Saturday Oct 11 |
 | Bicycling (Commute) 24:24 [2] 3.99 mi (6:06 / mi) | |
| slept:7.0 (injured) (rest day) |
| From Northfield Rd. to downtown Bethesda where I had lunch. I later went to some of the parking lots to checkout potential future locations that I might want to use when there's bad weather. I also detoured past our old place on Rosedale Ave. before returning along the NIH grounds. Our old place looks a little different from the outside already. A big chime is hanging on the porch and the west garden has begun to subside. Before all of this I had spent several hours unloading two 5'x8'x6.5' storage units that had been delivered this morning. It was a lot of lifting. |
Friday Oct 10 |
| Bicycling (Commute) 48:23 [3] 13.08 mi (3:42 / mi) | |
| slept:4.75 weight:178lbs (injured) |
| From Northfield Rd., Bethesda, MD to Montgomery Ave. via Bethesda Ave. and the Georgetown Branch Trail, to 13th St. SW, Washington, D.C. via the Georgetown Branch Trail and the Capital Crescent Trail. It was a bit warmer this morning with temperatures around 55F. I felt sluggish perhaps from not commuting much lately or the extra running this week. I rode mostly alone with it being calm for winds but I did get some help with a pull the last mile into Georgetown. |
| Bicycling (Commute) 49:39 [3] 12.9 mi (3:50 / mi) | |
| (injured) |
| From 13th St . SW, Washington, D.C. to Northfield Rd., Bethesda, MD. Pace varied a bunch. Initially I caught a perfect draft off a double decker bus as I rounded the Jefferson Memorial and moving at about 25mph. The bus was old and the exhaust nearly did me in. I was still tasting it a mile after the bus had stopped. I kept a good pace from there moving through up the trail to about the MacArthur Blvd. tunnel, only slowing where there was a lot of pedestrian traffic. I must have had the wind with me because as I turned with the trail toward Bethesda, I slowed a good bit. I was 39:13 at Max's day care facility where I picked up his trailer. |
Thursday Oct 9 |
| Bicycling (Commute) 16:35 [2] 2.77 mi (5:58 / mi) | |
| slept:6.0 weight:178lbs (injured) (rest day) |
| Bethesda, MD. From Northfield Rd. to Montgomery Ave., via the Exeter Rd., Bethesda Ave. and the Georgetown Branch Trail., then to the Bethesda Metro Station via the tunnel again. This morning it was damp and sort of muggy from rains last night. With the recent running training, I felt it best to have an easier day. I rode with my work clothes. |
| Bicycling (Commute) 14:32 [3] 2.5 mi (5:49 / mi) | |
| |
| From Bethesda Metro Station to Montgomery Ave. to Northfield Rd. Going home it was already at the end of dusk and the beginning of night. I was wearing my work clothes again. Towing Max's trailer, it was still nice riding the quiet streets in the dark but I was starting to get hot. It was kind of muggy. A couple blocks from home I got tangled in a lot of pedestrian traffic. Many observing Yom Kippur were returning to their cars after services. |
Wednesday Oct 8 |
| Running (Trail) 1:04:04 [3] 8.2 mi (7:48 / mi) | |
| weight:177lbs (injured) |
| Silver Spring, MD. From Rte. 29, north on the old trail on the east side of the Northwest Branch creek. This trail had been newly named the Rachael Carlson Trail. I took it to the wooden bridge near Kemp Mill Rd. and Wheaton Regional Park, then returned south on the west bank of the Northwest Branch creek, on the Northwest Branch Trail. Off work early again this day, I had sought to captialize this time by this trail run. The last time I ran a similar route, the trail on the east bank of the creek was not maintained. It's now been rerouted in a few places and has been blazed. The trail forks a lot so despite the blazes, I took a few wrong turns heading up stream. There was a lack of consistent trail markings at various intersections and other less obvious places. Like before, I once again imagined mapping this as a practice map, good for just doing map reading and running while on a trail. There was lots of rock detail, contouring and vegetation changes. The first part of the Rachael Carlson Trail was more rugged than the Northwest Branch Trail. It went up and down more as well as in and out of many smaller reentrants. It took me about 34:45 to reach the turn around point. The run back usually seems to have more reentrants than I could remember and this time was no exception. I'm a bit surprised that I was able to keep up this pace since it's faster than I had been doing on roads recently. Though my measurement was only an estimate using GMaps Pedometer, it was possible. I was working steadily with my lighter trail shoes and the softer ground helped me from hurting too much.
