Training Archive: wilsmithIn the 30 days ending 2008-06-30:
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| 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 | F | S | S | M | |||||||||||||||
Sunday Jun 22 | ||
| Note | |
| (injured) (rest day) | ||
| Will officially call this an "injury day". Decided against any real training, as my left hamstring isn't back to 100%. Actually feels slightly worse than yesterday, despite stretching and hot tub sessions. So, I decided to take it "easy" and spent the day cleaning out eavestroughs, re-stacking our spare lumber pile, pruning and trimming all the hedges, draining the hot tub for our time away, and planting a pear tree (now all we need is a partridge...).
I wasn't planning on much training over the next week anyway, though today was intended to be my last intensity day before the trip to Sweden. But losing one day of intervals compared to the presumed healing benefit for the hamstring seemed a good deal. Schedule now includes two full OR days plus an ER call day x24 hrs. We leave this Wednesday afternoon, after 24hrs on call followed immediately by 8hrs in the OR. Flight schedule usually takes about 19 hours, plus driving either end. And we drive directly north for 5 hours once we land in Arlanda, to get to Katarina's parents' place. Still, no pager and no calls for 4 weeks, so that will be worth it all. | ||
| C • enjoy the break 1 | ||
Saturday Jun 21 | ||
| Running 41:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 06 New Balance 872 | ||
|
Easy run, out scouting my terrain trial course. A few (like 7-8) more boggy areas due to the wet spring, which should add about 1 minute onto the running time I think. I will try to put down a time on this in the next day or two. Left hamstring feeling a bit tight/sore. Has been a little bit off ever since Nav-Stock, actually. I stretched it often yesterday (2 x 30sec in after every 1000m interval), and stopped to stretch a couple of times today. I mainly only feel it starting out, and it doesn't seem to bother me once I get going. Certainly not a race-ending, WOC-ending, or season-ending issue. At the moment, I classify it more as "nuisance" issue. Oh well. For that test loop, last run in 2006, I have it listed as 6.9km (but hilly and tough uneven surface much of the way), with my time in 2006 being 26:20. | ||
Friday Jun 20 | ||
| Running intervals 35:00 | |
| shoes: 06 New Balance 872 | ||
|
My first real, solid interval workout. Not that the prescribed H&H intervals aren't really intervals. Just that by now they are so much the norm for my training that I don't always really think of them as a special interval workout. Anyway, harkening back to my days with Dal X-C, I decided to run one of Al's favorites, 10 x 1 km. A fairly good chunk of workload, and targeted to the range of endurance that I want/need to improve on. Pretty sure I used to run at higher intensity at Dal (hard not to, with a dozen other guys around and a couple of coaches calling out encouragement, versus running solo as I do in Cochrane). However, the quality was still acceptable today. Range was between 3:15 and 3:42 per km (some small hills involved to account for some of the variation), and average something under 3:30, I guess. Only really started to feel the work on the 9th and 10th kms, when the legs started to feel a bit heavy. Stomach issues began at about 7 km into the intervals, but were tolerable (barely). Nice workout, feel happy with this one. | ||
| Running warm up/down 45:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 06 New Balance 872 | ||
|
Includes active recovery in between the above intervals as well. | ||
Thursday Jun 19 | ||
| Running 25:00 [3] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
Kind of junk training after supper (bad time to run for me - stomach too full). Some on roads, some on marshy/muddy ATV tracks to the east of town. | ||
Wednesday Jun 18 | ||
| Running intervals 16:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
A 4x4 session. | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [2] | |
|
Includes recovery for above. | ||
Tuesday Jun 17 | ||
| Running intervals 16:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
Another 4x4 session. | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
Includes recovery for above. | ||
Sunday Jun 15 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
| "Rest day" in the ER. Improving my resting somewhat by trying out my new pressure socks. They were meant for those long drives and flights to orienteering races, but seem to work admirably for a day on my feet in the ER too....
