Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

6 x (walking up the driveway backwards)

2 sets: 12 x toe raisers, each leg; 24 x step ups (3 steps)

The two thera-ring exercises: 3x each leg, hold for :35, rest for :25. Sometimes did less rest and a little more holding, up to :45 for the last reps.

The two stretching exercises, :40 hold, :40 rest, only 2 sets each. Doing it right now, but they still irritate my back just a bit.

The usual weekly accumulation of morning exercises: stretching, strength and balance.

Lake Ranch Reservoir. Walk out to near side of lake and a drop more (while L runs to the far side) and back. Walked pretty fast; indeed, some of the splits aren't that much slower than when I run these days. Jogged four times for about 30 secs each, but with very short steps, not going much faster than walking. Knee held up pretty well.

720(824)1544(647)2231(57)
(754)(847)(633)

Theraband interleaved with core, adductors, weights. Pushed everything to the max. Didn't do hip exercises because they're just easier versions of the PT exercises I'm doing this week but not doing today.

[Strength exercises]

Did the four exercises from Kevin, 35 second holds with 25 second rests (a few times rested for 35 seconds), alternating legs. These are tough.

Didn't seem to be doing the stretches correctly as I didn't feel anything in my quads or glutes. Later realized I was trying to tilt my hips in the wrong direction. All I got of that was a sore lower back :-(

Had planned to do a full workout, but ran out of time, so just did one set each of the three theraband exercises and the two weight exrecises.

Lake Ranch Reservoir. Brisk walk with Louise, to "fern creek" (one mile mark) and back. Managed to be out there during the only time it rained all day. Did a little walking backwards: when I had surgery on my left knee in 2000, did a lot of walking backwards in my recovery (recommended by Stan Nakahara) to strengthen hamstrings, glutes and quads.

Did the four exercises I learned at Kevin's yesterday, alternating between legs. Started off with only 20 seconds rest, but after the second set of the first exercise went to 30 and then later 45. Also, only did two sets each of the last two exercises, and only held them for 45 seconds as my legs got very tired. (Also held the last set of the second exercise for only 45 secs.)

These were really tough and left me rather exhausted, plus my left (supposedly good) knee ached for a while afterward.

Did these at home, but I'll still put them in the PT category. Supposed to do these every day. Scheduled to see Kevin again next Tuesday, at which time he will add further exercises, so my goal it to be able to do all four of these for the full amount of time by then.

[Physical therapy]

Went to see my favorite DPT, Kevin Vandi at his new place, The Competitive Edge. He's had me run on a treadmill a bit (not too much because of my sore knee); he's got a cool set up where cameras record you from several angles and then the video can be played back simultaneously and in slow motion so your form can be analyzed. Then he had me do a number of tests where, while I'm laying on my back, he puts my leg in different positions then tells me to resist while he pushes hard in a certain direction. There was only one position where I couldn't resist. That, coupled with the video analysis of my running stride, led Kevin to conclude that what I have is a strained tendon that connects my quad to my knee, and that, furthermore, this due to not having strong enough hip muscles and glutes plus not engaging those muscles properly. So, the object of my PT will be to both strengthen those muscles (both legs) and to learn to engage them. To the latter end, he placed a sensor on my right hip while I did the first two of the four exercises I'll describe below; I could then see a big screen with a graph on it, showing to what extent my hip muscle was engaged while I was doing the exercises, which allowed me to "search around" and try to push the graph higher, which should help me figure out how to "engage" those muscles with regularity.

The exercises (each held for one minute followed by one minute rest, repeated for a total of 3 times):

1. Laying on the left side with a yellow Theraring (small theraband in the shape of a circular band) around my lower thighs, raise the right leg, keeping it straight, and hold.

2. "Dog pee on hydrant". On hands an knees, with Theraring again around lower thighs, raise the right knee out to the side and hold.

3. Quad stretch. Standing, with back to a massage table, bend right knee and place toes on the table, then rotate top of hips back to stretch quad, meanwhile engaging hips and glutes.

