Training Log Archive: igoup

A nice late afternoon
Run instead of row
Plenty of no-go
Lacking mojo
From the get go
I'll get it back soon

It's a poem because it rhymes.

Suppose a person uses antiperspirant (vs. just deodorant) just before working out. Does this cause all the little sweat pores in the arm pit to explode because they can't do their sweating? Are sweat pores like brain cells in that once you loose them you can't get them back? Would antiperspirant then cease to be necessary? Are there other unhappy side effects that I haven't thought of?

Nice day. Waited for it to warm up a bit and I certainly enjoyed sleeping in a bit.

With Karl and Lisa for the annual trip to the Cross-Timbers Trail along Lake Texoma, the "Toughest Little Trail in TX." Beautiful day: sunny, 33F at the start, 42F at the finish; shorts, l-sleve, vest, headband, gloves. Went west from Cedar Bayou to the open flat area about a mile past the deserted Kiwanis Club camp. We got back to the cars at 1:40 and I went another 10 out and back heading east along the cliffs. Hills were tough but overall I was running well.

38, gray and a bit of an east wind. Felt clumsy.

At LHHS track. Had some company at first but then everyone left. Nice enough evening. Moving ok but I was pretty tired shuffling home. This caps three solid weeks of training. Time to take some easy days.

Cold, windy and rainy so I rowed the indoor boat. Did 5 ( 1min h + 1 min e) because I was bored.

Easy. So as not to incur the wrath of petite New England lady orienteers, I ran outside in the cold, wind and rain.

CS work and map correcting at Clements. Out for a bit over 2.5 hrs. Very nice day. Left rear wheel shredded just after leaving camp; had to drive home slowly with the mini-spare.

At LHHS w/ Lisa. My frog hops were lacking in hoppiness. Time for an easy day.

Beatiful late afternoon at the lake. Plenty of people still riding, walking an running. Scared up a flock of seaguls and they proceed to birdy bomb me; luckily they missed. I must have been a good boy this year -- at least on average.

Merry Xmas!

Brrr. 27deg. Luckily I had flat water and a rising sun. Temps climbed to 43 by the time I was done. Spent the first 30 min warming up -- literally. Spent the middle hour changing up the SR and the pressure in approx. 10 min intervals. Spent the next 20 min working on good posture, working my core, and pausing at body prep on every 5th stroke. The last 10 min I just paddled home.

Chased seagulls, various species of ducks, cormorants and pelicans. Seagulls are like cats in that they are very curious; they often fly nearby looking down to see what I am doing. Maybe from a distance I look like a huge fish.

I felt fine finishing the row but I felt really drained when I got home.

I was determined to have some red on today's bar graph. Watched a retrospective of Kevin McHale on "NBA Vault".

With Karl at Lake Grapevine. Haven't been there in a while because the trail was still flooded into Oct. Great day today. 55 deg and clear. Became very windy by the end.

For the first 35 min my HR wouldn't go up (seemed stuck in the 120s) and so even though we were going slow I felt winded and a little light headed. After about 35 min I started feeling better and by 60 min felt fine. Drop Karl off at the car at 90 and I did another out and back on the trail. Then I felt quite good and was cranking along. Got behind some mtn bikers for a while and pushed the pace and my HR up to the 160s. It's fun to run fast on trails, hoppin' and a skippin' and a zoomin' along.

Lisa told me she set the ipod to play good workout music but darned if Shania and her "Feel Like a Women" song didn't come on again. Is Lisa doing this on purpose or am I somehow drawing that song to the play list with some mystical energy vibes?

Rowed a skinny boat.

Ran on a treadmill.

Lifted metal plates.

ebone and I worked at Miesenbach. ebone mapping and me control scouting and making map notes. The day started foggy and turned into another nice one. I really like running in both areas, Cherokee to the south and Miesenbach to the north; it is generally really nice terrain. The map isn't quite on the same level as the terrain but we will do our best to improve it.

CS and mapping work at Clements with Ralph and ebone. A really nice day. Out for much longer but that's my approximate run (running slowly) time.

28 deg, orange sky and steam coming off of calm water. Took about 15 min of rowing at high SR to get the blood to stay in my finger tips. Mostly rowed at 16-18 spm with higher pressure. Highlight of the row was when a pelican locked onto my wake from about 100m back and 20 ft off the water. He flew towards me with big "whoomp.... whoomp.... whoomp" flaps of his wings until he was about 30m back, then did and S-turn and peeled off.

