Wednesday Apr 30 |
 | Trail Run 1:01:33 [2] 6.0 mi (10:14 / mi) | |
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| Atkins on the Frost. Gentle pace befitting an old man. Legs not good. |
Tuesday Apr 29 |
| dirt 38:44 [3] 4.7 mi (8:14 / mi) | |
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| From Smith gym, 6 laps around fields. No progress: left top of hamstring still sore and very tight. Have to keep my stride short so I worked on turnover and pushing off. |
Sunday Apr 27 |
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| Event: WCOC Macedonia
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| Orienteering 1:12:17 [4] 6.5 km (11:07 / km) | |
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| Macedonia Brook, red course, on a perfect day. A nice course by Peter Goodwin, though it seemed easier navigationally than others I've done here. Climb was kept to a minimum; the main impediment was the everpresent barberry. With my sore butt, I decided in advance to avoid any fast running,and just try to keep up an even pace and work on "flow". I had a very clean run except for one total lapse: I inexplicably hit the river going to #4 (a 100 m. leg) over a 100 meters north of where I should have been; I continued north for a ways (since I had been aiming off a bit south) until I relocated on a stone wall and had to come back 200 meters to the control. When I got home to look at the map and see what in the world had happened, I quickly understood: I never went the 150 meters south from 2 to 3, but left 2 due east thinking I was leaving 3. (In sympathy with Will?) Sometimes skipping a control saves you time; this time it cost me over 4 minutes. (And, yes, I did notice it was taking too long to get to the river, but, hey, on such a short, easy leg, why bother to look at the map?) Driving home, I was thinking how I would write in my log that Charlie's 12 second victory was bogus because he didn't go to the 9 on our revised map, and so his course was 100 meters shorter than mine. (His split to 9 confirms what he said, that there was a control on the unrevised 9). But the laugh's on me. |
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Red - Splits |
Saturday Apr 26 |
| Trail Run 34:00 [2] 3.8 mi (8:57 / mi) | |
| weight:143lbs |
| From Smith after lifting. Easy, babying my still sore butt. |
Friday Apr 25 |
| Trail Run 49:19 [3] 5.6 mi (8:47 / mi) | |
| ahr:139 max:154 |
| Juggler. Got through this OK, except for having to shorten my stride; but, damn, was my butt sore after. This injury stuff is getting really old. 8:39 (127), 10:14 (134), 6:54 (142) (25:47), 6:46 (141), 9:10 (148), 7:35 (147) (23:32). |
Wednesday Apr 23 |
| dirt 22:28 [3] 2.9 mi (7:45 / mi) | |
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| 4 laps around Smith fields: all I had time for. Left buttock quite sore, though it loosened up a bit by the end. 555, 5:40, 5:32, 5:19. |
| Road Run 16:30 [3] 1.9 mi (8:41 / mi) | |
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| To and from home. |
Tuesday Apr 22 |
| Trail Run race 21:42 [5] 3.1 mi (7:00 / mi) vdot: 45.1 | |
| weight:143lbs |
| Northampton XC race. 5 seconds slower than two weeks ago, though I thought I would be faster, and predicted 20:30. The first mile felt good - my right hamstring is much improved - but I probably went out faster than I should have. Either that, or being underhydrated, lead to substantial slowing over the second half of the race. I need to work on strength with some longer track workouts. 6:35, 6:53, 7:27, 45. |
| Road Run 27:00 [2] 3.0 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
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| Before and after jogging. |
Sunday Apr 20 |
| Orienteering 49:27 [4] 5.2 km (9:31 / km) | |
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| US relay champs, at Mendon Pond, on another nice but warm day. I ran third leg Green on an 8-point NEOC team with Ben, Adam, and Dean. This was my first time in "glacial" terrain, where up is down and down is up. I had a good run, in spite of very low energy, with less than two minutes of mistakes. (Poor execution of my route to 4 probably cost over a minute; going to the wrong control in the field after the "map exchange" probably cost 40 seconds (sigh).) I kept good map contact throughout the technical terrain, using my magnifier to make sure I could see the downhill tags. A fun course set by Will with some nice challenges. |
Saturday Apr 19 |
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| Event: US Middle Distance and Relay Champs
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| Orienteering race 33:41 [4] 3.3 km (10:12 / km) | |