4. Another quad stretch. Right knee on the ground, left leg with foot on the ground, knee bent at a right angle. Again, rotate top of hips forward and hold.

Found all of these difficult to hold for the full minute, but pushed through.

Think these will really help, not just to recover from the present injury but also to make me stronger going forward. It's quite clear that I generally over work my quads and this program should help a great deal.

[Physical therapy]

Knee seems rather better today, though at one point, just for a moment, it kinda gave out on me. Didn't take much ibuprofen, and didn't ice except for an ice massage when I first got up.

C • Hopefully PT will help 1

At our Monte Rio place. Knee not too bad, but certainly don't feel like moving around on it too much.

The usual weekly accumulation of morning exercises: Stretching, strength and balance.

Orthopedist doesn't think there's any structural damage to the knee (no swelling). Recommends rest, ice, anti-flammatories and a couple of weeks of PT. Made an appt with my favorite DPT for this coming Tues.

Earlier, walking around the house getting ready to leave for the weekend, my knee got quite sore.

Theraband interleaved with core, hips, adductors, weights. Full amount of everything, so a complete workout except for bosu exercises.

Knee isn't as sore as yesterday - icing helped. Will try ice massages (did one this morning) since that appeared to help my Achilles problems so significantly a couple of years ago.

Have an appt wtih my orthopedist for tomorrow morning and have been in touch with my favorite DPT, who thinks it's probably an alignment issue that has put undue stress on my knee.

[Strength exercises]

Lake Ranch Reservoir. Perfect running temp (60). Given that my knee was quite sore yesterday afternoon (not as much this morning), wore a knee brace. L started off considerably faster than usual, which felt good. After the first creek crossing, knee started feeling very sore, but in half a minute that cleared up. Got to the end of the lake and I felt great, running up the third bridge feeling very strong. Felt strong enough to go further up the hill, but didn't want to over do it for my knee. Took it easy on the way down, did a loop back waiting for L, but as I ran along the lake, it was clear that my knee was now very irritated. Decided to slow the pace just to get the work in and so I could get back to the car (though I was feeling disappointed since I was on track for an excellent workout); tried to keep my stride very short so as not to overextend the knee. The back of my knee was feeling quite aggravated at this point - hadn't been feeling pain there at all. Made it back, slowing down more and more, but it's quite clear that I can't do any further running until I get some treatment on the knee :-(

452(530)1023(504)1527(452)2019
(312) -- up to third bridge
(228) -- back down
(444)(449)(615)(517)

Usual 4.0: 4126
Extra half-mile: 540
Loopbacks: 111

[Easy distance w/hills]

Essentially the full workout: theraband interleaved with core, adductors, hips, weights (not quite the full workout on weights).

Right knee really stiffened up after lunch (at Oracle) today. This evening, any time I move it the wrong way or shift my weight the wrong way, it complains pretty vociferously.

[Strength exercises]

Capitola, New Brighton State Park. Warm day (80 degrees). L had an errand to do in Soquel, so I went along and then we went for a nice walk on the beach. Gorgeous out there. Followed that with lunch near the Capitola wharf.

Right knee started hurting with about half a mile to go. It was stiff and maybe a little swollen later.

Event: BAOC: Point Pinole
 

Pt. Pinole local meet. "Medium Orange" (really kind of a slightly long Middle Brown): 5.0km, 120m climb (but I count 80m), 19c. Got out there early (10:20 start) to beat the heat (it was near 90 in LG later in the day) and to be running before the elephant tracks got bad (grass was fairly tall).

Very aggressive in the beginning, navigated very well, ran hard. Wore out a bit by the time I was heading for #12, and had to walk some on most of the uphills. Still, maintained a good flow and did very well. Probably less than a minute of bobble all together, and maybe a minute lost to walking (might have pushed harder if it was a big meet).

2nd to Rex's 36:16; followed by Johanna Karras (47:10), Daniel Sebo (47:25), Greg Ehrensing (47:53), Derek Maclean (48:19) and Chuck S (51:11). Winsplits. RouteGadget.