Cool temps, clear sky and sunshine, calm winds. Perfect day for a long row. Pit stop at 60 min and in-boat stretch breaks on the 30s. Usually, I wish I could stay out longer. Today I was happy to get off the sliding seat.

CS work at Camp Clements. 40 deg, gray clouds and 40 mph wind; my boogerometer was pegged at max snot. Overall, a nice day to be running around in the woods. My legs aren't carrying me very fast though.

Finals graded and grades submitted. Party time!

Nice mostly flat water, cool temps, and clear skies. Didn't watch the speed, hit a particular SR or worry about pressure. Just tried to row with good posture.

On the light side because I did it just after rowing. Too many muscles are already sore.

Tom's list of aches and sorenessesesss:
* Left hamstring tightens up while rowing. Running not a problem.
* Left hip/glute is a little achy. Not sure what is going on there.
* Right knee below the knee cap is achy going up stairs.
* Right groin sore. Tightened up yesterday during drills.
* Right rhomboid major aches. Or maybe it's the lower part of my traps.
* Both lats are sore in the area underneath the armpit.
* Upper-right rear-most molar/gum hurts when biting hard foods.

38 deg, pouring w/ thunder. Decided to do the workout indoors at SMU. WU and CD on treadmill. Drills on jogging loop above courts.

Pause drills, square blade, legs only, etc.

Cold and misty at Lake Highlands HS track. Good day to do work. I've been dealing with a bit of Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome in my right knee since the Trot; was careful doing lunges.

Rowed a land boat. I did a random workout of drills and 5 (30 s hard + 30 s easy). I really didn't need the "hard" but I get bored.

I had a NNW wind and so I was doing laps along the NW sides, hence, a lot of turning around. The wind came with cool then dropping temps and a bit of rain. Worked on keeping my HR in the low to mid 130s. The average for the workout was 127 which is pretty good considering that this includes water breaks and turning around.

For 30 min I kept the SR at around 16-17 with high pressure. The next 30 I kept the SR at around 20. The last 20 min I didn't think about it.

The marathon started downtown at 8. There were 3 water stations, one with a band and another with music along the west side that I could go by and observe. I hadn't planned this but it turned out I was in the perfect place to see the leaders come through.This was just after the 10 mi mark and there was still a strong pack of about 8-10 guys up front. There is a stretch where the road is only 20 m from the water and both the road and the shoreline are straight. I got myself a good "running start" and tried to stay with them as long as I could, maybe about 600m; they were doing 5min pace and I was at approx 6:30s. Who knows, maybe someone in the media truck took my picture or maybe I got on the tube (the race was covered live by a local station).

The down side of this adventure was that I was that I was trapped in the parking lot. The police wouldn't let me slowly drive the 100m I needed to cover from the parking lot until I was off the course. I pouted for a bit before deciding I might as well go for a run. I didn't have the shoes for it but I did it anyway. By the time I got back, I was able to drive away.

After rowing I drank a bottle of Endurox. Once I could get on the road I went to Einstein's and had a Power Bagel with peanut butter, a cinnamon raisin bagel with maple walnut cream cheese, a banana and orange juice.

NTOA event at Sam Crawford. Tatyana set a high-control density course focusing on the detailed contour areas. It was a bit of a pain from an administrative point of view (two maps, epunch and manual punch, etc) but it was fun to run. Very challenging. For the most part I had good technique choosing simple routes, attackpoints, slowing down when I needed, and generally showing good discipline. 5km, 29C in just under 57 min. Robbie wasn't there so I didn't have anyone to compare splits with.

I started doing part of the course backwards for addition training. However, I was so hungry that I starting bonking and getting lightheaded so I called it quits.

The Dallas White Rock Marathon is tomorrow so Lisa and I went down to the expo. Lisa was looking for some shorts and I didn't want anything. However, I ended up spending money and Lisa didn't.

[5 min @ X spm, low pressure] + [5 min @ X spm, high pressure]

X = 16 [HR:A = 104, M = 110] + [HR:A = 123, M = 130]
X = 20 [HR:A = 135, M = 144] + [HR:A = 149, M = 154]

Meant to do X = 18 but I forgot to hit the split at 5 min.

