Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

This week I twice reached 70 pushups (71 once). Hadn't done that many in a year or so.

Walk backwards for 400m, then walk backwards up driveway 5 times; between 3rd and 4th rep, did 24 step-ups. Short workout just to get started back into this sort of thing.

C • Leg Strengthening 2

Two sets of 3 pilates mat exercises interleaved with one set of each if the three theraband exercises followed by two weight lifting exercises (the latter with about half the weight and half the reps than usual). Trying to keep from irritating my back.

Skyline/Front of house. Ran to just beyond Gist and back (2.5 miles), then 3 front of house loops (1.7) with a side excursion to check with the pool guy (who had just arrived). Louise ran only the first part. It was chilly (June fog pattern) so we went out fast and then eased off some.

---------------127(1117)1244(54)1338
2709(115)2554(1118)1436(57)

[Continuing w/F of H loops] 528, 526, 508 (Side excursion of :44 during first loop)

Cool down

Some fresh air and movement after being at work in Redwood Shores and then running errands in town.

One set each of pilates mat and theraband exercises. When I did these last week they seemed to irritate my back a bit, so trying again with even less to see if I can get back into it.

Kortum Trail. Start at Blind Beach, walk over the big first hill, start (and finish) at the last set of trail-side rocks near the bottom of the hill.

Shell Beach parking 1501
Wright's Beach road 1916 3417
Shell Beach parking 1822 5239
Finish ------------------ 1339 10618

As usual, the hills coming out of the gorge crossings were killers. Cool, foggy, almost no one else out there, quite lovely.

Louise was dragging a bit. She turned at the gate before Wright's Beach, so when I turned I was nearly a minute behind. Best part of the run was catching back up, which took about a mile.

Walking over the first hill from Blind Beach parking, both before running and after.

Armstrong Woods. Also went for a 20 min walk at Goat Rock beach before lunch.

Los Gatos Creek Trail. After slow start going towards Lexington and then back to Vasona (with Norma and Louise), pick up the pace on my own, running the last 2.5 miles at just over 8:30 pace, while still feeling pretty relaxed.

Start and finish behind California Cafe, as usual. South to 1.5 mi mark in 4:14, then back in 4:11 (8:25). Continuing:

S/F ---------- 5156
--------(102) - (58) - equal fastest boardwalk split
2.0-----927 - 5058
--------(447) - (414)
2.5----1414 - 4643
--------(442) - (413)
3.0----1856 - 4230
--------(452) - (419)
3.5----2348 - 3811
------- (433) - (417)
4.0 -- 2821 - 3354
--------(202) - (154)
dam - 3023 - 3159
-------- (49) - (47)
turnaround 3112

Usual 4.82 "dam run" in 4331, 2nd best (by :10) behind 4/13/13's 4128.

Cool down

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

Haven't done these in quite a while (sore back, A-meets); time to start easing back into it. Theraband, hips, pilates mat, about 2/3 of the sets and 80% of the reps.

Lake Ranch Reservoir. Sunny, chilly (low 50's). Felt pretty sluggish before hand and in the beginning, but Louise maintain a good pace. Then started feeling pretty good. Overall, very easy, never near oxygen debt and a reasonably fast time.

---------------448(518)1006(441)1447(435)1922
3724(416)3308(514)2754(404)2350(428)

Cool down

Bedwell Bayfront Park. Very windy. Walked around checking out the map in anticipation of setting courses for the July 14 event. The grass is tall and thorny right now; it's not going to be fun going off trail until they mow it. The map is accurate in terms of having these in the right places, but I'm going to have to write extensive notes regarding interpreting the rock and vegetation features.

C • Bayfront 5

Skyline to Black and back. Quite warm, and lots of annoying thorns get in my shoes from running on the margins. The run was very slow and easy; could've picked up considerably on the way back, but waited for Louise, even looping back once for :26.

Without the loop back:

++++++++++++++++++ | ------ (1215) -------- |
---------------132(1126)1257(454)1752(717)2508(641)3149
6115(122)5953(1205)4748(358)4350(545)3805(615)
++++++++++++++++++ | ------ (943) --------- |

Don't know that I will ever be able to run in those fairly new Kayano 19's again.

Cool down

Los Gatos Creek Trail. Nice running weather, a bit warm by the end. Due to the Girls on the Run event in Vasona, started off towards the dam, turning back at the 0.5 mi mark, turning again at the 2.5 mi mark, and then finishing in the usual spot. 1012 mile from 1.5 mark to 0.5 mark. Last measured half-mile in 442, finish in 103. All very easy. Started off with Mark, Norma and Liane, but Mark and Norma fell back before the 0.5 mark.

Cool down

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

Inspired by an entry in Charlie's log (which in turn was inspired by a comment by BP in PBricker's log), went for a brief backwards walk. Used to do these (and some backwards joggin) a dozen years ago after knee surgery, in order to strengthen my hamstrings. Should start doing those again once in a while.