Felt my right knee a little during my warmup, but it didn't bother me during the race. Afterwards, it stiffened up several times, but would loosen up as soon as I moved around a bit. Might be a little swollen.

1. Figured it would be a 40 - 45 min run, but still started off fast in a similar manner to what I did in the 30 min Middle Champs at Morgan Territory a few weeks ago. Cut the corner from the road to the little trail S of the control, but then chose to go ten meters up the trail because dead ahead the grass was very tall and a 10m higher it wasn't. (Later in the run I probably would've just gone straight.) Didn't slow down to try to match the bushes with the map; rather, figured I needed to stay near the road and as long as their were bushes ahead of me, I needed to keep going. Nailed it.

2. Intended to angle up the hill towards the black X just the other side of the trail. There was the beginning of an elephant trail heading straight up the hill, but resisted the temptation to go that way. Hit the trail 30m S of the bench, went halfway to the bench, then took a bearing and started downhill, quickly spotting the correct knoll and seeing the flag itself. Would've been more interesting if the flag was on the other side of the knoll.

3. Angled up to the trail, aiming to hit it just to the right of the fork, which I did. Run along the N-pointing fork while I plan the rest of the leg in detail. Plan is to go around the big hill beyond the T-junction, through the finger of clearing pointing N, to the 3-way trail junction, over to the little trail on the berm that's pointing right at #6 and then swoop by 6 directly to 3. Could see the hill ahead well before I reached the T-junction. But once I crossed into the woods, there was too much junk on the ground where I wanted to go around to the back of the hill while the way straight ahead seemed runnable, so I went that way, figuring that when I hit the trail I'd turn right and go down to the 3-way junction. When I hit the trail, I noticed that the broken stone wall was just to my right, so I was maybe 50m further up the trail than I'd hoped to be. At that point, I should have changed plans and just kept going straight (there was a good attackpoint, which I hadn't noticed, where the ditch that #6 was in crosses the trail, and anyway, that would have been better practice), but I didn't even take a good look at the map then, just turned right on the trail and kept running, because the whole point of swinging to the right was to be able to maintain a good flow by jumping on that berm and running past 6. Anyway, the good flow worked as planned, going straight N from the 3-way junction to the next trail and then to the berm, turning left, going straight and passing to the left of 6 and then nailing 3. But had I gone straight from when I was at the trail by the stone wall (and of course had I executed that well), it would have been 10 - 15 secs faster.

4. Before punching 3, knew I had to make a right angle turn to the right, so did and started running in that general direction while I took a bearing and fine-tuned my direction. Knew I wanted to go to a lone tree just outside the forest. Couldn't see one dead ahead, but could see one a little to the right. Stuck with my bearing, and meanwhile checked that the map did indeed indicate that there was another lone tree a bit right of where I was headed. Once out of the woods, the tree I wanted was right in front of me. Had the fastest split on this leg, showing how profitable it is to plan a leg in advance and then do whatever adjusting/checking you need to do without slowing down appreciably.

5. When I came out of the woods and spotted 4 right in front of me, looked beyond that to the right to see if I could spot the copse that #5 was in, and I could. So once I punched 4, turned in the direction of 5 and now I could even see the flag, so there was no further thinking required. Had the second fastest split, 1 sec behind Rex.

6. While running to 5, noticed on the map that there was ditch in the field pointing right at 6, so once I punched 5, immediately angled over towards that ditch. Quickly came to a ditch, but it didn't seem to be running in the right direction, so stopped and checked the map and saw that there was indeed another ditch. Resumed running, hitting the ditch I wanted just before it reached the forest, then continued in the direction the ditch had been running in and nailed 6. Again had the second fastest split, only 2 secs behind Rex (on a leg nearly 3 times as long as #5).

7. Turned right, wound up passing just a little right of #3, so adjusted my bearing. Lots of unmapped vegetation in the way, so looked for good places to run and kept trying to get back to the line I'd deviated from. Soon saw the rootstock and flag dead ahead. This time (50% longer), beat Rex by 4 secs, but Derek was 3 secs ahead of me.

