Training Archive: barbIn the 31 days ending 2007-05-31:
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| T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | F | S | S | M | T | W | H | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thursday May 31 | ||
| Bicycling 24:00 [1] | |
| school, work, home. Tomorrow I will take a class orienteering on a Harbor Island, and looking for insects. | ||
Wednesday May 30 | ||
| Bicycling 8:00 [1] | |
| Commute. | ||
| Orienteering race 29:14 [3] | |
| CSU Park-O at the arboretum (Peter's Hill). I actually ran, in spite of my blistered feet, so I guess they're healing.
The kids ended up with the advanced course map and completed it in spite of some tricky parts. | ||
Tuesday May 29 | ||
| Hiking 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Hobbled again to the hot springs for some soaking. Still daydreaming happily back to the rogaine, which was TOTALLY AWESOME!
John and I camped at the Bagby trailhead last night. He wants to start a business catering to people living out of their cars, by choice. I told him he should try selling an instructional inspirational yoga video. It was funny at the time. 
| ||
| Note | |
| Peter and I played a game on the way to Oregon, where whoever found someone they knew first won. No one won. But on the way home I scored!
Terry Farrah was sitting in front of me on the flight from Portland to San Francisco! She was returning from Seattle. I had a couple hours in SF, so I went home with her, met her mom, had some dinner, and headed back to the airport. Thanks, Terry! It was great to see you! 
Terry congratulated me on the rogaine, and said she was mildly surprised at how well we did because she'd been following my training log and noting that I wasn't living up to all my goals. :-) We remembered that Terry was visiting last fall back when I was trying to get up the courage to ask PG to partner, or maybe it was when I was trying to get up the courage to read his email reply. | ||
Monday May 28 | ||
| Hiking 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Hiked to Bagby hot springs and back to the trailhead/campsite. The hot springs are really cool, and I can't imagine why it's not a standard apres-rogaine thing to do! So here's the travel ad:
The hot springs are on forest service land, and maintained by the gov't. You just pay your $5 trailhead fee to park and walk 1.5 miles to the springs along a lovely trail through old growth forest with some HUGE trees. 
Eventually you come in sight of the buildings housing the tubs. 
The water comes out of a spring and is captured by open wooden pipes that run the length of the bath house. 
You plug your tub with a wooden plug and fill it with steaming water: 
There are a bunch of different tubs, big and small, more or less private. You use a bucket to add cold water to moderate the temperature. We sat in the big tub, and here is the coolest thing: we filled the bucket with cold water and slowly lowered it into the hot tub. The cold water stayed in the bucket, and I put my blistered feet into it. So there I was with my feet in cold water, and my body in hot water, and it was all the same water - wow! 
| ||
Sunday May 27 | ||
| Rogaining 10:15:00 [2] | |
| Rest of the rogaine.
I ended up deciding to wear my heavy, stiff, cleated Ice Bugs. I wanted the spikes for the slopes and the stiff sole for the rocks. But I knew that it probably would mean serious blisters, and possibly reinjury to my Achilles tendon. I'm happy with the choice, but my feet got torn up pretty good; probably the worst blisters I've ever had. Even the Ace bandage made blisters on the top of my foot where it creased - but it may have saved my Achilles, which seems to be doing fine. I will try toughening up the feet by hiking in the shoes for a couple months next time. I think I must have the record for person who has heard Peter cuss the most in a 12-hour period. Sometimes at night in a rogaine I lose track of the identity of my partner; they become ghostlike to me or feel like an extension of myself. This time it was a little different. Peter was still somebody, but he drifted in and out of being other people; sometimes he seemed to be Orlyn, or Mark from Arizona, or someone else. In the morning approaching 35 a friendly rogainer asked me if Peter was my dad. (I take that as a compliment to me and not a diss to Peter.) No, I said, he's not old enough to be my dad. Oh, says the guy. Is he your husband? No, he's my fucking rogaine partner. (OK, I didn't say fucking, but almost; at that point it was sort of part of the general vocabulary.) Can't a girl just be a rogainer? After we finished I was exhausted. Peter helped me take down my tent, which had been saved from blowing away by a single stake. Then I laid down while Peter went to look for his tent. I was so thirsty. My water was several yards away, and it took me a while to muster up the energy to crawl over to it. | ||
| C • umm... 8 | ||
Saturday May 26 | ||
| Event: Big Muddy Ranch Rogaine #4 | ||
| Note | |
Pre-event photos:
Vlad & Peter 
Sharon 
Moi, with pepper 
John & Jeff I wasn't as camera-happy as at last year's Big Muddy (where I also documented the now traditional Dog Mountain hike and apres-rogaine camping). | ||
| C • peeps 5 | ||
| Rogaining race 13:00:00 [2] | |
| First 13 hours of the Big Muddy rogaine. The pleasant part, biding our time before the race really kicked in, with all its tribulations and challenges.