Front of house. Legs still pretty tired from last weekends 3 races. 3 easy loops: 603, 547, 529.

Cool down

Did go for a relaxed 20 minute stroll with my brother in Los Altos, plus the usual morning stretching, but otherwise a day off from serious exercise.

Up at 5am Eastern so cousin Debbie and I can have breakfast out. LIRR to Penn St. Meet old track teammate Al Steinfeld for lunch. NJ Transit to Newark Airport. Long flight home.

US Long Champs, Camp Wakpominee, near Lake George, NY. M65 Brown. Sunny, chilly.

My best race of the weekend, despite 10 minutes of lost time. 2 and 3 were very difficult legs; I proceeded cautiously, giving up 4 to 5 minutes, and despite some uncertainty along the way (OK, a good deal of uncertainty), found the controls without any wandering around. 5 was also very technical, and I did it very well. Lost 4 minutes going around the wrong side of the swamp to #6, but after that did very well all the way to #10. A little shaky on the last 3, but survived. Finished 3rd in M65, 4th overall, behind Peter, Bob Lux and Tony Federer.

#1. Seemed very easy, but surprised I had the fastest non-Peter split since I usually start off slowly.

#2. Went for the little saddle NNW of and on the same contour as the control, but the "light" green made it a bit hard for me to find it. Proceeded very cautiously along the contour because I really couldn't identify anything, but just as my pace count was about to run out, spotted the bag a bit ahead and further uphill.

#3. Fought my way over to the big trail that we'd walked up to the start; seemed to take forever despite not reading the map, just rough compassing. Down the trail (saw PG walking up), left at what I thought was the bend just above the red line - but immediately nothing made sense. Followed a bearing towards the big rocky area just N of the red line, but even when I saw that couldn't find anything to convince me that it was definitely the right set of rocks. Finally got up to a flat part and could see the spur just a bit ahead, so turned left towards where I hoped the control would be. Just then, someone who I thought might be Tony Federer (it was) came up on my left and headed down, but even if it was Tony, I wasn't sure if he was on the same Brown course, so I ignored him. Proceeded down to where I thought the pond would be, but no pond - wait! There's a little dark body of water under those trees - whew! Around the pond to the control.

#4. Down the nose right to the control. Surprised to see Tony leaving as I was coming in.

#5. Tony headed left of where I was heading and I lost sight of him, focusing on the steep and rocky decent to the trail. Did a good job of recognizing the rocks on the left side of the trail and then reading the terrain all the way to the SE edge of the clearing. Someone had been running parallel to me for the final 150m, but I didn't realize until after the race that it was Tony again. I pulled ahead across the clearing and got to the control first.

Headed on a bearing to #6, hitting the E edge of the first swamp on the red line. Was thinking I might turn left when I hit the trail so that I could go across the big dam at the W end of the lake (E end of the swamp - because I could not make out the map detail on the W side of the swamp and so I was afraid that somehow I'd get stuck and wouldn't be able (!) to get across. But crossed the trail without seeing it and popped out at the edge of the swamp. Soon someone popped out to my right (Tony again, but I didn't notice it was him) and headed W, but I was still afraid to go that way. Tried going across the swamp for a few steps but it was too wet. (Later found out that Geoman walked straight across.) Frozen with indecision for half a minute, finally went E and fought my way up to the big dam. That bad decision cost me about 4 minutes. Only solace is that PG made the same (bad) decision, though he still did the leg nearly faster than anyone else.

Once on the other side of the lake, the orienteering got a lot easier. Did the rest of 6 and then 7 and 8 very well. Then realized we were back where the Sprint had been held, and picked up the pace, running very good legs to 9 and 10. However, the long course, the additional speed, and the final hill up to 10 must've eroded my brain: I was quite sloppy the rest of the way. Went around the N side of the bldg E of 10 (should've gone next to S side), then ran along the S side on the way out (should have been on the N side). As a consequence of the latter, didn't see the building on the other side of the road and wound up in the parking lot below. Fighting panic, told myself that this was where the sprint started, just find that on the map, which I did, and then went to 11 without further ado. Shaken, I took a very safe, all-trail route to 12. Too much clutter on the map near 13, I just assumed it would be in the same location as the GO control on Day 1 - but it wasn't, costing me 5 secs or so. Little did I know that I was now :01 behind George Walker (who had nipped me by :01 on the final day of the recent Flying Pig). Fortunately, my hard run in the chute pulled me ahead of walk by a couple of seconds.

My route is on the meet's RouteGadget website.

Jog to start with Erin Binder.

