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. |