An intensely pleasurable experience! First of all there was the environment. Sweet-smelling spring flowers - lupens, irises, many more. The distant velvet of the hills. Cool breezes blowing the green grass heads. Birdsong, and at night crickets. The moon. Navigation was fun. Open, highly readable terrain. At night we could pick out the shapes of the hills against the sky. But most pleasurable of all was the new team working so well together. I'm used to being the prime navigator (though I'm not sure that my partners would characterize it that way :-). But for this race I had been worried that I would not have much to contribute, with Peter being faster and an elite navigator. I was afraid that I would be intimidated because I didn't know him very well and might be afraid to speak up because he is such an O god. But it felt quite companionable and I was comfortable talking about each leg's route. I love how he described clearly, concisely and creatively exactly where we were or where he thought we should go. Being able to exchange detailed thoughts about route and location without stopping to point at each other's map obviously is a win. We were also in pretty good communication about how we were each doing physically. We were attuned to finding small efficiencies, whether it was how we were moving over the terrain or me leaving the control while he was still punching and signing in, or minimizing time at the water stops. Being part of a good team is a great feeling. | ||
Friday May 25 | ||
| Running 20:00 [2] | |
| 4:50 am - to school to get the bike. | ||
| Bicycling 8:00 [2] | |
| home from school. Then baked cookies and we headed out for the airport around 6:00 am. | ||
| Hiking 1:40:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Red Ice Bugs | ||
Dog Mountain. North side of the Columbia River. One last trial for the Ice Bugs, and a chance to loosen up the legs after a long flight.
PG was bummed I forgot to bring the trail map with me. I think he gets a bit nudgy if he doesn't have a map with him at all times. | ||
Thursday May 24 | ||
| Note | |
| Well, the fruits of my most recent un-decaffeinated ice coffee are available for your reading pleasure. There are a number of inaccuracies (the front page of the printed paper had a banner reading "9-year-old girl wins race"), but the flavor has been captured, I think! I was hoping orienteering would sound fun, and attractive for school groups. | ||
| Bicycling 20:00 [1] | |
| work home school | ||
| Running 20:00 [2] | |
| school to home | ||
Wednesday May 23 | ||
| Bicycling 20:00 [3] | |
| Into Boston and back. | ||
Tuesday May 22 | ||
| Running 25:00 [1]2.2 mi (11:22 / mi) | |
| Dentist to home.
Haven't been logging training but haven't been doing much either. Trying to fight off that sore throat with extra rest... Or perhaps I should say I've been tapering off for the past 4 weeks... | ||
| Running 26:00 [1] | |
| To REI and back. | ||
| Running 55:10 [3]4.65 mi (11:51 / mi) | |
| Home from the park-O | ||
| Orienteering 36:09 [3] | |
| I don't have any idea how long I actually took. I think this was about 3k. | ||
| C • distance 1 | ||
Sunday May 20 | ||
| Orienteering race 3:20:00 [2] | |
| Yay! We made it! I'm grateful that it was only 12.5k- made it possible for us to finish... Isabel's sore throat is still progressing, but it didn't keep her from doing an awesome job. During the first couple of legs, she got frustrated about not knowing where she was on the map, and insisted that I show her. I finally told her that I needed a little time to get oriented myself and think about our skip control, and could she just follow me for a little while. She took things into her own hands then, and figured it out herself. I realized from comments she was making that she was on the map, and she made a couple of good navigational suggestions that I hadn't thought about. Afterward she was able to remember most of our route. We even have a difference of opinion about where we came down the hill after 20.
We skipped 3. When we got to 2 I felt she was moving way better on trails than in the woods, and climb was an issue, so I wanted to take the high trail route from 2. Also briefly considered skipping 9 and going way around on the roads, but I'm very glad we didn't do that. She didn't complain at all about the muddy trails or fighting through vegetation. About 10 minutes into the race, she said her calves were tired and could we please train for the Billygoat next time. 
