Training Archive: PGIn the 7 days ending 2007-09-01:
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Saturday Sep 1 | ||
| road running 34:33 [3]4.3 mi (8:02 / mi) | |
| weight:135lbs shoes: Montrail #2 | ||
| Yup, a streak is definitely going, 2 days in a row now. Under the theory that it takes about 3 weeks of training after a layoff before you actually enjoy a run and feel a little progress, well, only 19 more to work through before then. :-)
Very good behavior today, also very good willpower, getting out the door late in the day after a long time out on the course, where I have now surpassed my season's goal of playing with 25 new folks, I think I'm pushing 30. Program has been a real success though it may sound inane or trivial, as I'm feeling much more connected. And that (feeling connected) is good, seriously, in all aspects of life. | ||
| C • Can you make it 3? I'm at 244... 4 | ||
Friday Aug 31 | ||
| trail running 30:53 [3] | |
| weight:135lbs shoes: Montrail #2 | ||
| Training, yes training, remember what that is?
Laced on the shoes and headed out for the basic minimum, up to the power line (17:27) and back (13:26). Blisters and swollen big toe were still sore, but certainly tolerable. And doing something is better than nothing. Drained under the big toenail yesterday, using the horizontal approach with a needle, which seemed to work find with almost no discomfort, rather than the vertical one with a hot paper clip, or even the get-it-over-with don't-mess-around approach that Kissy suggested with a power drill and a large bit. The last option, the drill, might have made sense if I needed to drain both toenails, then I could have just put one toe on top of the other and gotten both cleaned out with one quick pass. But I generally believe in first trying the minimal approaches to any medical problem, bringing in the heavy artillery only if it is really necessary. Meanwhile the swelling in both feet overall has gone down, can once again see the usual veins and tendons. It seems unlikely that this, together with draining under the big toenail, accounts for the two-pound drop in the G i the last 24 hours, but you never know. It would be nice if I could stop my summer-long assault on 140. Tomorrow may try for 2 days in a row! | ||
| C • Target event? 13 | ||
Thursday Aug 30 | ||
| Note | |
| I really really need to get back to doing some training, and to do that I really really need to set some target events, or goals, or figure out some sort of motivational trick, or something.
But not today. Today was another divine trip to the course at Yale, this time with Charlie and Tom Noonen. Wonderful day. Good weather, good company, good vibes, even some good golf at times. And, because under the circumstances it would have a major sin to do otherwise, totally excellent behavior, even on the 16th when it took three swings to extract myself from the trees, even drawing blood on one of them, and dooming what on the tee had been reasonable hopes of breaking 80. And I even finished the 18th with the same ball I had teed up on #1. As Swampfox might say, So fine. Or as Boris might say, Sweet. | ||
Wednesday Aug 29 | ||
| Note | |
| weight:137lbs | ||
| A few numbers from last weekend's rogaine:
The course was just 50 controls, but spread out over about 170 square kilometers, one reason that no one came close to getting all of them. We got 32 (64%), and 1706 points out of 2392 (71%). We went 58 km as the crow flies, 3,000 meters of climb. Actual distance was a lot more as many routes were way off the straight line to avoid hills, rivers, cliffs, lakes, and/or thick woods. I ate about 2,600 calories, seemed plenty. Drank just water. Stomach was fine (but it was not hot). ------------------ One more set of numbers I'd like to see sometime -- the results! | ||
| C • Results 1 | ||
| Note | |
| Sometimes all you have to do is ask....
Rogaine results are up. Seems like we got 5th, pretty good, first in our class, can't beat that. Nice thing is another 100 points or so wouldn't have made any difference. (We could have even blown off 10 and 14 at the end, but then we would have missed some of the fine chafing conversation with Ken and Glen.) | ||
Tuesday Aug 28 | ||
| Note | |
| slept:2.5 | ||
| Seems like I may lose a big toe nail. It was feeling some pressure the last few hours of the rogaine, and now it has that feeling. I can't remember if drilling through the nail (or driving red-hot needles under it), with the goal of reducing fluid build-up and pain, actually improves the chances of saving the nail.
Also hope I don't get a stretch of nights with not enough sleep, as I did after the last rogaine. Like, it's 4:30 and I've up for an hour already.... | ||
| C • nail 19 | ||
| Note | |
| Only a couple of post-event photos, and I am only giving a link to them, not posting them here, as they are, well, at least the second was is, in Gail's words, rather gross.
