite off my shoulder, without me getting any kills in return. (They also raised the intensity of the rest of the workout.) Final score: 16 to 3 in my favor. But they got me rattled: a moral victory for the FDF's.
And next time? Blue duct tape and a different hat. And don't listen to J-J.
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| C • Glad it was you trying out the... 1 |
Thursday Jun 28 |
| cycling 1:03:14 [3] | |
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| Westhampton-Leeds loop. 18.12 miles, 3:29/mile. Easy at first, then gradually harder but never all out. I'm feeling some strength in my biking legs; wish I could say the same for running. 24:32.
The rear tire was totally flat when I pulled the bike out the garage, but it seemed OK after pumping it up. I figured since it took four days to get flat, the leak was slow enough not to be a problem. Then, when I was in Westhampton about 9 miles from home, I realized how stupid my reasoning was. But I got lucky. |
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| C • blue hat 6 |
Wednesday Jun 27 |
| Trail/Road Run 48:20 [2] 5.4 mi (8:57 / mi) | |
| weight:143lbs |
| Outer loop from home. Very hot and humid, though it cooled just at the end as a thunderstorm approached. Very slow, and didn't feel there was anything I could do about it. |
Tuesday Jun 26 |
| Trail Run 44:39 [3] 5.3 mi (8:25 / mi) | |
| weight:142lbs |
| After lifting at the Smith gym, I jogged to the XC race course, where the Tues. night race was just finishing, ran the course at about 8:15/mile average pace, then jogged back. It was hot, very hot, too hot to run any faster. |
Sunday Jun 24 |
| Trail Run 52:46 [3] 3.36 mi (15:43 / mi) | |
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| Mt Tom Reservation. Parked at the top of Chapin (off East St.) to avoid paying the $2.00 entry fee. Got a couple hundred extra feet of climb in return. Ran up a nice trail to the blocked-off top half of Reservation Road, then up to the visitor center. Then the M-M over Whiting Peak, over the ski area, over the Mt Tom summit, and down to rte. 142. Probably the most beautiful section of the M-M, with lots of open ledge running along the ridge and views west to the Berkshires. Slow pace due to all the rock scrambles, and little steep ups and downs. And wasn't pushing at all. With my hip being sore, I'm switching the focus of my summer training from speed to endurance, at least for now. I figured there wouldn't be an FDF problem along the ridge, and I was right. No headgear needed. Splits: 7:27 to M-M, 13:15 to trail turnoff, 10:26 to ski lift, 11:15 to tower on summit, 10:19 to 142. |
| Road Run 25:59 [3] 2.9 mi (8:57 / mi) | |
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| Road run back, keeping a steady pace on tired legs. 141 to Christopher Clark Road, then back down Reservation Road and trail to my car. |
| cycling 1:09:20 [3] | |
| weight:143lbs |
| After some R&R, and watching Tyson Gay blow away the 200 meter field at the US Champs in 19.62 and Alan Webb power away from Lagat with 50 meters to go in the 1500, it was time for training episode #2. Did my Leeds-Haydenville loop at a moderate pace. 18.6 miles, 3:44/mile. |
Saturday Jun 23 |
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| Event: WCOC BBQ and Meeting
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| Trail Run (warm-up) 7:00 [2] 0.8 mi (8:44 / mi) | |
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| Orienteering (sprint) 29:41 [4] 2.4 km (12:22 / km) | |
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| Charlie's sprints at Ratlum Mtn. Being careful to run with a compact stride so as not to make my hip worse. Had a really good run going until I blew by my attack point going to 8. Woods were as thick as molasses, but at least we had a gorgeous day and great BBQ after. Thanks Charlie and Rhonda! |
| Orienteering (sprint) 31:10 [4] 2.1 km (14:50 / km) | |
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| Sprint B. Started really badly when I missed 1 to the right, and drowned in a sea of laurel. Then I never regained the energy I had had in sprint A. And although I spiked all the rest of the controls, my routes didn't make for fast times. Tripped and fell a lot too, leading to a sore left hip Sunday morning. |
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Sprint A - Splits |
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Sprint B - Splits |
Thursday Jun 21 |
| Trail Run 43:47 [3] 5.2 mi (8:25 / mi) | |
| weight:143lbs |
| Mill R loop from Smith gym after lifting, on tired legs. After two weeks without a break, I need a day off. Weight's coming down, though: only one good bout of food poisoning away from my goal. |
Wednesday Jun 20 |
| Trail Run 1:08:07 [3] 6.7 mi (10:09 / mi) | |
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| With Peter on Toby. Georgeous late afternoon. Jog up to the power line (17:54, 1.72 mi.); then hike straight up to the top 13:22, .78), 25 seconds behind PG by the end who is a master at the uphill power hike; then leisurely back to the power line via the S curves (22:09, 2.4); then a tad faster back (14:42, 1.72). We had our party hats on, and collected some FDF's: I got 10, Peter got 13. (I think he got more because he was leading most the way; I know they like me better.) This really does work: I never even felt a deer fly touch me, let alone bite. The only down side is that I miss that wonderful feeling of squeezing them between my fingers. The next question is: is there a way to do this without looking quite so silly? |
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| C • Flatten the cup? 4 |
