Training Archive: CristinaIn the 31 days ending 2007-07-31:
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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 | T | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tuesday Jul 31 | ||
| Note | |
| About the time I was getting ready to go in to work (afternoon) the sky got all gray and the radar picture filled with all kinds of pretty colors. So I drove. Good thing, too, because riding would have been pretty stupid. Most base roads flooded over the edge of the curbs. We lost power after I'd only been in 45 minutes, so it was only a slightly productive afternoon. Did administer another fitness test, on the indoor track. It's tiny - 11 laps for 1 mile, so 16.5 laps for the 1.5 mile test. Ran the last few laps with him and then tried out running at 10 min 1.5 pace myself. It's really hard to go around those tight corners that fast. I think I'll stick to the outdoor track. | ||
Monday Jul 30 | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| In to work. I think it's a bad sign when you want to be hit by a car so that you don't have to go to work. | ||
| C • is it bad that it sounds like ... 7 | ||
| Cycling (road) 18:00 [2] | |
| Ride home. Late/early. Prettyfasteventhoughitwasthelongway. Not many cars, not that'd I'd want one to hit me on the way *home*. | ||
Sunday Jul 29 | ||
| Orienteering 2:00:00 | |
| shoes: Asics Trail Attack III | ||
| Another day on the mountain. Lots of creepy clouds/fog but no killer lightening or even rain. Discovered that most of the trails that I thought had been obliterated in the fires actually do still exist, except for the 10s of meters at the end where I was looking for them. | ||
Saturday Jul 28 | ||
| Orienteering 1:30:00 [1] | |
| More time at Bear Wallow. The map is really disappointing.
We took a lunch break in Summerhaven as a storm rumbled up, thinking we'd be able to go back to work. Instead what we witnessed was probably the longest continuous rainfall there in years. We ended up just leaving, storms still pumping away all the trip back. We now have a navigable pond for a back yard. Added: Tonight's rainfall totals indicate that the Bear Wallow area was hit harder than almost anywhere else in Tucson today - 2.56 inches of rain in 24h. That's a lot of water. | ||
Friday Jul 27 | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| Ride in. Too early. Interrupted by... | ||
| Running (track) 13:22 [2] 1.5 mi (8:54 / mi) | |
| shoes: Kayano XII (pink) | ||
| Administering an early morning fitness test. I'm so nice to come in early when it's cooler. And to pace the guy for his 1.5 even though he had said he wouldn't want me to. I deserve a DDP. | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| Ride home. A little wet.
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (1) | ||
Thursday Jul 26 | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| Ride home. I think it can get late enough that it just doesn't make sense to log the ride home on the same day as the ride there. How depressing.
Nice weather tonight/this morning. Felt like a cool (~70) tropical night. No rain today, actually pretty smooth air for flying... but that didn't stop the flight doc in the back from puking her guts out the whole time. Yum. | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| ahr:159 max:175 | ||
| Ride in, early afternoon. Wore a HRM just to reassure myself that this really is exercise. Seems so. Actually, HR much higher than I would expect, probably because it was warm and I hardly slept and this is the ever-so-slightly uphill direction. | ||
| Cycling (road) 18:00 [2] | |
| ahr:143 max:160 | ||
| Ride home. It hadn't rained by the squadron and the roads were totally dry when I set out. A half-mile away the roads were flooded and I had to ride through several inches of water in most places. I'd just been up there ~45 minutes earlier and it was dry then. Sneaky storms. Crazy!
My already short commute seems to be taking me less time now. Shoot. | ||
Wednesday Jul 25 | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [3] | |
| In to work. Amazingly not hot. Strong headwind. | ||
Tuesday Jul 24 | ||
| Cycling (road) 35:00 [2] | |
| In to work. Including a ridiculously unnecessary trip up to the group. | ||
| Cycling (road) 18:00 [2] | |
| Ride home, mostly in the big ring (a rarity for me under any circumstance). A big storm was very quickly growing north from the south side of base and I a) wanted to get home before I got hailed on/blown over/lost in a flooded wash and b) had a phenomenal tailwind most of the time. It was fun, and I didn't get too wet. | ||
| C • Rain? Wet? Aren't you in the desert... 2 | ||
Monday Jul 23 | ||
| Running (road/dirt) 38:36 | |
| ahr:177 max:192 shoes: Kayano XII (pink) | ||
| Morning run, usual route but unusual weather. 77F, dp 68 (!) and rain(!). I guess the rain scared people off because there were far less than usual - saw a few dozen people at most.