The subject matter is feet, and what they look like after rogaining in totally wet conditions for 24 hours. First the feet that don't look so bad, just a normal prune job, but still perfectly acceptable on a family web site. Some people are just photogenic. And then the gross one, destined to join my Cyclops shots of a couple years ago in setting the standard for bad taste on AP. :-) I'm not sure how Barb's are doing 48+ hours after the fact. Mine certainly no longer looks like I have some horrible disease, though the blisters will be a while in mending. | ||
| C • gross one 6 | ||
Monday Aug 27 | ||
| Note | |
| Back home after a stop for some rogaine practice in Randolph, Vermont. Taped up the blisters pretty well and the feet were mostly ok, though lower back was quite sore for a while. Had a nice walk, but legs seemed quite tired on the few hills.
Here's the map of the rogaine. Story will follow, but first I have to go have a fight with Radio Shack (and Sprint) about my new phone and service.... :-) (I'll also post an enlarged copy of the map that's easier to read.) | ||
| C • Trails and roads 6 | ||
| Note | |
| Map, larger scale, north part.
Map, larger scale, south part. So the summary of the Laurentian Rogaine was in my log entry for a couple of days ago. Here's more detail, not that anyone else needs it, but for my own amusement and memory.... This was my second rogaine with Barb, the preceding one being Big Muddy in Oregon in May, and I think I felt a good bit less apprehensive about this one. Partly because my hamstring has been fine recently, partly because I didn't have to get on a plane to get to this one, and partly because I knew I had a good partner (and knew her a little better, too). And I felt a little better prepared, both physically and regarding gear. Barb, on the other hand, let it be known in the days before that she was feeling a bit intimidated, partly (I think) because this was a championship event, partly (and this came out more later when we had a look at the starting field) because all of the other competitors were so buff, the AR folks especially (and by implication, that she was not buff and, I do believe, neither was I), and partly (though this is just a guess) because she was a little concerned about slowing me down. I did my best to assure her that (1) we were only taking a semi-competitive approach anyway, (2) in her new slimmed down look (130), we certainly had at least one buff person on our team, and (3) much of the time in Oregon I was pressing to keep up to her. The hour we had to plan passed way too quickly, and we came up with a route (shown on the map with red lines, if you look carefully) that went north first, since we wanted to get to 75 and 76 and didn't like leaving them to the night or the very end. And then wandered to the NE, and then down through the middle, and then, well, we'd see how things stood and wing it. So we had a plan, sort of. Which we changed a lot, especially for the night. 31. (34 minutes) Over the bridge in town, the river, which didn't appear very significant on the map, looked a whole lot wider and deeper than anything we wanted to cross without a bridge. Francis had said things were dry, that it had been a dry summer, but it had rained a whole lot overnight, and was still raining. Francis had said nothing about the rivers. I took a look at our planned route and saw what could be problem crossings on the way from 76 to 75, and again in the NE section. Hmm, not good. The climb up to 31 was longer/steeper than anticipated. Had to remember it was a 40,000 map, 10 meter intervals. About 50 meters into the climb, up through the wet grass/brush, was the last time we had dry feet for 24 hours. 62 (27 minutes) Easy point, easy route, testing the woods, variable, some nice, some a good bit thicker than I cared for. Had the DeWitts on the same route, they were a little ahead and out of sight by the time we got to the control. On the way we had the first opportunities to enter/exit the woods with the chance of getting attacked by angry dogs or shot by angry owners. So far, so good. 75 (37 minutes) Decided to take the straight route, since it was shorter and offered the special bonus of crossing the autoroute without the benefit of an over/underpass. Fun!! Woods going up to 75 were ok. Control was on a big cliff, no problem, followed the broad spur, then the reentrant as it developed. 76 (40 minutes) No problem getting over to the area, but the area around 76 was steep. Steep climb getting up on top through the cliffs, crawling on my belly at one point, one of several times Barb said she wished she had her camera. Visibility up top was not great. Stayed up high because it was easier going, then we just had a feeling it was time to turn right and perfect, there was the control, top of another huge cliff (although with everything wet and presumably slippery in the rain and fog, I really didn't want to get close to the edge to see just how big the cliff was). Excellent. 