Tuesday Jun 19 |
| cycling 48:23 [3] | |
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| Leeds loop. 14.41 miles, 3.21 min/mile. Pretty hard effort from the get-go; decent time for early in the season. 26:41, 21:42. |
Monday Jun 18 |
| Trail Run 20:18 [5] 3.0 mi (6:45 / mi) | |
| weight:144lbs |
| Monday night 3 mile cross country run at Stanley Park in Westfield. (Sportstrack: 2.96 miles.) Of the four weekly races, this is farthest from my house, about a 30 minute drive. I only did this race once before, at least a dozen years ago, and I had only a vague memory of the course. FIrst mile: run around the field on grass, then drop down (maybe 30 feet) to the river; second mile: flat lollipop loop on a wide trail; third mile: flat, then back up from the river, then about 400 meters on pavement. I felt tired and dehydrated from the weekend, and started to lose steam about half way through. But most worrying is that my left hip (yeah, the one that's given me grief on and off for five years) seems to get a little worse with every hard run. Splits were about 6:34, 6:55, 6:49 (.96 m.) |
| Trail Run 22:00 [2] 2.5 mi (8:47 / mi) | |
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| Shortened warm-up. Then a slow jog afterward. |
Sunday Jun 17 |
| cycling 1:18:25 [3] | |
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| Biked from Wellfleet out towards P-town and back. 22 miles, 3.33 per mile. Long rolling hills, nothing steep; headwind coming back. |
| dirt 30:16 [2] 3.0 mi (10:05 / mi) | |
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| Another relaxed outing with map from Gull Pond while Margi swam. Around Herring Pond, then back on "Old King's Highway," which at this point seems too overgrown even for jeeps. |
Saturday Jun 16 |
| Trail Run 55:22 [2] 5.3 mi (10:26 / mi) | |
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| On the Cape for two days. Nice relaxed outing from Gull Pond on sandy dirt roads, trails, and some bushwhacking. I had a 1x38,000, 10', topo map but there were a lot of unmapped backroads, and what was mapped wasn't very accurate. Made it interesting: had the sun for a rough compass. Very detailed topography. |
Friday Jun 15 |
| tennis 1:15:00 [1] | |
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| Beat Adam 6-1, 6-2. Enjoy it while I still can. |
| Trail Run 45:22 [3] 5.2 mi (8:43 / mi) | |
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| Mill River loop from Smith Gym after lifting. |
Thursday Jun 14 |
| dirt race 20:49 [5] 3.13 mi (6:39 / mi) | |
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| Holyoke 5k, perfect weather. Not an all out effort; I held back a good bit and felt strong to the end (though breathing plenty hard). Distance 3.11 (FR) or 3.13 (ST). Splits by sportstrack/google earth are: 6:31, 6:51, 6:40, :47 (for .13 m.).
Biggest problem was the chocolate glazed donut I had after lunch. Got deservedly punished for it. |
| dirt 27:00 [3] 3.0 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
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| A mile and a half before at 8 minute pace. A mile and a half after at 10 minute pace. Even though the cooldown was 3:20 per mile slower than the race, it felt like hard work! |
Wednesday Jun 13 |
| Trail Run 46:18 [3] 5.3 mi (8:44 / mi) | |
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| XC course from Smith, after lifting. A little more life today, but not much. Still a struggle to maintain any kind of pace. |
Tuesday Jun 12 |
| Trail/Road Run 49:39 [3] 5.4 mi (9:12 / mi) | |
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| Warm and humid. Still not feeling right, but it's probably the residual dehydration. The headline for today is: "THEY'RE BACK" I felt like I was trapped in a grade B horror flick. I had 8 kills on the way out to Juggler Road; then I decided to take the road back. The Frost is now closed for the summer. |
Monday Jun 11 |
| dirt 22:32 [2] 2.4 mi (9:23 / mi) | |
| weight:143lbs |
| I had a serious bout of food poisoning Sunday night, and still couldn't eat anything all the next day. So I did this evening jog having had no fuel for 36 hours (can't count Sunday's dinner, if you know what I mean) other than 20 oz of coke. I could barely pick my legs up. But look on the bright side: food poisoning is good for losing a pound or two. |
Sunday Jun 10 |
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| Event: Crandalls Park Sprints
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| Note | |
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| Couldn' t make it to the WCOC sprints at Crandalls. Had to help get Nora packed and off to Europe for a six week trip. |
| Orienteering 1:20:16 [2] 4.5 km (17:50 / km) | |
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| Training with Adam at Mt Tom. We did 12 controls from last year's score-o, mix of yellow and orange level. Included some slow jogging, a lot of walking, and some standing around while Adam tried to figure out where we were on the map (and I got swarmed by mosquitos -- but at least there are still no fdf's). I think Adam made some good progress, though he's not ready to do orange courses on his own. Still some problems with the basics, like keeping the map oriented. |
| cycling 1:06:43 [3] | |
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| Westhampton-Leeds loop, 18.14 miles, 3:40 per mile. Moderate effort, not bad for my first real ride of the season. |
Saturday Jun 9 |
| Trail Run race 53:26 [5] 6.4 mi (8:20 / mi) +378m 4:23 / km | |
| weight:145lbs |