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| US Middle champs at Letchworth State Park. Near 80 by the time I went out, and I felt sluggish from the start. Unfortunately, this was a repeat of the middle at the Pig: a 4 minute error early on (this time on #3) wiped out an otherwise decent run and put me well back in the standings. Nice course though, and interesting terrain in the river valley, the first 5 controls. |
| Orienteering race (sprint) 11:15 [5] 2 km (5:38 / km) | |
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| Sprint in the afternoon, for Green-Brown-Orange, with temperature about 85 degrees. A nice, fast course, with some woods legs early and some fast easy legs towards the end. I had a very clean run, and pushed hard the whole way. I figured I might be up near the leaders, but I was very surprised when I saw the next morning that I had won the sprint (first time that's happened), and that I was over a minute ahead of the next four finishers: Tim, Peter, Bob, and Glen. Sweet. Too bad it wasn't sanctioned. |
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| C • Congrats... should be wort... 6 |
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Sprint 2 - Splits |
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Green X - Splits |
Thursday Apr 17 |
| Track (tempo) 13:22  2.0 mi (6:40 / mi) | |
| ahr:151 max:156 |
| Smith outdoor track, after S&S. Goal was somewhere between 6:40 and 7:00 per mile, so I was pleased to be at the low end. And the hamstring held up OK. Maybe the stretching? The leg machines? Who knows. 6:40, 6:42. |
| Road Run 18:00 [2] 2.0 mi (9:00 / mi) | |
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| Before and after. Felt the hamstring a bit more on the jog home. |
Wednesday Apr 16 |
| Orienteering 1:12:31 [3] 4.0 mi (18:07 / mi) | |
| weight:144lbs |
| Mt. Tom, after work. Did the green course, mostly, from last fall. Still no energy. Plan was to do some terrain running but halfway through I realized I had been mostly walking, so not sure what the point was. I did this without a compass, which was a good exercise for me, but I messed up the boulder on the bland hillside, and then bagged it rather than going back. AOWN: picked two ticks off my legs when I got home and disrobed. |
Tuesday Apr 15 |
| Trail Run 1:00:03 [3] 6.5 mi (9:13 / mi) | |
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| Frost past Juggler to the train tracks and back. Went out pretty easy with the plan of running harder on the way back, but by then my hamstring was too sore: hampers both speed and agility. Very frustrating. 30:45, 29:18. |
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| C • frustrating? 5 |
Sunday Apr 13 |
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| Event: 30th Annual Billygoat Run
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| Orienteering 2:36:16 [3] 13 km (12:01 / km) | |
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| Billygoat at Clear Lake, my ninth: after a late start with orienteering, I'm slowly moving up the Billygoat shirt ranking. This was the hardest Billygoat, physically, since Norwottuck in 2005, and it really beat me up: some falls, lots of near falls, and just generally staggering over the last hour. This was about as well as I could do on this day, though I think a better skip (I skipped 18, which was inferior to 4 or 12), and better route choices to 13 (didn't see the trail up along the ridge so dropped to the lower trail), and 22 (went west to the trail along the lake, instead of north to the trail) would have saved me 8 minutes or so. |
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| C • north to the trail on 22? 3 |
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The Goat - Splits |
Saturday Apr 12 |
| Orienteering 1:15:00 [1] 3.0 mi (24:59 / mi) | |
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| O-training with Adam, focusing on contours. Gorgeous spring day in the woods at Mt Tom, in shorts. |
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| C • Mt Tom 2 |
Thursday Apr 10 |
| Orienteering 1:32:51 [2] 5.2 mi (17:51 / mi) | |
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| Norwottuck, red day 2 from the 2002 Troll Cup. Point to point is 6.45 k, 350 m climb. Since I've done this course in training a few times, I tried some different routes looking to minimize climb and maximize white woods. A nice outing with good navigation, but a sore toe, sore hamstring, and low energy made for walking all the hills and slow jogging the rest. (My toe is really beautiful, with colors ranging from violet through dark purple: a Martian sunset. Fortunately, my new Jalas o-shoes have a stiff, roomy toebox that kept the toe pretty well protected.) |
| Orienteering 5:40 [2] 0.5 mi (11:19 / mi) | |
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| Jog to the start. |
Wednesday Apr 9 |