43. (1 hour 7 minutes) So at some point we had adjusted our route to pick up 43 and then use the bridge on the way to 65. Didn't know how much water would be in the river above Sainte-Marguerite Station, but if it was even a half of that at Sainte-Adele, that was more than we wanted to cross. Getting to 43 took forever. First problem was getting down from 76. Steep, cliffs all over, everything wet and slippery, I was keeping my fingers crossed that we wouldn't get stuck above some cliffs that we couldn't get down. At the bottom we picked up the very overgrown trails perfectly. A long walk over to 43's hill, where the memory of 76's hill scared us into taking the too long walk around on the trails. 65 (1 hour 9 minutes) Another long walk. Straight down 43's hill, no problem. Crossing the big open area was fine, grass varying from knee- to waist-high. Over the river, not as big but still would not be easy to cross. S-M Station had a few commercial places, including an auberge or two, a spa, a massage therapist, and a golf course, hard to believe we were passing on all that to rogaine in the rain, but we were. Dropped our packs at the bike trail (old railroad line) and had a pretty straightforward climb up to 65. 80 (43 minutes) Back down to get our packs, where we met up with the DeWitts. They had gone straight from 76 to 65, quite terrible woods/hills/cliffs. Then a long road walk to 80. 23 (18 minutes) Along the road, up the hill. Small hill, seemed to knock us both back a peg, energy-wise. 73 (37 minutes) Despite that, Barb started running on the first bit of downhill road and we ran all the downhills to 73. 73's hill was steep and rather thick, although the woods opened up just before the control (north part of the spur). 91 (44 minutes) Left 73 along the spur to the SE, picked up a logging trail through very trashy woods, but even the trail wasn't great, lots of unnecessary deadfall across it, maybe that's why it wasn't mapped. Picked up a mapped trail, used it to get close to the road, but where we wanted to exit there was a very yippy (Barb's term) dog barking and she wanted nothing to do with it (she has her anxieties, I have mine), so we looped around and came out between a couple of other houses where there were no canine issues. Along the road we had a discussion about what we were going to do if, when we reached the bridge crossing the stream, we determined that we either could or couldn't cross it farther downstream. Got to the bridge, rapids there, still a lot of water, decided it was crossable in the vicinity of rapids, otherwise likely a swim, which we were not up for. And Barb wasn't really up for planning to cross it at all, I'm pretty sure I talked her into it. So the end result was we dropped our packs at the bridge, planning to come back that way and eventually cross the river once at 60, where it looked like there might be rapids, and again between 60 and 72 where it looked like there was a small bridge. Ran all the downhills and flats on the way to 91 and back. After not having rained for 2 or 3 hours, it started to rain just as we dropped our packs, and was pouring real hard for a while. But no thunder/lightning. Just more water for our crossing. 34 (56 minutes) Back to the bridge, picked up the packs, then road and then trail almost to the point, though the last hundred meters was thick woods and then very thick brush. Beautiful little bay. 44 (30 minutes) Trail, then a bit of very new trail that climbed 3 contour lines in the right direction before it stopped climbing and headed south. Woods higher up were very nice, easy point, just a long slow climb. 60 (29 minutes) Getting down off of 44's hill looked dicey, but it wasn't bad. Partway down you could hear the river, there were definitely rapids. But despite a road ending on one side and a trail on the other, there was sadly no bridge. The river was about 20 yards across, no so bad, but moving rather fast (or we could go upstream, above the rapids, it was maybe 30-40 yards wide, undetermined depth). We looked at it. It seemed doable to me. Barb said something like, "Dude, we are really going across this, are we?" And when I said, "Yes," I think she was starting to freak out a little, because once again, "Dude, we are really going across this?" (I believe this was the only time in the 24 hours that I was Dude!) Not that I was feeling real good about it. Mainly I felt that we had no choice, and when you have no choice, in a way that makes it easier. You just do it, you have to. So I moved downstream about 10 yards, just below one set of rapids way too strong to cross and just above a stretch of fast-moving but relatively rock/boulder-free water, where I figured if we got swept away, we had enough space to swim and get washed up on the other side before the next set of rocks. Got to do it. We stuffed our maps and compasses and the control card in our packs so we didn't loose them. And I stepped in. Knee-deep, rocky underwater, slippery, ugh. I looked back. Come on, I yelled, it's ok. Barb looked terrified. Come on, I yelled, also feeling quite terrified but trying not to show it. She slid in. I edged out a little further. Waist-deep, tricky footing, current picking up. I thought, maybe I should have gotten a branch I could use as a walking stick to help with balance. Now if I was an AR I'm sure I would have known what to do next, but