| Northfield Mtn trail race, the New England trail championship, and third in the the NE Mountain running series. Light rain and humid. Not your usual New England trail race: mostly on wide ski trails and power lines: no mud, no roots, no rocks. I did this is 2004 when it was two loops up the mountain. Now it's one big loop around the perimeter. with 1240 feet of total climb. I struggled: physically weak going up, walking more than I care to admit; and kind of wobbly coming down, unable to push. I put what I had into it, but I think on a good day I would have been about two minutes faster. Splits: 7:37, 8:17, 10:53, 9:03, 7:38, 6:59, 2:56. |
| Trail Run 13:30 [2] 1.5 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
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| Before and after. The cool down was with Rick Scott and Derek Postema, two local runners I've been chasing in races ever since we moved here in 1990. |
Thursday Jun 7 |
| Track (intervals) 13:05 [5] 3.4 km (3:51 / km) | |
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| Eaglebrook track. As I was rushing out of my office, I got waylaid by a graduate student who wanted to talk about the course he's teaching in the fall, making me quite late. The group was finishing it's second interval as I arrived. After a one lap warm-up (while they did their third interval), I joined them for just the downward part of the ladder: 1600x800x600x400. That was just the right amount. Splits: 6:26, 3:02, 2:14, 1:23. |
| Track 11:00 [2] 1.25 mi (8:47 / mi) | |
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| Before/after. |
Wednesday Jun 6 |
| Road Run race 33:29 [5] 8 km (4:11 / km) vdot: 48.6 | |
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| Road race in and around Forest Park. I was expecting the 5k trail race, which alternates with the 8k road race, but when the guy in front of me in line to pay predicted a time of 38 minutes, I thought "oops". Well, you take what they give you, and it was perfect weather for the road race: 62 and low humidity. I had a good race: I predicted 33:30 and ran, by my watch, 33:29. (I didn't stick around to see if I won the predicted time award. I asked, and someone told me the prize was a car wash. Who needs a car wash with thunderstorms every couple of days?) I went out a bit fast and thought at two miles I might be under my predicted time; but then reality struck and I slowed a bit. I was between 5 and 10 meters behind Seth for the first 4 1/2 miles, then (uncharacteristically) I caught him as we climbed back to the field and pulled ahead to the finish (he had a stitch). 7th overall out of about 50 runners. Forerunner says the course is short: 4.91 miles whereas 8k is about 4.97. Forerunner mile splits: 6:35. 6:40, 6:53. 6:53, 6:26 (.91m).
Addendum. When downloaded to Sportstrack, the route is 4.96 miles. Apparently, Sportstrack is more trustworthy because it does a retroactive analysis of the GPS data, whereas Forerunner is calculating in real time, which introduces more distortion whenever waypoints are missed. Or so the designer of Sportstrack says on their discussion pages! (Maybe the difference has to do with the fact that it's more accurate to interpolate between earlier and later waypoints, then just to project from earlier waypoints.) The most accurate measurement would come from editing the waypoints, which is easy for a road run placed on top of a map. But I'm not sure if editing would tend more often to raise the distance (by not allowing corners to be cut off) or lower the distance (by realigning the occasional wayword waypoint). |
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| C • 1 |
| Road Run 18:00 [2] 2.0 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
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| Jog before and after. |
Tuesday Jun 5 |
| Trail Run 37:05 [2] 4.2 mi (8:49 / mi) | |
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| Outer loop from Smith after lifting. Slow, recovery run: I'll try the Forest Park 5k tomorrow. |
Monday Jun 4 |
| Road Run 42:41 [3] 5.6 mi (7:37 / mi) | |
| weight:144lbs |
| Clement St loop on roads, after heavy rain. Good, steady effort, though 20 seconds slower than 10 weeks ago. Maybe it was the wet, heavy trail shoes. |
Sunday Jun 3 |
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| Event: NEOC - Nobscot
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| Orienteering 1:22:08 [3] 6.3 km (13:02 / km) | |
| weight:146lbs |
| Red course at Nobscot. Drove out with Peter, who is understandably ecstatic about finally being able to run again. I'd done yellow courses there with Adam, but never any adanced courses. Some nice woods, but a funky map where contours and trails often seemed a little bit off; also hard to read the details, including the small trails. I had (another) really careless day, even though (because?) the orienteering was pretty easy. Botched 2 by getting hung up in dark green and then bailing out and starting over. Then took off the wrong way from 8 and couldn't figure out where I was for a long time - a very long time. |
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Red - Splits |
Saturday Jun 2 |
| dirt 10:15 [3] 1.4 mi (7:19 / mi) | |
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| Meadows loop with Adam, who wanted to do it as sort of a time trial. Midday, hot and humid. |
| Trail/Road Run 32:02 [2] 3.5 mi (9:08 / mi) | |
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| Then off to run along north side of the Mill R. and back, at a much slower pace. Lots of swimmers though, with the lack of rain, the water looked rather still and fetid. |