Legs felt stiff again at the beginning of the run. I think it's my bed. I usually feel great for morning runs, even this past Saturday when I didn't have much sleep. It's hard to bring myself to say that my (new) bed isn't good enough. :-( Did 5x(1mim H + 1 min E) just to spice things up and remind my legs what it's like to move a little faster. | ||
| Cycling (road) 45:00 [1] | |
| To U of A and back with Seabass for Andy's dissertation defense. Still pretty cloudy out so it wasn't too hot. | ||
| Cycling (road) 40:00 [2] | |
| Ride in to work.
And back. In the rain! Wuhu! | ||
Sunday Jul 22 | ||
| Orienteering 1:15:00 | |
| shoes: Integrators (orange) | ||
| Scouting at Bear Wallow for the August meet. I haven't actually done much course setting so I was a little worried about this one, especially since I'm not sure how many times I'll be able to make it up there. Afternoons are mostly out because of the thunderstorms. We were lucky today, sort of snuck up and we had storms on either side of us but only a sprinkling of rain before we gunned it back down the mountain.
The map is worse than I thought, partially because there was a fire after the last update which has affected trails (small issue) and vegetation (medium issue). The big issue is that I don't think anyone's ever tried to improve on the original USGS contours. It's one thing to have 40ft lines, especially since it's quite steep, but there are some things that wouldn't have been tough to do - form lines on top of hills, sharpening the shape of some reentrants, etc. We'll see how much of it I dare touch. I'm not sure the area is worth a lot of work... steep terrain with lots of trails at 8000'. At least the woods are pretty... And I imagine I can set courses that will be just fine for the local population escaping the Tucson heat. | ||
Saturday Jul 21 | ||
| Running (road) 1:19:00 [2] 8.0 mi (9:52 / mi) | |
| shoes: Asics Trail Attack III | ||
| Morning run in Portland along the Columbia River. Our 8am takeoff yesterday for an out-and-back to Portland with a 4pm return turned into a 3pm takeoff and an overnight stop. Bummer. ;-) So, here I am, 65 and overcast... couldn't be nicer! Now, I'm no Boy Scout, but I was prepared enough with a set of running stuff in my bag. Managed to squeeze in dinner with college friend Josh and a morning run, making it a productive trip.
Run felt good, it was about two miles from the hotel to a bike path that went by the river. Pleasant enough. I made sure to sample plenty of Josh's area of research along the run. Yum. | ||
| Strength/Core (stretching) 10:00 [1] | |
| After the run. | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| Riding home from work. | ||
Friday Jul 20 | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| In to work. Early. Awesome storms last night left the air cool (low 70s!) and damp. About what it will be in Portland, if we get there. | ||
Thursday Jul 19 | ||
| Cycling (road) 50:00 [2] | |
| To work and what not throughout the day. My little legs peddled all around base today. | ||
| C • I thought your peddling days w... 8 | ||
| Cycling (road) 20:00 [2] | |
| P-e-d-a-l-i-n-g home. | ||
Wednesday Jul 18 | ||
| Running (road/dirt) 40:40 [2] 4.0 mi (10:09 / mi) | |
| ahr:180 max:194 shoes: Kayano XII (pink) | ||
| Morning run, about 7am and it was about 80, which sounds like it would be luxuriously fine after last night. But it wasn't. I ran more slowly and felt more spent. Not to mention the high HRs. I even took a break at the NW water fountain to get the HR down and sip some water, but it didn't get better. It's warm, I've been away from the heat and not training much, and perhaps I need more liquid in me. | ||
| DDR 15:00 | |
| Inaugural StepMania session in the new house. Meant to play longer but it was a bit warm and I had a headache. Setting the A/C to 79 is great for sitting around, but I might need to employ a fan or something if I do a lot of jumping around.