Made it home briefly for supper, which was a nice Father's Day gift. Even better, Mom made it back to Canada intact after yet another project in central Africa with MSF. Admirable or crazy or both - but she loves working in those wild Third World areas, especially now that the nest is empty. | ||
| C • Admirable 1 | ||
Saturday Jun 14 | ||
| Running intervals 16:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
And the usual 4x4. First one felt slow; better on 2, 3, and 4 though. | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
Includes recovery for above. | ||
Friday Jun 13 | ||
| Running intervals 16:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
The usual 4x4 set. I think my 1000m splits were about 5 seconds slower than usual, so my legs are still not 100%. Maybe 90-95% though. Hopefully fully 100% by next week (on call Sunday in ER though which will of course take a toll). | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
For the above. | ||
Thursday Jun 12 | ||
| Running intervals 16:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
First 4x4 session following the Raid. Legs still a bit heavy - not unusual, given the workout they got on Sunday. But it will come around just fine, I think. | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
For the above. | ||
Wednesday Jun 11 | ||
| Running 30:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
An easy run with Katta - first time out running since the Raid. Legs heavy, stomach still a bit full after supper. Should have gone in the afternoon, but was too busy trying to fit in some much-needed yard work before supper time. At least now we don't the most disgraceful lawn on the street any more.... (for now) | ||
Tuesday Jun 10 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
|
Rest day #2. Seemed a good idea to extend the recovery a bit. Legs no longer sore though - that cleared up within about 24 hours following the Raid, with a little help from "Vitamin I" (only two doses, so not very much in the end). | ||
Monday Jun 9 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
|
Let's see.... Thursday on call in the ER, brutally busy. On my feet for about 20 hours that day and night - pretty much awake for 26 hours to complete my shift. Followed directly by 10 hours in the OR (there were two added cases which prolonged our day and made our departure for Navstock late by about 3 hours). And then a 7-hour drive to Huntsville, arriving just after midnight. Fell soundly asleep, which is no surprise, considering I had been up for about 40 hours straight, with only a tiny snippet or two of sleep interspersed in there. Then up at 0600 again to eat and complete the drive to Navstock. Raced twice on Saturday, then an unexpectedly-long run on Sunday (Nick just wouldn't quit...), and an immediate 8-hour drive back home, arriving just before midnight last night. So, yeah, it was time for a rest day today. My legs were actually a bit sore today, despite not really having any cramping problems in the Raid. Only notice it when climbing stairs. Ibuprofen seems to help, which is convenient. | ||
Sunday Jun 8 | ||
| Orienteering race 5:10:00 | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 790 | ||
|
Navstock Raid. An interesting day. Hadn't planned on running this, but Nick called at the very last minute and asked me to fill in for his missing teammate. I only agreed after some coaxing, plus an agreement that since the WOC is only a month away, we would only run for 3 hours, or until we were feeling tired. I made it clear that I would quit immediately if I began to experience any leg cramps. Brutally hot weather, about 30-32 C plus fairly long stretches on roads and trails, exposed to sun. Didn't help much. Carried a 1-liter Camelbak plus Nuun tablets to replace electrolytes and a couple Enervitene cheer packs. Refilled the water twice (at both opportunities on the course), and drank extra both times. Probably consumed about 4 liters of electrolyte fluids during the race, though that was not nearly enough in retrospect. The course itself was not very technically challenging. The only technical bit (which we managed to screw up anyway by not really being clear about which of us was navigating, so neither of us really navigated well) was in the very beginning, when the teams were still bunched up anyway. So not really a spot to make a huge gap on other teams as it would have been if later in the course. After that, all the controls seemed to be very close (about 100m give or take) to trails/roads. I guess that's what adventure racers do and like, though it seemed pretty straightforward navigationally. Nowhere to make huge mistakes out there. Lots of dead time on roads and trails doing transport legs. And a strange section of photo-O where you were given a sheet of 10 photos and had to write down the location of each as you went along a mostly-paved transport leg. Except that the photos were in random order. And you were forced to pretty much