8. Wanted to aim for the corner of the forest near the trail, but there was a significant amount of unmapped vegetation in the field near the forest border, so stayed a little further right. Once I hit the road, it was easy to spot the thick patch of fight SE of $8, and I used that and the tip of forest to the NW to gauge where the flag would be, and nailed it, even though I couldn't see the bag down in the ditch until I was almost right on top of it.

9. Angled to the road and then kept running on it. Spotted a small building ahead and just to the left of the road. Though that was #11, so planned to run to just before it and then cut up the hill. But then saw the quarry-like feature directly on my left, and realized that #11 was actually the foundation that I was already almost directly under, so cut up past the right side of the foundation. Used the shape of the quarry and the forest patch further up the hill to nail the control even though it was down in the ditch and I couldn't see it until I was nearly on top of it. Had to walk a good part of the way up the hill, so a bit surprised that I had the third best split (3 secs behind Greg E, 29 behind Rex).

10. Ran on the lip of the ditch past the top of the quarry, then on a rough bearing towards the control, keeping an eye on the forest and other vegetation ahead and to the right. As course setter Steve Gregg confirmed later, the mapped dark green patches just beyond the trail and just left of the red line had expanded, and to me they looked like the mapped patch of forest to the SE. So, I ran to the left of them, then past the next bush, but then stopped because there was no further vegetation ahead and because the quarry to the left was awfully close. Thinking I may have run too far, looked down the hill and back, and there was the bag. Lost about 15 secs.

11. Resisted dropping to the road and instead aimed for the circle ran a little on the road, to the end of the forest, then cut up the embankment and then straight to the foundation. Should have run directly from 10 to 11, never getting on the road, as the two controls were on the same contour. Nevertheless, had the second fastest split, well behind Rex but well ahead of everyone else.

12. Straight, through the corner of the forest and then up the hill, nailing it without any difficulty. Had to walk up a good part of the hill, though. Actually surprisingly close to Rex and just 1 sec behind Derek.

13. Set off on a bearing for the furthest vertex of the triangle made by trails. Crossing the first trail, couldn't see a junction on either side, causing a little anxiety, but stayed on my bearing and nailed the junction on the far side. Along the trail to the junction with the trail on the left, then on a careful bearing towards the control. But there was a great deal of unmapped thick vegetation in the way, forcing me well to the left. Kept my eyes right, and about the time my pace count ran out, spotted an overturned stump maybe 50m to my right, a little further than I would have expected. As I went over there, saw that the mapped hill w/clearing was right behind it. But when I got there, no flag. Hmm. Looked around, and there was a flag on a rootstock 40m to my left, and that was the control. Later, Steve (course setter) told me that he didn't discover the additional rootstock until he was hanging the controls, too late to update the map. Still wound up behind only Rex on this one.

14. Pretty straight, crossing the curving trail and then taking the next trail a very short way, to the junction. Bearing up the slope. Soon saw a large hill dead ahead, with what appeared to be a cliff on it's left front. When I got to the trail in front of the hill, saw that the "cliff" was actually a large fallen tree; also saw a trail-in-a-ditch going off at 135-degrees. So, knew exactly where I was, less than 40m too far left. So, rounded the right side of the hill and trudged slowly up the hill with the control on top. Lost about 10 secs by being off to the left and another 5 to 10 walking slowly up the final hill.

15. Could have saved some time by swinging around to the right, but at the time that seemed unnecessarily far out of the way. (Looks better now.) Went a bit left of straight, past the left side of the building and then the foundation, then down towards the trail in the ditch, angling left as soon as I could see the ditch, arriving at the bottom about 25m from the control.

16. Knew I had to angle back very sharply to the left, so headed that way while I took a bearing, and came out right at the trail junction, as desired. Angled up the embankment. The depression wasn't immediately visible, but a few more steps on my bearing and I saw it.