Before 
After | ||
| C • Also awesome 5 | ||
Saturday May 19 | ||
| Event: Billygoat | ||
| Running | |
| Around Nahant, and errands in Cambridge
Isabel is coming down with the sore throat that took Dave out early last week. The illness hit Dave pretty hard, so I'm quite concerned about Isabel's prospects for tomorrow's Billygoat. Just the kind of additional handicap we really don't need. | ||
| C • ailments 1 | ||
Friday May 18 | ||
| Yoga 1:00:00 [1] | |
| Aaaah | ||
| Note | |
| OK, my friends, I need some help.
My totally awesome Italian roommate G needs a job. Any suggestions? He has a PhD in Information and Communication Technologies; his thesis was on next-generation multimedia wireless networks (specifically, MC-CDMA technology). He spent six months at the University of Wisconsin in 2005. He is an experienced software developer. He has built software for businesses (in the finance, advertising and tourism sectors) and for orienteering organizations. | ||
| C • No job but 3 | ||
Thursday May 17 | ||
| Bicycling 4:00 [1] | |
| geez. | ||
| Note | |
| So I got up before 4 this morning (with no alarm, since I'd accidentally set the watch to go off at 3:30 *pm*; must have woken due to internal anxiety) to deal with some overdue reviews and related things. Because it was so early and I wanted to be alert, I got an un-decaffeinated ice coffee at DD. And boy! how exciting! I started getting all these random ideas, the kind you shouldn't act on until you've calmed down and thought them over, but I acted on them anyway. I signed the soccer team up to march in the Memorial Day parade! I called London to convince to my editorial staffer to write personalized email to all 43 conference presenters! And here's the thing I'm most concerned about - I contacted the Cambridge Chronicle suggesting they do an orienteering story, to spread the O gospel about this "wonderful" [said I] sport! I proposed they cover Izzy doing the Billygoat, or the orienteering projects in school, or the elite CSU orienteers! And then I actually got a call back from the Chronicle just hours later, and we've arranged a photo shoot for tomorrow afternoon at Fresh Pond and I am concerned that Isabel is going to KILL me. And what about Rachael - we decided that she won't do the goat after all, but I've been feeling guilty about discouraging her - and now that she's missing a chance to be in the paper, will she feel really bad? And will Isabel feel pressured - did I oversell this "she's been training for years to run this elite race" thing? Maybe it will be good for her, like that pressure when you are at bat, and you get to learn the experience of failure under scrutiny. Arg! Moral: THINK before EMAILING. (Or, alternatively: GO FOR IT! Live life to its FULLEST!) Oo, oo, idea for a product: email program that holds on to your emails for a set time (like the amount of time it takes to sober up) after you hit "send" so that you can go back and change/delete if you have second thoughts... | ||
| C • caf-decaf 3 | ||
Tuesday May 15 | ||
| Bicycling 30:00 [1] | |
| work, school, work, soccer practice | ||
Monday May 14 | ||
| Bicycling 30:00 [1] | |
| Isabel and I biked to school. It took us about 24 minutes, I think. In comparison, our walk/jog took 32 minutes. The bike route was a bit longer.
Then I biked to work. On the way I came across a free breakfast for commuter bicyclists. I slowed down and gawked, but since the breakfast consisted of sugar & caffeine, I didn't stop. | ||
| Bicycling 30:00 [1] | |
| To school to pick Isabel up, then back home along the river, then to work. Outrageously beautiful spring day, all lilac-y. | ||
| Bicycling 12:00 [2] | |
| Home from school potluck on Dave's bike. | ||
Sunday May 13 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:14:00 [1] | |
| Memory-O at Hammond Pond with David and Isabel. I love Memory-Os. I don't think I've done one before. It took us a few legs to realize we really needed to pay attention and study the map. We split up responsibility for remembering various things along each leg. David didn't like pace-counting because he couldn't think of anything else. Both kids were into following a compass bearing. Isabel came up with a good plan for one leg - the trails got pretty confusing, so we just followed along the edge of a big swamp instead. Unfortunately, I got annoyed with David for having a negative attitude and yelled at him toward the end, which was upsetting to both of us.
Afterward, I convinced (in one case bribed) the kids to do another course on their own, and they rocked! David did the white course in 15 minutes, and beat everyone else who'd done it! Unprecedented! He was psyched. | ||
| C • Mother's Day 2 | ||
| Running 33:00 [1]3.0 mi (10:59 / mi) | |
| bridge ckt w/dave | ||
Saturday May 12 | ||
| Running 45:00 [1] | |
| Walked/ran a 5k race with Isabel and Rachael. Rachael was not too into the running, and it is looking as though she's perhaps not so keen on running the Billygoat after all. Which is fine.