Long Brown Y - Splits

US Middle Champs, Moreau Lake, near Glen Falls, NY. M65 Brown. Rain. On the way to the first control, some wet brush wiped across my glasses, making the map very difficult to read. That happened many times. Pretty much all I could see on the map were the marshes, so was reduced to taking bearings from marsh to marsh and marching over whatever was in between. This worked fine for the 2, 4, 5, 6, 7. On 1, must've narrowly missed the control then wandered around for a couple of minutes. On 3, lost contact with the map very early in the leg and proceeded very slowly in the general direction of 3 until I luckily ran into a trail; rest of the leg was easy.

Got a big break when PG came by on the last part of the leg to #7. I could see Peter a lot better than I could see the map. Got a big boost sticking with him for the next couple of legs. Was able to do 10 on my own (compass bearing to the Finish), though I was now moving much faster than I had been before seeing Peter.

Very unsatisfying day (despite winding up 3rd US). Would like to try that forest when I can see the map.

My route is on the meet's RouteGadget website.

1.6 km, 150m climb walk to the start on a rocky trail, and then the same trail back. Going back was tough because it was steady rain and my left big toe was very sore.

Walked up part way with Jeff Seager and part way with Peter; walked down with Marie Josee.

Middle Brown Y - Splits

Event: 2013 U.S. Individual Championships/Team Trials
 

US Sprint Champs, Camp Wakpominee, near Lake George NY. M65 Brown. Good weather, felt physically ready, though as usual, hard to get the eating completely right for an afternoon start (2:52pm). Did very well for most of the course, but a ridiculous error at #9 cost me two places and I wound up 4th (Charlie DeWeese was 2nd, Rick Worner 3rd).

After first 7, only :17 behind Peter and :50 ahead of the next competitor (Chuck Spalding). First thought for #8 was to go around on the trails, even though it was a lot of extra distance, because it would be highly likely that I would do that well - and I can go so much faster on trails then in the woods, especially in green. But then I thought the optimal possible time would be through the green to the clearing, and I ought to go for the max. Mistake. The green slowed me down so much I certainly would have done better going around. Making matters worse, never saw the clearing, had to bail to the creek. Lost :25 - :30.

Making matters still worse, I stewed about that wrong decision a bit as I headed to #9. Nailed 9, but when I got there, the control code was not what I had in my head. Turned out that I still had the code for 8 in my head (probably because I'd been stewing about the wrong decision going to 8). But didn't think to check my clue sheet! Tried a few different places but kept coming back to the same spot. Finally, Gary Kraght, who I'd passed leaving #3, punched that control, which made me look at my clue sheet and discover that I'd been in the right place all along. Aargh!! 90 secs blown.

Regrouped, had a real good leg on #10; did 10 -> F only :06 slower than Peter. But the crazy error at #9 did me in: missed 2nd by :22 and third by :09.

My route is on the meet's RouteGadget website.

Good warm up.

Sprint Brown - Splits

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

Casual walk around the DeWeese's property. Given how I felt walking up the hills, figured that that was enough for today.

Travel day. Up at 5am, plane at SFO at 8:58. George and Leslie pick me up at Newark and we drive to Charlie and Rhonda's, arriving just before 10am.

Front of house, 2 easy loops: 603, 505. Felt considerably better than yesterday; back and hip issues seem manageable.

Cool down

Front-of-house, two easy loops: 621, 534

Starting to today, wanted to start moving my schedule forward to make the transition to East Coast time easier. Instead, got up an hour late, ran an 2 hours late, etc.

Cool down

Theraband only, 2 sets for each of the 3 exercises. These are irritating my back, too, so no more for a while.

Drive back from the Russian River.

Armstrong Redwoods. Easy run on the flat parts while Louise (and Harold and Penny) are out running a (brutual, it turned out) Pacific Coast Trail Run.

Stay right at fork to theater ------------- 300
Stay right at left turn to theater -------- 145 445
(Max dist through picnic grounds)
Take turn to theater ---------------------- 850 1335
Back to fork -------------------------------- 420 1755
Take turn to theater ---------------------- 144 1939
Back to fork -------------------------------- 411 2349
Finish ---------------------------------------- 223 2612

Cool down

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

Left at Noon for our Russian River cabin. Including a long stop for lunch in SF at Outerlands, and a stop for ice cream at Screaming Mimi's in Sebastopol, spent 7 hours getting there.

Upper body: theraband, weights, but 2 sets instead of 3. Lifting weights is definitely contributing to the continued spasming in my back, so I'm going to cut weight lifting out for a few weeks.

Los Gatos HS Track. 76 degrees, but felt much warmer.

3x1200m: 541[102]544[119]538

Avg: 541 (7:36 mile pace), 1:10 rest

(The second rest was long because I was talking to Louise, who did a similar workout at the same time.)

This was actually pretty easy (at least for a track workout), as intended. Could have easily done more, or done these much faster.

Warm up, mostly on grass around baseball field: 15 mins, about 1.3 miles, finishing with a 200m on the track in 1:00.

Cool down: jog 200m in 2:15, walk/stretch for 1:45, then jog 10 mins around baseball field.