17. Had seen already that I needed to get back on the trail I'd just crossed (but further down) and run on it around the bend to the t-intersection, so did that while I planned the rest of the leg. Decided to just go for it straight on a bearing from the junction. Soon could see the big hill on my right, looking about the proper distance away. Had managed to keep running the whole way, but as my pace count ran out and I couldn't see the control, I was about to stop, when I saw it dead ahead between the two rootstocks. Probably my best leg of the day. Tied Rex for fastest, with the next person 40% back.

18. Felt like I'd just been hanging on physically since leaving #11 (having gone out a little too fast for this distance) and now I was feeling mentally tired, too. Tempted to take the trail up to the ridge rather than run over the deadfall and in and out of the thick vegetation dead ahead. But I came here for practice, not to run on trails, so I went on a bearing, but also looking for paths of least resistance. Came out of the woods exactly where I wanted, just a little below the upper corner of the forest. Continued on a bearing to the second bush near the trail (and eventually identified which were the mapped ones and which weren't) and once there followed a bearing towards the control. Once across the trail and top of the ridge, picked out the last little knoll on the left, made sure that the left edge of the forest down below was directly behind it, and ran down towards. Couldn't see the control in the depression until the last second, but landed right on top of it.

19. Knew the general direction, so ran along the contour while I sorted things out on the map, then looked up and identified the patch of forest in front of the control and headed for its upper end. In the distance, saw two people seemingly headed for the last control and then headed for the finish, and though I didn't see them punch, kept an eye on the spot where they had changed directions, headed there and nail it.

F. Hot and tired, didn't see the point of busting my chops up the hill, so jogged it in. Probably would've been 10 secs faster if it was an A-meet.

[Orienteering race]

Warm up. With warm temp, warmed up pretty quickly.

No cool down. Meant to do one, but kept talking to people.

Theraband, weights. Light session, just so that when I do these exercises again in a couple of days it won't feel like a long time since I did them.

[Strength exercises]

The usual weekly accumulation of morning exercises: stretching, strength and balance.

Walk to Gist and back at a decent pace. On the way back, stopped for 15 minutes (not included in the total) to speak with a neighbor whom we hadn't met before.

Right knee still has moments where it seems to give out a bit. That, and a general harried few days that left me without much zip, made me decide to not run today.

Theraband, weights, hips, adductors. Interleaved core, but it was the core exercisers that I didn't do this morning rather than the ones I usually interleave with these upper body exercises. Three sets of all the upper body exercisers and full reps with the theraband, but not yet with the weights (and also lower weight). At this point, my "re-ramping up" is complete and I will try to do these regularly and fully.

[Strength exercises]

Skyline plus front-of-house. To the 6.1 mi post (just beyond Gist), with one loop back, then back, followed by 3 front-of-house loops.

Out late (11:30) after hectic morning. Dragging at first, but felt decent towards the end.

The "usual" 2.5 mi:

-------------- 140(1200)1340(58)1438
2911(124)2747(1207)1539*(100)

Front of house: 601, 542, 522

*106 loop back

Right knee seems to be getting worse.

[Easy distance]

Cool down.

Local terrain. Didn't get out this morning because I waited for L but she never freed up and then it was lunch time. So, had an opportunity to run on my own this afternoon. Glad to run in terrain. Planned to take it easy, but started feeling good and was definitely in O2 debt for the last loop.

809 - Warmup, mostly on Skyline (3 x short loop)

5 loops of 1 x house followed by 2 x woods: 507, 452, 441, 432, 415 Total: 2329

[Orienteering Forest running]

1:00 - walk to catch my breath
2:45 - recovery jog in yard
1:00 - very slow jog on the road
1:00 - stretch
6:30 - jog half-mile on Skyline (short loop twice, extended)

Presidio. Stayed last night at the Laurel Inn in SF so Louise and Rachel could attend the ballet. This morning L and I walked from the hotel over the Main Post on the Presidio, then back by a slightly different path. Enjoyed the S-curve trail near the Presidio Ave entrance. Will have to look to see whether that's on the O-map.

Theraband, weights, hips. About the same as I did two days ago, don't want to ramp up too quickly.