I also ran a bit beforehand, from home to Central Square, ahead of the girls, to get cash. | ||
Friday May 11 | ||
| Yoga 55:00 [1] | |
| Some new poses that I just really suck at. I'm quite inflexible. At yesterday's session (different teacher), there were also some new "reflexology" poses that involved bending the toes and ankles a lot. | ||
Thursday May 10 | ||
| Strength 45:00 [3] | |
| OK, Today is the Day I get back on the horse. Went to the gym. Went shopping, got good sub-G type food. Trying to feel the bliss. This is it!
Also hoping to avoid catching Dave's throat bug. Fruit & echinacea & tea. I suppose there are studies showing that echinacea is of no medical use. | ||
| C • probably 1 | ||
| Yoga 1:00:00 [2] | |
| Running 5:00 [1] | |
| Beginning of the ramp. Yeah, that's it. | ||
| Note | |
| walked barefoot about a mile, city sidewalks. | ||
Wednesday May 9 | ||
| Note | |
| Can you say SLUMP?
I am pretty oversubscribed at the moment and feeling panicked about work & related matters. | ||
| Note | |
| Are there any O maps of Griffith Park? | ||
| C • Griffith 5 | ||
Tuesday May 8 | ||
| Event: CSU Boston Park Series - Fresh Pond | ||
| Bicycling 24:00 [1] | |
| work school work home.
Yesterday the girls and I ran around the block barefoot to start toughening our feet (F) up for the Billygoat. The current plan is that I'll be doing the goat with Isabel (9) & Rachael (10). Our stretch goal is to have an overtime finish. Our hoped-for goal is to make it to the aid station (halfway through) in 3.5 hours, and *possibly* (in overtime) the point 3/4 of the way through the course where we pass near the finish. Key strategic elements: keep the blood sugar up during the whole race, and keep the brains engaged by checking off features (Isabel's strength) and doing pacing-related calculations (Rachael's strength). Also: zero navigational errors, and don't get distracted by other people (going slow helps with both of those!). Isabel and Rachael have worked together well as a team on their own in the past, developing a tactic of alternating main responsibility for navigation on each leg. Training plan: * 2-3 orienteering events (CSU park-O's, NEOC meet) * run around barefoot * review maps of Thacher * play soccer (stamina) * core strength (= gymnastics for Isabel) * hike or stair climb on Saturday? They have some history together: 
Climbing Monadnock in 2006 
Little Blue Hills Traverse a couple years ago 
Playing soccer, 2004 
Halloween, before Johnny Damon betrayed us 
First day of kindergarten, 2002 | ||
| Orienteering race 30:00 [3] | |
| Actually I have no idea how long it took me. Rachael & Isabel did the beginner course together (they were bummed it was so easy); David and Theron did it on their own. Amisi & Fidel did the course with their mom Marguerite - am pretty psyched to finally get Marguerite out there! | ||
| C • Good luck, Isabel and Rachael! 2 | ||
Monday May 7 | ||
| Bicycling 20:00 [1] | |
| home to work. work to Harvard zoology dept to pick up materials for Friday's field trip from Jessica Rykken. Harvard to home. | ||
Sunday May 6 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:20:20 [3]5.33 km (15:04 / km) +162m 13:05 / km | |
| Green course in Michigan. Scratchy. | ||
| Orienteering race 3:35:00 [3]12.89 km (16:41 / km) +357m 14:39 / km | |
| Blue course in Michigan. They had removed the last two controls before I got there because I take so long... Anyway, it was fun. | ||
Saturday May 5 | ||
| Orienteering race 1:20:32 [2]5.54 km (14:32 / km) +240m 11:57 / km | |
| Struggled a bunch in the beginning in the thick stuff.
Running both blue and green was especially convenient today. Afterward, found a few controls on trails with my Ann Arbor friends Caroline, Paul, Max and Jacob. | ||
Friday May 4 | ||
| Event: US Team Trials | ||
| Walking 32:00 [1]2.2 mi (14:32 / mi) | |
| walk/jog w/isabel to school. She seems to be healthy again, eating and all that. | ||
Tuesday May 1 | ||
| Bicycling 50:00 [1] | |
| school to work to school to work to school. | ||
| Note | |
| I'm getting really worried about Isabel. Her tummy has been bothering her off and on for a week. She mostly keeps things down, but doesn't "have a taste" for most food, so she's eating practically nothing. We can't find food that she'll eat. It's a bit scary. Stress? Stomach virus? Melamine? Beginnings of anorexia? | ||