After getting through the traffic and driving home, Peggy and I went out for a rare night without Max. Our realtor had invited us to a customer appreciation night and private showing of the old Jack Lemmon but colorized version of "How to Murder Your Wife" at the American Film Institute. It was funny, a bit farcical and not too kind to women--an odd choice for a varied audience of home buyers but it was our realtor's favorite movie. I hadn't had time for dinner before the movie so I ate a bunch of popcorn and peanut butter cups--the beginning of Halloween munching? |
Tuesday Oct 7 |
| Running (Street & Trail) 40:03 [3] 4.7 mi (8:31 / mi) | |
| slept:6.0 weight:176lbs (injured) |
| From Northfield Rd. to Moorland Ln. to Grant St. to Sonoma Rd. to Hempstead Ave. into Arlawn Park, to Lindale Dr. to Melvern Dr. to Tulsa Ln. into Wyngate Woods Park, to Marywood Rd. to Fernwood Rd. to Bradley Blvd. to Huntington Pkwy., to Northfield Rd. Due to some off site meetings at work today, I got home early and was able to get out for a run around the neighborhood. I'd done a variation of this loop a long time ago but had sort of improvised this time as I went. I found a small tangle of trails in both of the parks as well as welcome relief from the paved roads. As I ran, I realized that part of my slowness is that my stride has changed. By focusing more, I could stretch it out and carry momentum too. I could have used a toilet. |
Monday Oct 6 |
| Bicycling (Commute) 16:27 [2] 2.88 mi (5:42 / mi) | |
| slept:6.25 weight:177lbs (injured) (rest day) |
| Bethesda, MD. From Northfield Rd. to Montgomery Ave., via the Georgetown Branch Trail., then to the Bethesda Metro Station via the tunnel again. I had driven Max to school then realized I'd fogotten to take his lunch and blankets, etc... Once home I reasoned it would be quicker to ride and lockup my bike at the metro station. I'd avoided this earlier due to being unfamiliar with the station rack system and not knowing if there would be free space. Locking up worked out fine. My ride was very liesurely though I had to detour where roads were closed for construction. Max's bag kept me from shifting. The ride felt fine though I find myself limping a bit when walking today, from the run yesterday. |
| Bicycling (Commute) 8:08 [3] 1.43 mi (5:41 / mi) | |
| (injured) |
| From Bethesda Metro Station to Northfield Rd. Going home from the station on bike was about one third the time it takes to walk and I was taking it easy in my work clothes. |
Sunday Oct 5 |
| |
| Event: Hudson Highlander
|
| |
| Event: QOC: College Park
|
| Orienteering race (Foot) 2:43:05  ***** 12.5 km (13:03 / km) | |
| 15c slept:6.0 (injured) |
| Harriman State Park, NY: Hudson Highlander on Surbridge Moutain. I actually ran the Lowlander event which was the first 15 controls of the premier Highlander event and also the same course from the Men's race of the 1993 World Orienteering Championships. While forest conditions were somewhat different 15 years later, it's truley amazing to comprehend the abilities of the world champion that year to finish 2.5K longer than I ran, on this technical map in a total of 86 minutes. I ran this planning only to try to finish without hurting myself more. I didn't know what to expect though running 8.9K last weekend gave me some confidence. I felt a bit winded early on. I was navigating at a rough level enough to know the vicinity of where I was at but not zeroing onto exact control locations very well. As the pace of the mob tempered, I found myself near Peter Gagarin as he made a decision to run a longer trail route to #5. Looking at a much greener straight route, it made sense so I went along with him and some others. It was a much more simple attack. I recognized the area from a previous Highlander or A-meet where we had a very similar control leg. Peter slowed up at a large distinct knoll in a reentrant before the control. I was happy to go ahead for a little and got to within 20m of the control before stopping myself. Peter and another guy then ran around the rock that was obstructing my view of the control and got there first. Peter had saved us around 5 minutes on the leg. As little as this leg was, it was one of my better moments for the day. I did lead us on the very short leg to #6 but found myself with others too much through the rest of the event. Peter, Pavalina Bratigam, Daniel Schaublin, the Saeger sisters and others were nearby often. I often chased whomever I thought was going the best way but was not fast enough to pass them and navigate. From my lack of running training I was surprised to even be able to keep up but they all were going a much further distance than I had planned and they were probably conserving energy. On some legs, I had trouble believing my compass bearing and wondered about hematite that I think JJ had mentioned long ago before.
I found myself losing track of where I was several times and clinging near others pulled me through. It wasn't anything to be proud of. My knee was starting to hurt more and I had already started to fall off the pace set by Peter and Daniel Schaublin when approaching #12. The Saeger sisters and a a troop of West Point cadets caught up just as I had gotten there. Going to #13, Peter seemed to go alone on a direct route. I chose to go in the direction of the crowd to the right, in hopes of being able to turn left on a trail. I was slow to get going and one of the last out. Daniel, the Saeger Sisters, the cadets and I believe Pavalina all went right with others so I tagged along again. They were pulling ahead so I concentrated more on running when I should have been reading. Unseen by me, Daniel and Pavalina cut left. I knew my bearing was taking me the wrong way but I kept trying to convince myself that we were going to hit the trail soon. I lost track of where we were and felt like I needed to stick with the pack. Eventually we came to a trail and the Saeger sisters stopped after following it for a short way. I still couldn't reconcile the trail I thought we were going to hit with the trail that we were on so I decided to break off leaving the group behind. Very soon, in one of those deflating moments that would have been worse had I not already known we were a long way off, I came to the road near the lake. I was no closer in distance to the control than when I started the leg. My only causes for joy were knowing where I was again and having mostly a long road run to get to the control. The road was paved and I remembered being able to run the same stretch at the end of a previous Highlander, passing Greg Balter and others on it and accelerating. This time the pavement was my undoing. After perhaps 800m, my knee couldn't take the hard ground any more. I had to start walking. I had intended to use the road further but reasoned that if I had to walk, it would be best to go straight. Back in the woods, my knee started feeling better. I was feeling better about navigating my way too but at the end I second guessed my first instinct for the rocks I saw, with a choice based more on a compass bearing. I ended up climbing too high and should have stuck with the rocks I saw. After correcting, Stefan Slutsky got there about the same time I did but he came in from a different direction. It was a +38 minute leg; I'd lost +25 minutes. Finishing up, I led Stephan who was faster on the steep downhill and crossing the rocky reentrant but slower on the more runnable terrain. I got to #14 first but attacking from the right along the water, I got to #15 just after him. I thought the Lowlander race ended there so I started walking back to the parking lot. I almost didn't punch the finish punch at the parking lot (since there was no control bag; just some stands) but someone told me that I needed to. After punching I noticed Kseniya Popova punching soon after.
It was nice to have been out in the terrain and know that my knee could hold up for this distance. I would have been more satisfied if I'd navigated on my own more. I'm sure I would have been much slower. I'll count this just as a good training day. |