| Trail Run 54:57 [3] 6.0 mi (9:08 / mi) | |
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| Frost to Atkins Res. and back. Modest pace, but felt hard going up to Flat Hills. In the first mile, I smashed my middle toe into a small stump sticking up about 4 inches and went splat. No damage from the fall, but the toe's pretty tender. A couple hours later, it's turning black and looks like it's going to fall off (the whole toe, not just the nail). 28:57, 26:00. |
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| C • 'the whole toe, not just the nail' 2 |
Tuesday Apr 8 |
| Trail Run race 21:37 [5] 3.1 mi (6:58 / mi) vdot: 45.3 | |
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| Tuesday night race, 60 degrees and almost no mud. OK except for the chest congestion that built up because I haven't been doing speed. I felt the right hamstring, but it didn't hold me back much, and both hips held up. The usual split profile for this race: 6:46, 6:49, 7:17, 43. |
| Trail/Road Run 26:30 [3] 3.2 mi (8:17 / mi) | |
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| About two miles before, 1.2 miles after. |
Sunday Apr 6 |
| Orienteering 1:42:17 [4] 7.8 km (13:07 / km) | |
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| Ultra-Long at East Fork. A very interesting, physically challenging course; mud and briars. For whatever reason, I just didn't have any energy. I felt fine to the first control, then, after a couple of steep gully climbs, I was cooked. The nav was OK, except for missing the obvious trail around to 2 (and botching the approach), losing 5-6 minutes; also lost a couple of minutes on 3 (another bad route) and on 9 (missed it way right and hit the wrong ditch). The lasting memory will be trying to climb out of a gully to 3 and being "stuck" halfway up a 40 foot embankment, not able to take another step without slipping back, but not wanting to slide down and start over. It felt like I was struggling to make progress for an eternity, though it was probably less than a minute. If I ever run here again, I will have a lot more respect for the gullies. |
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Green - Ultra Long - Splits |
Saturday Apr 5 |
| Orienteering 15:35 [4] 2.3 mi (6:47 / mi) | |
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| First of two sprints, this being a campus sprint at Miami U. I had a good run, about as fast as I could go with my hamstring sore the whole way: only time lost was a 5-10 second hesitation before #4. It's tempting to say the navigation was trivial; but since seconds were the difference between multiple places (losing by seconds to Glen and Dennis, winning by seconds over Peter and Tim), one could say that the details (go over the fence or around?) were crucial, and made for interesting micro-choices. |
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| C • 4 in bracket 8 |
| Orienteering 16:21 [4] 2.1 mi (7:46 / mi) | |
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| The second sprint at Miami U., on a mix of muddy trails, open fields, and a bit of thick woods; a fast, fun sprint. No problems finding them, but my route to #12, right instead of left, cost about 30 seconds. That, and losing maybe 7 seconds to #13 and 10 seconds to #14 on route choice dropped me from fourth (out of 53 males on green) at the 11th control to 10th, same as the campus sprint. Also dropped me to 4th M50. Such is the nature of sprints. But I was satisfied with the result. |
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Orange/Brown/Green Sprint 2 - Splits |
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Orange/Brown/Green Sprint 1 - Splits |
Friday Apr 4 |
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| Event: Flying Pig XII
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| Orienteering 36:49 [4] 3.7 km (9:57 / km) | |
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| Flying Pig middle at Renschler. Thick woods, a bit muddy, but a nice course on a small map. Horrendous start, blowing by the first control, then reattacking from the wrong open area: lost over 4 minutes. No problems after that, but the race was blown. Hamstring sore, but I was able to ignore it. |
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Green- Short Pig - Splits |
Wednesday Apr 2 |
| Trail Run 23:12 [3] 3.0 mi (7:43 / mi) | |
| ahr:146 max:155 weight:145lbs |
| Noho cross country course, minus start/finish. Felt much better, able to do a solid "3" effort. |
| Trail Run 20:17 [2] 2.2 mi (9:13 / mi) | |
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| Before and after, from the Smith gym. |
Tuesday Apr 1 |
| dirt 26:46 [3] 3.25 mi (8:14 / mi) | |
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| Smith fields, after lifting. Not doing real well. |