I don't do this stuff every weekend, meaning like never. But what popped into mind was, Hold on to each other, and only one person moves at a time, and the next person doesn't move until the first one has a good solid foothold. So we started that and it seemed to work, even out in the middle where it was waist/chest-deep and moving fast, and the one whose turn it was to advance would be hanging on for dear life while trying to get a new foothold. And 3 or 4 feet at a time we worked across, and suddenly we were past the worst of it, and then suddenly it was fun! Out the far side, big smiles, very cool. And we could even deal with the guy by the rundown house scowling, saying something about private property, but there was no barking dog and he didn't seem to have a gun. So we smiled, "Le chemin?" He pointed in the direction of the road and we were off, more big smiles, very cool. I believe it was not long after this we had the discussion about all the buff people at the event, and, my opinion at least, how Barb was certainly one of them. 51 (23 minutes) Up the road. Still in a state of delight. 72 (45 minutes) More road, then a bridge we hoped was there, which it was. Getting dark, hustled along to get there just about 8 pm. Not much light left. 21 (48 minutes) More trail and road, a long climb, now quite dark despite a full moon, as there was still a thick cloud cover. We passed a house with a big party going on and we were reminded that it was Saturday night. Got to watch out for drivers. Passed a restaurant, Maison du Chemin Nouveau (House of the New Road), wonder who dreamt up that name, didn't exactly get the saliva flowing. 32 (33 minutes) Road then decent trail, but even on trails at night demanded full attention. Hard to tell exactly where the control was (small concrete dam), we came in on the north side of the stream, at a little pond, I could hear rushing water not far away, but the woods were almost impassable and I took a bad spill on a small cliff that I didn't see and came closer than I like to doing serious damage to an ankle. So we beat a retreat and came around on the south side and it was straightforward. 54 (54 minutes) Harder than it might look, because there was no trail on the map along the south side of the lake, though any rogainer knows that often there are trails in such locations. Up the trail, across the road, up the next trail, we debated going through the woods on the high ground, thinking that along the lake it may just be cliffs coming right down to the water. But we decided to go have a look to see if there is a trail. And there was a faint one (faint at night at least, I'm sure it's more obvious in the light). And we could just barely follow it as it twisted between the rocks and deadfall and bushes. But it got us to the corner of the lake. And then it just disappeared. And ahead was a very unappealing stretch of swamp, maybe not too far across, maybe a ways, couldn't tell. Couldn't tell how deep either. Where the trail seemed to stop there was a bit of dry land going out into the swamp. And a root stock mostly blocking it. But there seemed nowhere else to go. As I was crawling up over the root stock, remains of the spruce sticking out to one side, I noticed that several little branches had been cut off. Not recently, but definitely cut off. Must be the way. And bit by bit, around and about, and we were across the swamp still on the vaguest bit of trail, but much better than nothing. Excellent. We found the connection to the trail on the map, then lost it once, then it got better and before long we nailed the point, first of many that Barb's eyes spotted at night while I was just seeing trees. 52 (57 minutes) Time includes 2 stops, one right at 54 to grease up the feet in the hope of forestalling some blisters. There was already one on one heel, probably one on the other heel, bottom of some toes were getting hot. Second stop was on the trail below 52, one of my blisters had popped and, as usual, they hurt the worst right after they pop. So this time Barb put Compeed patches on both my heels and I put on dry socks. Felt much, much better. In between stops we had to deal with an off-trail section. First, contouring due east about 400 meters, that went well, good woods, then climbing about 3 lines, woods got worse and worse, thick spruce plus lots of seasonal brush. Started getting very nervous about missing the cross trail, but eventually it showed up. Trail/road to near the control (top of a cliff), then a small hard-to-find trail to what looked like the top of a cliff, but no control. Barb suggested looking a little higher, then spotted it, at the top of what I'd assume (since I was staying as far from the edge as I could) was a different face of one huge cliff. 42 (23 minutes) Back the same trail, then a little further, then turned left at the right spot. Was pretty sure we had the right place to turn in, and we did, but it was thick. 