Training Log Archive: ebuckley

Chubb from Lone Elk to Tyson, connector, Chinkapin, Flint Quarry, and back on Chubb. Hard to imagine a day any more pleasant. Low 20's, clear skies, no wind, everything convered in snow, but still reasonable footing. So fine!

Apparently it was let your dog off the leash day today. I don't think I've ever seen so many loose dogs on the Chubb. Doesn't bother me. Spike would have not liked it much. Also saw a lot more mountain bike tracks than I would have expected. I don't even like riding the Chubb when it's wet. Seems it would be darn near impossible when it's covered in snow and ice. Maybe there's more grip than I realize, but I'm not going to find out any time soon.

Skating with Yaya. Objectively an improvement, but her heart wasn't in it today. She had fun but after 35 minutes she wanted to go and I didn't force the issue. Worst thing to do at this point is take the fun out of it by making her practice more than she wants to. Once she really knows how to skate (as opposed to her current little shuffle) we'll talk about whether she wants to get good. Right now, it's just an activity.

Three short courses with 2-3 minutes easy jogging after each at Babler (1:15). First two were done at a pace just below what I'd run a red course at. Last one was in fairly open woods, so I took it at a pace that was not very comfortable at all.

Driving back I noticed that yet another giant Evangelical church has been built on the flood plain. Now, I've got nothing against these folks at all, but I'm really struck by the irony of it. This is a group of people who:

1. Believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God.
   
2. Accept metaphor, but tend towards a literal interpretation.
   
3. Can (and will) quote you Matthew 7:24-27.
   

Yet somehow spending a few million dollars erecting a building on a piece of land that gets submerged every few years is a perfectly reasonable course of action.

C • Extremely literal interpretations 2

Major breakthrough for Yaya! After the first couple laps she decided she'd try it alone and she did just fine. Not holding on to me or the wall. Still a silly little shuffle, but definitely doing it on her own. That freed me to do some more skating, but it also meant I couldn't go too fast because I had to keep an eye on her as well as where I was going and it's considered very bad form to knock over kids at a public session.

Electric Duck at moderate pace. Turns out that, good as they are on ice, Icebugs don't have enough void in the tread pattern for good traction on fresh snow. Slipped and went down hard on my knee. While intense, the pain was transient and I kept on going. Less ephemeral was the effect on my hands; just the few seconds on my hands and knees was enough to suck all the heat out of my fingers through my relatively light windproof gloves. Thought I might have to bail on the run, but by the time I got to the end of the powerline, I was back to feeling OK all around.

That didn't last for long because the west side of the lake was completely exposed to a brutal wind. Just when I was thinking that these are the days that separate people who meet their goals from people who don't, a guy comes along in the other direction at a pace I usually reserve for reps on the track. More amazing is the fact that he's wearing shorts. His legs are bright red, but he doesn't seem to be in any more discomfort than you'd expect from someone banging out 5:30's. A few minutes later I was happily in the trees on the east side of the lake and the return on the powerline was with a tailwind, so I was pretty comfortable after all was said and done. Still can't believe that nut was running in shorts.

Family class with Yaya. Master warren kept the advanced belts on the floor the whole time, so we got in more than usual. Yaya got all the way through her new form for the first time.

C • A young guy? About 17? 14

Encouraging conversation for the day:

Yaya: Adam threw up during snack time.
Me: Did he have to go home?
Yaya: Yeah, his belly hurt.
Me: Did you finish your snack?
Yaya: Sure! My belly didn't hurt.

She might have the stuff for adventure racing yet.

For an effort of this size, things are going remarkably well, but it's still a lot of work. Last night was the first combined payroll confirmation. Since my contribution to the largest merger in US Banking history has been on the data warehousing side, today was the day all my stuff got called into action. Started taking calls at 6:00AM and just got off the last one at 8:10PM. I'm not the type that gets much else done while talking to people so there's probably another 4-5 hours of real work that needs to get done before we repeat the process tomorrow. Training will have to wait.

Still some junk in the legs from Sunday and I thought about cutting this one short, but it was such a fantastic day to be in the woods that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to run the CC Lake trails and that's the section that would have been dropped. Actually felt fine after about 20 minutes; hard not to with a bright blue sky above, a bare trail below, temps in the high teens and not a hint of wind. Pretty much my idea of perfect trail running conditions.

C • run today 1

Family class with Yaya.

C • Other suggestions... 2

Posting goals for the year seems to be the AP thing to do these days, so I'll follow suit:

Overriding goal: Sub 3-hour marathon. Most likely at Wineglass in October, but I'll give it a go at Boston.

Races I'd really like to win:
Any goat (have to put this one in since I've already accomplished it!)
Any Adventure Race (Conquer Castlewood doesn't count)
But I really would like to win Conquer Castlewood
MO State Games Duathlon (a stretch, but it's happened before)
SLOC 3-hour
Possum Trot (another stretch, but it's happened before)
Pere Marquette Trail Run (age group - no chance of overall there)
Run Toto Run 50K (age group, although overall would be even nicer)

And of course, all of this could get trumped by the really important things in life, but for now, Yaya enjoys tagging along to these things, so it's quality family time as well.


Other things that are important, but difficult to quantify:
A-meet
Put on some other event or series to benefit Carol's Team and ALS
Make at least one significant map

Giving myself one last day to finish feeling good about myself before the real work begins.