[Strength exercises]

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching and strength development exercises.

Lake Ranch Reservoir. Hadn't been here in a few weeks. Cool, overcast. Legs not very spry, but no trouble at all maintaining an easy pace.

516(545)1102(512)1614(459)2113
329 -- up to third bridge
223 -- back down
(448)(432)(600)(454)

Usual 4.0: 4130
Extra half-mile: 552
Loop backs: 25

[Easy distance w/hills]

Cool down.

Theraband, weights, hips. Light session, just to start getting back into it. Last did these six weeks ago, stopping because of a sore neck and because it was time to peak for the US Champs.

[Strength exercises]

Local terrain. Legs still feeling a little beat up from Monday's long hike in Yosemite, wasn't even sure I was going to run. But had an opportunity to run on my own, and figured I should at least do a little something in terrain, so went out there figuring to run easy. Warmest day of the year so far, high 70's. Got going pretty good, beyond threshold pace.

801 - Warmup, mostly on Skyline (3 x short loop)

3 loops of 1 x house followed by 2 x woods: 502, 451, 426

[Orienteering Forest running]

Cool down.

330: jog in front yard
130: walk, stretch
655: half mile on Skyline (short loop)

Drive home from Tenaya Lodge, leaving there at 10:30, getting to Los Gatos shortly after 2.

Miles and miles of what looks like great orienteering terrain on the W side of Hwy 41, a bit N of the junction with Hwy 145. Alas, none of it seems to be public land.

Yosemite. Hike up to the top of Vernal Fall via the Mist Trail and then to the top of Nevada Fall. 3 hours up (including breaks), 2:45 down (longer route). Spectacular day, lots of water in the falls.

Total elapsed time was almost 7 hours. Spent nearly an hour at the top of Nevada Falls. Wanted to go down via the John Muir trail, but we heard that the section leading down from where we were was closed. Hiked over there anyway, saw people coming back saying that it was indeed closed, so went back to the falls and then went down the way we came up, along the N side of the river, over the bridge, and then rather than going back down the Mist Trail, climbed up to the John Muir Trail (arriving at the other end of the closed section), which gave us some great views of Vernal Fall from above.

Lots of stone steps on these trails, so it was slow going for us. My right knee was rather irritated. Got pretty wet and chilled on the Mist Trail, but dried out quickly on this lovely day once we reached the top of Vernal Fall.

We had intended to go snoeshowing from Badger Pass to Dewey Pt, but it turned out that Badger Pass closed for the season yesterday, so we improvised and drove down to the valley instead. It was a great day for it, undoubtedly better than the snoeshoeing would have been, plus I hadn't been to those falls in several decades, so it was a treat.

Drove up to Tenaya Lodge, just S of Yosemite. Stopped at Pacheco Pass for a picnic lunch. Really nice to see everything so green!

This is really an easy drive, about 3.5 hours.

Jackson Road, near Tenaya Lodge. Stretching out the legs a bit after the drive.

Calero. Mostly jog out (and up) to the area I intend to do some orienteering practice in.

According to the map, the climb was more like 90m.

Calero. Did a little training course in the same area I did O-tervals on Mar. 8. The course was 2.5km, 85m climb (again, the Garmin under-reported), 20c. 4 weeks ago the grass was already tall enough to tire me out. Today, it made running downright difficult. The aim was a modest practice run, hoping it would feel something like the first half of the Long Champs two weeks ago, but the magic just wasn't there.

The map could use a good deal of updating in this area. At one point, I was looking for a cliff. Past a foot-high rock that was barely noticeable in the knee high grass - couldn't be it, could it? Came back later, and indeed it was.

[Orienteering training]

Calero. Cool down: some jogging, some walking, about half in terrain, back to near the parking lot.

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching and strength exercises.

Walk down the trail behind the house. Hadn't done that in many months. The tree farm across the way is green and lovely.

Skyline. Casual walk on a nice sunny day after essentially finishing my taxes (after having only started at 11am this morning).

Legs felt like they needed another day without running.