Training Log Archive: jjcote

Event: 30th Annual Billygoat Run
 

Billygoat Run, playing tour guide for Stephen. We had hoped to give him a chance to navigate on a few legs, but the course turned out to be gnarly enough that we never really got an opportunity to do that, although I did have him go out in front a few times on trial runs so that he could set the pace. This course was one of the more challenging ones, and it was right around the limits of his ability, but with some encouragement and a steady supply of stuff to ingest, he soldiered on and made it through with a few minutes to spare. Quite an accomplishment for such a little guy on such a tough course, and I'm very proud of him! One of the mistakes that I made was very minor, just off to one side by 50 m or so and recovered quickly, the other was a little more serious (on a leg that I knew was going to be tricky) and lost us a few minutes. See split comments for more details.

Also ran with a GPS for the first time. It seems to have done a fine job of tracking us, though there were a few little quirks I needed to iron out (I'm using software that I wrote myself to create a KML file to view in Google Earth). For some reason it started a new track after about 160 minutes, but there was no time gap and I was able to concatenate the two files. There are certainly a lot of very small wiggles, which I'll have to ponder in order to decide whether they're real perturbations of my path to get around obstacles, or if it's just noise. (And looking closer, some may be an optical illusion created by the tree trunks that are visible in the satellite photo.)

Right leg got through this with no troubles; still hurts about the same as it did before, so it doesn't seem like I did any significant additional damage.

C • Wiggles or noise? 10

The Goat - Splits

Bench press: 1x140 (sort of), 10x90, 5x110, in the Ratlum Mountain gym. Had to do the 140 in two stages. I was slightly outclassed by another participant, however, we did discover an apparent major variation in the earth's gravitational field between here and 100 miles or so to the north.

C • I am quite bummed. 1

In Charlie's old barn, on the rock climbing trainer. Nice handholds, makes things seem easier than the wooden bar at home.

Decided that I'd be better off resting my questionable right leg than running with Taxman so close to the Billygoat, so I went up to Morningside to pick up my new (to me) glider, and to drop off my old one for an annual inspection and new control bar. Wind was blowing in the wrong direction to fly, but it was pretty nice to be outside on such an excellent warm day. Carried the new glider a little way up the training hill for one very short flight just to see how it felt. Driving home, I went past quite a few lakes and ponds (some quite large) that were still completely iced over, even south of the border in Massachusetts.

When I'm not doing these every day, it's tough to get through the full 17. But I was wearing shoes and a sweater, which makes things a little more difficult.

As of this morning, there appear to be only two tiny patches of snow (about 1 sq m each) left in my yard, and I expect those will be gone by the end of the day (although the neighbor out back still has enough to do some minor sledding). I wouldn't be surprised if there's still snow here and there in the woods near my house on the day of the Billygoat, which will probably be a first (not counting the man-made snow at Wachusett in 1996). On the flip side of that, I felt something on the back of my neck just now (at work), and it turned out to be a tick. Spring, o joy!