Okay, one of the Kitties has developed a fascination with the mouse pointer and (less so) with moving text. At least, I think it's only one of them and not both of them individually, taking turns hopping up on the desk. It's very funny, especially since she keeps checking behind the screen to see where the rest of the pointer is. I might have to start experimenting with new and unique mouse pointer icons. | ||
Tuesday Jul 17 | ||
| Running (road/dirt) 38:15 [2] 4.1 mi (9:20 / mi) | |
| ahr:180 max:195 shoes: Kayano XII (pink) | ||
| Back from vacation. Boo, hiss. How do I prevent post-vacation depression? Serious problem, so it's a serious question.
Evening Reid run. It was about 100F when I started but the sun was behind some storm clouds (yay monsoon season) and I wore a frozen hat, which helped for the first half. Felt fine energy-wise, and this was certainly an easy effort... but check out those HRs! Proof that you can't go hard when it's hot. Yeah. | ||
| C • Serious answer 17 | ||
| Note | |
| Kitty update: When we got the kitties we could tell them apart because Clem/Aa had grey/white specs of hair and Rose/Pahoehoe didn't. Eventually they started to look the same, so we put collars on them and could tell them apart that way. Well, while I was gone Seabass took off their collars. Now I have no idea which is which, so I have started calling them "Kitty" or "Kitties", depending on whether I am talking to one of them or both of them. It seems to work just fine, and I guess all that hullaballoo over choosing names was just that. | ||
| C • May I recommend 5 | ||
Saturday Jul 14 | ||
| Other Cardio 40:00 [1] | |
| A very fun paddling trip on the Charles with Seabass, Caroline and Joe. Out for a little over an hour with some tomfoolery. I was definitely working harder than Seabass.
Tried to go to a crêpe place, it being Bastille Day and all, but my sister's pick is apparently no longer in business. Then she suggested a sausage place down the road, not that sausages have anything to do with Bastille Day in particular, but because this place was supposed to be run by this Fenway sausage dude and anything having to do with Fenway or the Sox is a good thing, French or not. Well, that place is now a Subway, so we had to "settle" for pizza, which is never really settling in my book. Yummy. | ||
Friday Jul 13 | ||
| Note | |
| So, wow. Feel totally dead and spent. In MA now, travel day yesterday. We (me, my sis, and Seabass) had contemplated running a 5k this evening in Lowell, but I'm dragging my feet around today. Not sure what's up. A week of fun finally catching up to me? Wait, that doesn't make any sense, a walking fun machine can't get tired from having fun. But I have no other theories.
My friend Joe had a true AOWN moment yesterday, as he saw a wild turkey pecking at a building in Kendall Square. Pecking! In Cambridge! | ||
| C • weekend 2 | ||
| C • perhaps the wild turkey had a ... 1 | ||
Wednesday Jul 11 | ||
| Running 1:09:00 | |
| shoes: Kayano XII (pink) | ||
| Time for another loosening run. Unfortunately, Amy does not run in the "heat", and she had "work" to do for "school", so I had no chance for a tour from the brilliant and knowledgeable walking tour guide and decided instead for an exploratory solo run around Central Park. Good times. The heat from the previous days has broken and today was much more pleasant - overcast, about 80, and with an occasional cool breeze. Despite this, I was very sluggish. Don't think it's still tiredness from the weekend, I think it's hydration. Been walking tons and perhaps not drinking enough.
Most interesting observation was the studly guy trying to impress his girl by taking over the oars on their little row boat. Only it wasn't very impressive because he was rowing backwards. Now, I'm no boat expert, but I do believe one end is pointy for a reason. I also found myself being passed by the same (fast) old dude a few times. The third time that happened he accused me of following him, which is just silly because obviously he was following me. Not that I could blame him, I'm sure I make a great carrot. He started showing me his new toy, a ForeRunner 305, and then mentioned that he was having trouble with it. So I sped up to old dude speed and shared some of my FR knowledge and then said goodbye and slowed back down. But after that I felt much better and was able to be a bit more sprightly myself. Guess I just needed to shake it out a bit. | ||
Tuesday Jul 10 | ||
| Note | |
| Been walking a lot. Sticky out. Doesn't feel hot it but it should. Body feels normal, which is of course some form of hotness to most observers.