Left, right, down, right, up, down, right, left, left, down, 180, up, up up, down down, down, rightish, up, rightish, left, right, down, right, up, right, left, down, up, right, sprint at Lisa and Michelle in the dark, right, left.

Ran with KATY.

Beautiful night. Started in sunlight, rowed through sunset, and then watched the stars and the Christmas lights come out over and around the lake, respectively. To keep things interesting

[(4 min @ 16 spm) + (2 @ 20)] + [(4 @ 18) + (2 @ 22)], repeat.
[HR:A = 123] + [HR:A = 134]
[HR:A = 134] + [HR:A = 130]
[HR:A = 133] + [HR:A = 136]
[HR:A = 126] + [HR:A = 133]
[HR:A = 128] + [HR:A = 127]
[HR:A = 128] + [HR:A = 128]
This data doesn't make any sense.

4th in 1:53:40. Patrick G., Swampfox, Steven G., .... gap... me, Eric. B., Justin B., .... gap.... I skipped C22 and C33. I think Spike's C15 skip would have been better than C22.

Feeling not totally well last night and I didn't sleep well. Thus, plan was to start mellow and see how things went. Going up the hill to C1 I felt comfortable and was happy about that. However, Eric and Justin dropped me leaving C1 to C2 and I figured that they were gone for the day. But somehow I closed the gap back to C3. Led a small group to C4. And then proceeded to loose my mind on the way to C5. Leaving C5 I was behind a big line of people and that annoyed me. Thus, I pushed to work back through the group and was back with Eric, Justin and Spike at C8. After that it seemed my legs were working ok and on the flat sections I seemed to have good speed relative to the group.

Once I conquered the climb up the ridge after C18 I looked ahead and the rest of the course looked quite manageable. I was a little nervous leaving the pack to skip C22 but told myself to stay with my own plan. Seeing Spike on the leg to C24 motivated me a bit. I walked and climbed out of C25 and ate a Gu. I was happy to see Eric B just 50m ahead of me when I reached the clearing and corrals. And that no one was close behind was motivating.

Eric and I bungled C26 in the dark green and rocks. Somehow I found a better route out and made it to the power line ride ahead. Darius of Winnipeg had punched just before us at C26 but I didn't see him after that.

On the way to C28 I paused to tie my shoe and Eric caught back up; Eric is always pretty tough at the end of the PTrot and I figured I needed to have both shoes firmly attached. I got ahead on the way to the marsh at C29 but was confused because all that I saw was a thicket where the marsh should be. Eric caught up and showed me that there was a little marsh on the other side of the thicket.

We hit a head wind crossing the open fields to C30 and Eric tucked in behind me. By the time we hit the parking lot I had opened a little gap and thought, "hmmmm.... I better try to take advantage of this." Thus, the rest of the way to C30 and then to C31 and C32 I pressed the pace. Running down the hill to C32 I was too far right and so was happy not to see Eric dropping down on top of me from the left.

I knew MrPither and Swampfox were ahead of us but I wasn't sure where a couple of the Winnipeg guys were. Thus, I thought maybe I could be third. Alas, no Possum for me.

The good: In spite of my whining about not feeling well, I end up running ok. Walked too many hills but otherwise I was ok. I was lucky that the terrain was generally easy running.
The bad: My O technique stinks. Route choice was fine but my control circle navigation was weak. Many bobbles that allowed gaps with the pack to close back up. I'm not as disciplined or precise as last spring and am just throwing myself at the control. I have work to do.
The ugly: None.

Possum Trot - Splits

PTOC: Possum Trot

OK event at Woodbridge (west of Lawrence). 3rd in 29:48. Patrick Goeres first in the 25's. Justin Baken a second ahead of me and Steven Graupner a couple behind.

Raining, wind and in the 40s but it didn't feel bad running; kind of enjoyed it. Easy but fun course on a "draft" map; adding the details would make this area quite decent. I've been feeling a little off this week so I planned for a patient start to see how things went. I got fixated on the stone wall coming into C1 and over ran the clearing edge. I got tripped by a loose strand of barbed wire that sent me flying on the way to C2. Got into a rhythm until crossing the field from C8 to C9 and my legs said "ugh." Sloppy to C10 -- I was too far left. Good route the first half of the leg to C12 but then the second half was sloppy. C12->C13->F was just running; I kept my pace but didn't try to increase.

Woodridge Park Long - Splits