Training Log Archive: fredder

Shadowed Bailey on the Yellow course. Started cool, but hot (and thirsty) by the end. A couple spots of running, but mostly just a nice hike in the woods.

Red course at Mason-Dixon/Fairhill. Between chainsawing up a tree on Saturday and doing yellow with Bailey, I was kind of beat before I started. I'm not sure how much it actually slowed me down, but I spent more time at the water stops than usual, and, probably more significantly, I made my route choices with a strong tilt toward staying out of the sun and avoiding climb.
Other than that, I think I'm finally getting the hang of applying sufficient care to avoid big mistakes. My 50-yard-at-a-time bearing and distance method also worked pretty well. The biggest waste was probably bad route choices.

Not intended to be a workout, but... I discovered the day after that chainsawing up a large tree left me quite sore. Come to think of it, it's kind of like doing a ton of squats.

Slow jog around the lewis mills and bollinger loop. Foot felt OK when I started, but miserable when I finished. Maybe it's the shoes? (they are, according to all those rules you hear, due for a replacement...) I think I'll just stay out of those shoes until after this Sunday's event and see what happens.

Trail running at Hibernia. Focused on map contact and distance estimation.

I thought I was out for slow recovery run from the relays yesterday, but apparently I'm pretty well accomodated to running short green courses nowadays (as opposed to those journeys on Red). Felt pretty good and threw in some faster striders for good measure. I can feel the nerves tweaking in my back, though, when I pick up the pace. Need to get back to the chiropractor.

Relay champs at Osborndale. Perfect setting for O'ing--runnable woods, interesting topography.
Ran well on 12 of 16 controls--within seconds of best split on each. On the other hand...
- bad map read caused brain-dead route choice leaving control (did I think a stone wall was a cliff??): lost 5 min
- bad route choice on next leg got too close to dark green and had to backtrack out: 5 min
- sloppy bearing on next leg caused parallel error to wrong knoll: 2 min
- which led to hurried reading of map on next leg, mistaking a ridge for a valley: 5min

So, in 4 consecutive controls, I lost over 15 min (which only should have taken about 12 minutes). The problem is clearly mental: don't rush route choice (or work on it more beforehand), and don't let one bad leg ruin the next 4!

Event: Sprint Series Final & US Relay Champs
 

Bollinger block. Took compass along with map this time to calibrate distance judgments. Getting pretty good at guessing 50m at a time. We'll see how it works in the woods.

Giving my right foot a rest. This sporadic pain has been around for months and doesn't seem to be getting better-or much worse for that matter. From what I've read, its either bursitis or a stress fracture. In either case, a few days off probably isn't going to help much.

Ran Green from Aug FCE event on 1:10k map as a warmup for this weekend. Some good legs (faster than best legs from event) and some a lot worse. Really need to work on thumbing and map holding.

Lewis mills/bollinger hill loop. Trying to shake off some soreness from this weekend. Right foot is still bothering me.

Race at HR. I had mentally comitted to my "new" strategy of running the 'green' (as in red light, green light) sections harder and being much more careful on the 'red' sections. In *general*, I think it worked pretty well. Looking at the splits, I had some reasonable legs. But, wow, did I screw up some other ones. AGAIN, as many time before, I got distracted by other runners and just spaced out--the biggest was just skipping the second control altogether. The first two controls were pretty close and somehow my eye just jumped to 3 as the next target--and of course I took off running as hard as I could to get some room between me and some other people that had started about the same time I had. Even worse, when I got to the third control, it (#66) didn't match the # I was expecting (in this case having correctly recalled the # for control 2: #63). So instead of thinking it through and catching my mistake, I just blindly thought I had transposed the digits (#66 + control # 3 =? #63) and set off to find 'the real' control 3. Only after a long relocation and return to the third control (again) did I catch half my mistake, recognizing that control 3 was actually #66. Oblivious to the real mistake, I continued on. Ugh.
The other big goof was making the green->red transition on a long leg. AGAIN, having just ran by a few people on the trail just short of my AP, I hurried to get off the trail and, of course, picked the wrong ditch and spent 10 minutes in the wrong place. LESSON: IGNORE THE OTHER PEOPLE.

Event: DVOA - Hickory Run Weekend
 

Estimated time/distance for mashup of training exercises at Hickory Run and shadowing the kids on the intermediate night-o course. Nothing too intense.

2x15min intervals. Personal bests on both--although the first may have been wind aided. And the weather was nice for a change. Still, some muscles complaining. Need to do this more often.
Pace ~ 7:30m/mile

Hill and slight speed work -- farlek-kinda-training. Around the Lewis Mills and New Rd loop. Hot and humid, but my legs felt pretty dead too.

Stumble through the woods at FCE... Focus on distance judgment 50-150m. Pretty useful I think.

Usual loop around Bollinger--recovery run from Wed. Seemed less sore after long run than last time--progress perhaps? But legs were definitely 'dead'.

Another, slightly longer loop through FC N and E. Shooting for 2hrs--ended up 15 minutes long. But I think I felt significantly better at 1:30 than last week--so I hope that's progress.

Bollinger/Lewis mills. Knees, shins, foot, all still a bit sore. Tried to stay off the road as much as possible. Perhaps I need to look at some cross training as I ramp up the mileage.

Walk on trails at FC North--slow pace with careful study of contours, etc.