50 (1 hour 10 minutes) And it was thick getting back to the trail, and I guess we hadn't gone quite far enough when I thought we had, so I turned around and went back a little, and I got turned around a little more, and the compass said south was one way and that didn't seem right. And I was freaking out, just feeling stupid, and trying to recreate what I'd done and where we might be (and the time we were losing), and at some point Barb said maybe we hadn't gone far enough, so we went just a little more NW and there was the trail. All took place in a tiny little area and over maybe 3 or 4 minutes, but amazing what damage the mind can do if you give it a chance. Of course, not long after we found the trail we lost it again, just at the NW tip of the pond, high vegetation. Found it again, it was hard to follow all the way down the west side. After that ok, but I was not in the mood to take the more direct trails to 50, so we took the longer road way around. Did give us the chance to chat up a local drunk, well, he tried to chat us up, something about watch out for the cars (Oui, oui, je sais, from me, while I think Barb was keeping her distance), then where were we going (La bas, down there, pointing down the road as if I knew what I was doing), and soon we were past him. Who knows, maybe we should have been more friendly, maybe he would have asked us in for hot chocolate. Just after we passed him we saw Bash and her partner, heading back where we'd been. Maybe he asked them in. 46 (34 minutes) Across the bit of stream, picked up what we hoped was the correct trail, then navigated correctly though about 8 junctions, then got the control (end of a small marsh) for icing on the cake. Brilliant map. 63 (51 minutes) Back to the trail, more trail navigation down to the lake. Could hear lots of noise (it was now about 2 am) from a big party, I believe I suggested it sounded like a pagan ritual, I imagined various animal sacrifices going on. More roads and trails, all ok, then got the control easily, though at night you never know until you've actually done it. 81 (54 minutes) Long trail walk, first part a bit rougher, then nice, no problems, except I think it was at some point along here that Barb slipped and went down and cracked her knees on a log, and one of the knees was a good bit worse off for the encounter. 90 (1 hour 4 minutes) Long road walk, thought it might take an hour or a little more. It did. 70 (56 minutes) Another long walk, expected an hour, did about that, though I thought we might do a little better. Took what we thought was a clever shortcut in the middle, road to clearing, across the nice clearing, just a touch of woods to road again. Except there was a strip of bad woods before the clearing, and then the clearing, well it might have been a nice clearing a decade or two ago, but now it was a mixture of brush and shrubs and chest-high thick hummocky grass. Hard to push through, plus I fell down a bunch of times. The couple hundred meters of thick woods on the other side were nice by comparison. We'd seen Phil Bricker and Jeff Shapiro maybe 5 minutes on their way out of 90 when we were on the way in, thought we might catch them at 70, but no sign of their lights. 41 (39 minutes) Sky starting to lighten up. Trails all the way, no problems, caught up to Phil and Jeff who seemed to have spent some time investigating the first high tension pole. Off with the headlamps. 64 (1 hour 23 minutes) Pretty much a disaster. Plan was to go to 45, headed east to the trail, never got there, woods were terrible, decided to turn downhill to get to the trail there. Chest- to head-high vegetation, rocky ground, I kept crashing, Barb's right knee was getting really bad. Finally got to the trail, had long since given up on going to 45, now off to 64 and stay on trails as much as possible. Which we did, just took a long time. I was getting tired going up, Barb's knee was real bad going down. 40 (30 minutes)Trail/road walk. 56 (30 minutes) Around the lake then in to the point. Nice woods, thankfully, still hard going downhill on a bad knee. 10 (57 minutes) Out to the road, and home, or so I expected, but partway along we met Ken Walker and Glen Brake, and they were heading for 10, and it seemed like we had time enough, so we went there too. Nice chat along the way, about chafing and other fun things. 14 (16 minutes) Still 53 minutes left, Ken and Glen were going to pick up 14, so we did too, though they were moving faster and were soon out of sight. HH (29 minutes) 39 minutes to go, plenty of time, except first the woods were crap again, and then it took much longer to find a trail than I expected, and pretty soon I was having another freak-out session, this one about getting caught up in something and coming in late. But no damage, back with 10 minutes to spare, one last fall on the last little slope 50 meters from the finish, feet slipped right out from under me. Turned in our card. A little food, a little drink, packed up the tent, packed up the gear. Headed home, dropping Barb at the airport on the way, still no idea how we did. But not too badly beaten up, and a fine time and some excellent memories! And ready to do at least one more before they pack me off to a nursing home. | ||
| C • route 14 | ||
Sunday Aug 26 | ||
| rogaining 9:50:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Montrail | ||
| Rest of rogaine. I will post our route when I get home. | ||