Once (1) | ||
Monday Jul 9 | ||
| Running (dirt) 26:00 | |
| slept:8.0 shoes: Kayano XII (pink) | ||
| I wasn't planning on running today at all, but my feet seemed to have miraculously fixed themselves to a perfectly usable state overnight. How could I put off running in a new place? I'm in Manhattan, staying with my friend Amy, who recommended Riverside Park - very close, and it offered dirt. And it was lovely. My legs, though not nearly as stiff and sore as I expected them to be, were really only going to allow for a nice slow run. Temps in the low 80s and a bit humid but not too bad. No snakes, cute or otherwise... just a lot of people with their dogs. | ||
Saturday Jul 7 | ||
| Event: Finger Lakes Rogaine | ||
| Orienteering race 12:00:00 | |
| shoes: Asics Trail Attack III | ||
| I don't think I could have asked for a better first (1/2) rogaine experience. The weather was great, 12 hours was just the right amount of time, and Sandy and I meshed very well. If our flashlight bulb hadn't burnt out before we started using it, and if a few of the controls hadn't been in such sketchily mapped areas, it would have been perfect... but this was close enough.
Started out with the planning, which I think Sandy described well. We basically ended up with a pretty flat route on the northern portion of the map, with options to extend a bit to the southern depending on how fast we were going. The longest plan was ~34km, which seemed quite ambitious and nabbed us quite a few points. So off we went. First control (77) was not where everybody expected it to be based on the logical attackpoint - a trail bend. I was wearing shorts and gaiters and the 25 minutes we spent hunting around the stupid marsh were enough to tear my knees up pretty good. We bailed out to the trail and saw a happy team run by as if they had found it further south. So we headed to the next (though I'm still convinced it's no the "right") trail bend and nabbed it. Not a great start, but we saw that at least a half dozen teams were still looking, so at least we felt like we were ahead of the gang. The next several controls went well enough, and we learned quickly that pastures were often easy to move through, just hard to get in and out of with all the fences. And pastures change. Sometimes a lot. We ended up adding a 50-point pasture control in exchange for a later woods one that was promised to be ugly. And we never found 45, which appears to have been placed creatively. Despite that we made great time and got to our hopeful 6-hour point at 1801. At this point we knew we were going to have to extend our original "longest possible" plan, so we added on another 4 southern controls and kept cranking. At some point around here my knees had had enough of the grasses and weeds and I threw on pant legs. Or, as Sandy put it, my pants. I have no particular aversion to nakedness, or pantlessness in general, but I was not exactly pantless prior to this. Okay, so we head south and we're still moving pretty good. No problems with my feet, Sandy wasn't whining about anything (she never did), and navigating fine. At some point it got dark and we slowed down a lot, but that was expected. We had some trouble with a control on a pond just before dark, but the frogs were croaking well and that helped us find the thing. After that it was fine up until 75 - a control on a one-line hill ~200m from the trail. It was getting late and my feet were hurting pretty fierce, so I'm not sure my brain was functioning well, not that that should have been needed. We attacked three times and never had any luck finding any hill, let alone the control, so we sulked on pressed towards home. Turns out it was only ~30m from the trail, so we were never even close, attacking from an angle as we were. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase... we finished fine, though my feet were pretty beat up. Thought they were just sore but I actually did have a few blisters and some wet wrinkly parts. We'd felt we'd done pretty well and we did, certainly within reach of the #2 team (shoulda coulda...). I really liked the fact that we were done when we were, and the next day had some kind of post-race euphoria/selective amnesia and really wanted to do more 12 hour events. It's very satisfyingly demanding without being uncivilized. And apparently I never got bitchy, which is my worry with 24 hours, though maybe Sandy's just being nice. Logistical things to note for the future: I packed my mule, which has a 100oz reservoir and plenty of packing space and a good spot to clip the tow line. I filled up water once, at 5.5 hours, and seemed to have had a total of ~150oz of water. I carried food in my cargo pockets. Ate one baggy of cristina's oh-so-special gorp by the ~5 hour mark and ate half of another baggy (stored in pack) during the rest. That was plenty of food, never touched the bars in the other pocket. In the pack: long sleeve shirt, extra socks, pant legs. Used the pant legs because of the stupid grass, never used the shirt, should have used the socks. | ||
| C • burnt out bulb 4 | ||
| C • Frogs 7 | ||
| C • Control #45 4 | ||
Friday Jul 6 | ||
| Note | |
| Travel day, Tucson to PA/NY for ~10 days east. Of real leave! It was physically painful for me to click those buttons to request so much leave all at once, but I had been planning to do it for a while and it will be good to try to relax.