walk on that section, which really, really bogged down the whole process. And when we didn't find one of the pictures and had completed the leg, the only choices were to suck it up and lose a ton of points (lost 80 points, compared to the paltry 100 points given for completing the first 25km of the Raid), or else to go back and do it over again. Uhhhhhhh, don't think so. Bad enough the first time around, didn't relish the thought of going it again. At this point, our once-significant lead had shrunk considerably, but we were still clearly in first place. Nick started getting cooked by the heat about 2 hours into the race. We started walking the hills soon after that. At first I didn't realize how bad he felt, but then it became more clear once we were out on the roads and trails, so we slacked off a bit. He's running the WOC too, so no point in pushing ourselves too much. We hit the rogaine section about 3 hours into the race. I was ready to let it all drop there, having at least had a decent physical outing, if not much of a navigational challenge. Despite his discomfort, Nick was all for pressing on a little bit, and it did seem a bit silly to finish well ahead of the other teams at the point but only have a paltry score to show for it. So we ended up doing some rogaine controls. Again, I proposed quitting after 3 of those, but again Nick persuaded me to continue. So we did a couple more. And then one easy way home took us past one more control. And then there were only two left to get on the northern half of the map, so we decided to finish off that half of the map for completeness sake. By that time, a significant proportion of the moving time was spent walking, so productivity was suffering. And we were waaaaaay past our 3-hour cutoff. So we rolled into the finish and headed to the refreshments. In the end, we came a surprising 2nd overall. The Salomon gals won the race - we could see they were going strong and were looking to drop Grizzly Bender on the physical aspect of it all. When we heard Bender dropped out at the start of the rogaine section, their victory seemed quite clear to us. I don't think there were really any other teams out there who could touch them physically and navigationally except possibly for us, and we were definitely not going out past 5 hours. We would have had to do the whole 6 hours to be assured of victory, and this close to the WOC that would have been madness. Will see how recovery goes, but for my part I didn't feel any cramps and didn't hit the wall. I was fortunate in that Nick being cooked in the heat saved me from too much exertion myself. The only downside was running out of water at the 4-hour mark, and no place to refill it anywhere nearby. I had been aggressively re-hydrating all along, though, so I was able to withstand an hour of water deprivation even that late into the course. Excellent choice of footwear and clothing. I wore my New Balance 790 trail racing shoes - very light and comfy the whole day, and great even on pavement. I was one of the few orienteers who elected to wear shorts; I got a few superficial scratches as a result, but my body temperature felt much better than if I had been wearing full leg cover. And a cycling shirt that zipped way down in the front was also useful; maybe a light tank top would have been even better though. | ||
Saturday Jun 7 | ||
| Event: NavStock Weekend | ||
| Orienteering race (Middle) 32:00 [4] 5 km (6:24 / km) | |
| shoes: 07 VJ Integrator | ||
| Navstock Middle
At Schumacher Mountain. Nice little course. Had some trouble navigationally, but considering I had been up for 46 of the preceding 52 hours I felt quite good physically. Missed some time at both 2 and 3; I don't think I would choose to map the strips of yellow that way - they just don't stand out enough to see. Maybe cut lines would be easier to read on the map. Missed even more time on 9; felt that I could see an old trail bed or shallow ditch in the terrain next to a yellow patch, but it was not on the map. Took me a little while to decide where I was exactly; turns out I had passed within 5 meters of the tree that hid the control, but on the wrong side of it so didn't see it on the way through. Oh well. Nice time by Mr.Pither to disgrace all of us. | ||
| Orienteering race (Sprint) 18:00 [5] | |
| shoes: 07 VJ Integrator | ||
|
Navstock Sprint A very nice (if slightly longish) course on the Bass Lake map. Quite technical, given the terrain. My first time running there - very nice venue for the camping and sprint. Would have been even nicer had the finish been at the beach - the weather was super hot (over 30 C) and I was feeling the heat through the race. Missed small amounts at multiple controls, but nothing bigger than 30 seconds at any one of them. Nearly made the mistake of running from 6 to 8 (7 was pretty much in line with them), but luckily caught myself halfway through to avoid disaster; suboptimal route to 7 but way better than running back from 8 to get it, or else being DSQ. Took out the victory by some small margin I think, though haven't seen results yet. Basically just returning the favor to Mr. Pither, who had embarrassed us in the morning. | ||
