Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Medved trail race at Mendon. This is advertised as a 15 mile race, but I did it last year and estimated the distance (from tracing out the course on an orienteering map) at around 13 miles. The course consists of three loops, which they claim are three 5-mile loops, but the first two loops are definitely less than 5 miles each, I concluded last year. I didn't have a Forerunner then, so I couldn't measure the distance that way.

Anyway, the course was a little different in a few places this year, generally in the direction of being a little longer. And as last year, the race organizers seem to get some sort of sadistic pleasure in having the course go through extremely muddy stretches, multiple times. I'm guessing there were at least 15 locations where there was no alternative but to plow through mud/muddy water that was at least ankle deep.

I had an absolutely terrible race, although I guess a good workout. The first loop (4.18 miles per the GPS) was fairly flat but very muddy, and I did OK on that (averaged 9:38/mile). The second loop was a lot less muddy but a LOT hillier, which slowed me down considerably; it was 4.13 miles, and I averaged 10:30/mile.

The last loop (around Quaker pond) was my downfall. It again was flat, but also extremely muddy. I needed to do about a 0.2 mile detour to Calvary Lodge for an emergency bathroom stop, for one thing. Then I totally lost contact with anyone either ahead of me or behind me, which made it tough to say motivated.

The worse part, though, was going off course about 75% through the loop, near the north end of Quaker Pond near the nature center. In my opinion, the turn I missed wasn't marked very well at all, but I should have turned back as soon as I realized I wasn't seeing any more streamers. (The streamers were fairly sparse on most trails, so it wasn't immediately obvious that they were missing.) It turned out that I did an extra 1.25 miles, and it would have been worse except that I happened to run into one of the race organizers going for an easy trail run with his wife. When he saw me he said, "You're off course", to which I said, "Yes, I'm WAY off course!" He was nice enough to guide me back to where I could pick up the course again.

Not only did I cover an extra 1.25 miles, but I covered it pretty slowly as I realized I was lost and was trying to relocate (without the aid of a map or compass).

The good thing about this little detour is that my distance was almost exactly 15 miles.

Anne also did this race, and partly thanks to my detour and partly to her improving dramatically, she finished around 4 minutes in front of me. Her time was nearly 20 minutes faster than she did last year, particularly impressive because I think the course, if anything, was slightly longer this year (and even muddier than last year).

Took the dogs for a walk at Ellison Wetlands after getting back from the Medved race.

Easy run in early afternoon, partly to recover from tough Ellison Wetlands hills yesterday, and partly to rest up for the Medved trail race at Mendon tomorrow (billed as 15 miles, but last year it seemed like it was more like 13 miles).

Ran from home, to Maple, to Ridge, to Gravel, to 104 bike path, to Bay, Woodland, and home.

Pace was leisurely but not extremely snail-like, and it felt quite good, never got my pulse up very high nor had to breathe hard.

Warm, muggy day, around 70 degrees.

Ellison Wetlands, in the morning, with the dogs. Tough workout. My pulse was certainly racing much of the time. Started at Empire, ran to Old Browncroft, then into Ellison Park for a fairly short stretch, and back.

Long run with Anne, on an afternoon that started off kind of threatening (dark clouds, somewhat windy, with occasional snow flurries), but actually became OK (sunny, still cool, mid 40's, but not bad at all).

Tour of Webster. From my house, to Maple, to Rt 104 path, to Gravel, to Ridge, to Hatch, to Plank, to State. State to Salt, N on Salt to Rt. 104 path, to North Ponds Park, to Orchard, to Holt. Holt north to Klem, to Hard, S on Hard to Hojack Trail. Hojack Trail to Drumm, to Klem, to Maple, and back home. Several walking breaks included in time and distance.

Next long run planned is 22 miles, in about a week.

Planning on an 18-mile run tomorrow, so no running today to rest up a bit for it.

Took the dogs on a morning walk to Ellison Wetlands. Nice day, and absolutely no one else there, which was a little surprising.

Warmup for interval workout.

"Yasso 800" workout, where the goal is to do 800 m repeats in the same time in minutes and seconds as the person's marathon goal pace in hours and minutes. Anne's marathon goal is 4:20 (at least that's what I'm telling her that her goal should be!), so she would aim for 4:20 for the 800's. My goal is somewhere around 3:40-3:45, so that's what I aimed for in the 800's. It seems very slow to me; it wasn't that many years ago that that pace would have been a hard training run pace, to run at for 5 miles or so.

We both did 6 repeats.

Anyway, Anne averaged a bit under 4:20, and had no trouble at all with that pace. I averaged 3:37, and it seemed like I was working slightly harder to do 3:37's than she was to do her pace. Probably that means that for me, doing a 3:37 marathon is a stretch, which I can certainly believe. I'd be pretty happy with 3:45 and very happy with 3:40.

We ran the intervals on Woodland Lane, where I have an accurate 400 m distance measured out. We ran from one end of the course to the other, then headed back to the start. I'm guessing we lost the equivalent of 2-4 seconds in the turn-around process.

Cooldown after the interval workout.