I keep meaning to write a mid-year self critique (inspired by J-J) but, like about seventeen million other things I keep meaning to do lately, it hasn't happened yet. Later today or next week, hopefully. Looking forward to losing (half of) my rogaining virginity tomorrow. | ||
| C • Good luck!!! You'll like it :)... 11 | ||
Wednesday Jul 4 | ||
| Running (trail) 1:10:00 [2] 6.0 mi (11:40 / mi) +200m 6:34 / km | |
| ahr:172 max:187 shoes: Asics Trail Attack III | ||
| Morning run in Saguaro East, starting about 7:30. Pleasant enough to start, about 82 with some breeze, finishing in the upper 80s. Route went through a lot of sandy stuff making it slow going. Legs felt stiff yet again. Lots of stretching and/or yoga is in order, I think.
Saw lots of aminals today, all the usual suspects - lizards, jackrabbits, squirrels, quail, enormous alien creature insects that fly, etc. Sort of a normal day until I say this very cute but rather large snake curled up along the side of the trail in the shade of a little shrub. It's not often that I *skid* to a stop while running, but this was one of those times. Took a cautious look to see if it was what I thought it was and then gave it a very wide berth because it was one of these, looking very much just like the picture: 
That's my first dangerous snake spotting in the wild, and my second snake for the week. Neat! Despite such excitement, I think I will be going in to work today. :( | ||
| C • Cute snake 19 | ||
Tuesday Jul 3 | ||
| Note | |
| Spent the morning on the range requalifying on the M9. Shot expert but it was hardly satisfying. | ||
Monday Jul 2 | ||
| Note | |
| Spent the day on the range qualifying with the GUU-5. As usual, good mental experience. Lots of sweat, too. And it's nice to know that I can still shoot. | ||
| Note | |
| We're having a "heat advisory" this week because I guess 110 is the magic number where all of a sudden it's not just hot, it's wicked hot, and people might die. Not sure Tucsonans really take it that seriously. I mean, I can't feel the difference between 107 and 111. All I know is that next week's jaunt to the comparably frigid northeast is going to feel very nice. | ||
| C • comparably frigid 2 | ||
Sunday Jul 1 | ||
| Hiking 3:02:00 | |
| shoes: Asics Trail Attack III | ||
| Whew. Hiked up Finger Rock Trail this morning, starting at about the same time as yesterday's run (8ish).
This is yet another great hike with awesome views. But quite steep. Very rough. Some shade because the trail goes up the west-facing wall of the canyon and there was a breeze, so the whole 90s thing wasn't too bad. But it was really slow going. I knew it was about 5 miles to Mt. Kimball and I figured that if I really moved I could make it and not fry. After 2 miles (which took over an hour) I modified my plan. I went for another 45 minutes or so and stopped for a granola bar, the view, and to evaluate. Just then saw a hiker on his way down and I asked how much further and he said, "a good ways". We both agreed I was just past halfway and that, since I obviously wasn't going to get to the top today without turning into a shishkabob, this was a good place to turn around. So I did. Saw the usual wildlife plus what I assume was a hawk circling around in the canyon and a snake curled up under a rock. Carried about 10 lbs again, but a lot of it's water so it was much lighter by the time I finished. And Seabass is working so it really was 10 and not 110. I need to add this hike to my list of activities NOT to suggest to any out of shape visitors. They can just look at some some pictures. Just looked at the map (should have done that before, I guess) and it's a little over 3000 ft from the trailhead to where I stopped - less than 3 miles. Yikes. | ||
| C • Finger Rock Canyon 7 | ||