| Orienteering warm up/down 25:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 VJ Integrator | ||
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For both races above. | ||
Thursday Jun 5 | ||
| Running intervals 16:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
A brief 4x4 session just before starting call at 0800. It will be a busy weekend and now is the only chance to get a session in before Navstock. Nice to run in the morning, although I do like my sleep and am probably running into a little bit of sleep debt so have to be careful to get as many hours in bed as I can.... | ||
| Running warm up/down 20:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
Including recovery for the above. | ||
Wednesday Jun 4 | ||
| Running intervals 16:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
A 4x4 session to get the legs going. | ||
| Running warm up/down 18:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
And recovery for the above. | ||
Tuesday Jun 3 | ||
| Running 42:00 [2] | |
| shoes: 07 New Balance 873 | ||
|
Though I dearly hate to do it, this was junk training today. I should realize by now that I just can't do any real quality the day after a 24-hour ER call (especially one that blends into a further 8 hours in the OR). Very little sleep overnight (broken bits of sleep here and there), and soooooo tired in the OR today. How nice to have a 4-hour cholecystectomy that was too difficult to complete laparoscopically and had to be opened, only to face further challenges. Sigh. Anyway, the best I could do today was zone 2, and even that felt tough to maintain. I think this weekend will be a bad one for me - I have a 24-hour call on Thursday, followed immediately by an 8-hour OR day on Friday, and then a 5-hour drive until we can crash for the night, hitting the road again at 0700 to make it to the start of the middle distance race. Oh, the things we do living in the north, just to make it to some orienteering meets from time to time.... | ||
| C • time 2 time 4 | ||
Monday Jun 2 | ||
| Note | |
| (rest day) | ||
|
Shouldn't really call it rest. You spend the better part of 16 hours on your feet, then the following 8 hours trying (in vain) to get a decent bit of sleep in between the annoying beeps of the pager. But no running training, anyway. I am paying the piper now, having stacked my on-call shifts to accommodate for the Team Trials and the trip to New Brunswick to finalize courses for the Canadian Champs and Fishbones events this August. It was a successful venture - and I managed to achieve my goals for the Trials middle distance races (both US and Canada) - but at this point having all the call stacked up at once plus a new first-year medical student to teach makes things a little bit hectic. The end is in sight though - after NavStock, I only have one more on-call shift before flying to Sweden and relative freedom for a month (and then more punishment at the end of July while trying to cram a while bunch of call into a week - but too early to dread that at the moment I suppose). | ||
Sunday Jun 1 | ||
| Running intervals 21:00 [4] | |
| shoes: 06 New Balance 872 | ||
|
Yet another interval session. Sort of a 4x4 equivalent, though it was really more like 7 x 2.5-4 - wherever the natural interval ended. I guess lots of folks would call this a fartlek session. Basically cruising the flats and downhills, and running any section with hills or rolling climbs. Feeling tired again today, so needed something to get me going - otherwise it'd have been a session of "junk" running, and I can't afford too many of those. Probably better for me to rest and recover, rather than put in junk training time these days. | ||
| Running warm up/down 16:00 [3] | |
| shoes: 06 New Balance 872 | ||
|
The "cruising" time for the above session. Basically the time I spent gasping for breath, wondering why the heck I'm feeling so tired.... | ||
| Note | |
|
Nice long session out doing gardening and yardwork today. Planted two more blackberry bushes (total now 4), and two more blueberry bushes (total now 7). Installed a new slide for Mia. Excavated and laid paving stones around the gate at the far back corner of the property. Watered and fertilized the garden plants. Installed new hosing system. Re-did the helter-skelter stakes that were used to hold the netting that keeps the birds from eating our strawberries before we get the chance; didn't get the raspberry stakes done though. Fixed the latticework for some of the vines. Planted a new rose bush in the front bed. Drove fertilizer spikes for most of the trees in the back and front yards, but none on the side yard (ran out). Seems like a lot got done, but there's oodles more to do. And unfortunately, a Monday in the ER tomorrow. Ugh. | ||
| C • Gardening 2 | ||