Training Log Archive: PG

Event: WCOC Ansonia Nature Center meet
 

WCOC club meet at Ansonia, Red course. A great area, interesting topography, good map, nice woods. And a fun course too.

Progress. Had a little more energy, ran up a bunch of hills (none big, but I would have walked them all a couple of weeks ago). Started to run out of gas after about 35-40 minutes, walked 4 little bits, but still pretty good. 7 falls. Orienteering was a little shaky, mainly having trouble reading the details of the map well on the run, struggling quite a bit with that. I can read it ok standing still, but on the move, not so good. So a lot of times I was just trying to go with what I could get, plus stay on the direction I wanted, and keep my eyes open. No big mistakes, maybe 2 minutes altogether?

My routes.

#5 - Should have stayed high. Dropped down to the marsh, was rough going, finally said the hell with it and just waded across (20 meters, mid-calf deep).
#8 - Pulled up a boulder too soon and a little to the right. Took a careful look at the map and saw where I was.
#10 - A little left.
#11 - A little left, but full speed.
#12 - A little right, almost went too far.
#15 - Getting real tired going up into and out of the control.
#16 - A little left, not quite clear on what the contours were supposed to be doing, but just kept moving and saw the control to my right.
#17 - Tired, trail seemed easier/faster even if it dropped lower.
#18 - Worst control, too far left, stood for a bit, then corrected the right way.
#23 - Getting real tired.

After a few minutes and a change of shoes, went back out for a little bit on the trails.

A bit of a long but good day.

First orienteering at Ansonia. Definitely good.

Then to Litchfield for a Mother's Day visit. Went ok, pulled out a couple of very old photo albums, c. 1930s and 40s, and that seemed to dredge up some old memories. Glad I went.

And then to Canton for Charlie's birthday party. In his pursuit of eternal youth, or maybe as a result of trying to keep up with all the babes in Rhonda's early morning class, Charlie is going under the knife on Friday for a twofer, shoulder and knee. He's looking forward to it, hopes for significant improvements. That would be real nice, keeping our fingers crossed.

An excellent birthday cake, by the way, though I only had a very small piece.

And then home, aware all day of how much gas was being burned, and reverting back a bit to 1970s driving, a little slower, a lighter foot on the pedal. Got home without having to fill up.

The best, of course, from an energy point of view, would have been not to go at all, but life is short....

Red course - Splits

A gloomy day, but still some good news...

- the G is getting back under control.

- just received the $1200 from W (and Congress), though of course it was just borrowed from the Chinese. So it's not clear if this is really good news.

- got a letter from my "Dave Barry guy," the polyp was benign, which is definitely good news. Don't have to see him again for 10 years.

In the hills just north of Rt. 2 in Gill, light rain. Legs a little better than yesterday. This makes a couple good weeks of training, need to keep it up while figuring out a way to avoid getting hurt. Route.

Looking forward throughout the session to what came next -- lunch (at 4:30 pm).

With the Thursday evening track group. The schedule was faster sections with shorter rests in between -- 2 minutes fast, 1 slow, 3, 1, 4, 2, 4. 2, 3, 1, 2 -- though it is a bit of a stretch to call it speedwork, since my pace on the faster parts was about 7:15/mile.

Oh well, have to start someplace. And since legs felt totally dead all day, I suppose it was good just to have done something.

Also getting in lots of rogaine practice, and not eating much (which in itself is good rogaine practice).

Very short warm-up.

Bridal loop on Mt. Toby, what goes for a very long run these days. I figured under 70 minutes would be good, so it was good.

I thought of calling up Phil to see if he wanted to join me, but i figured (1) 4 pm was a little too early for him, and (2) more importantly, I didn't really want to have to keep stopping to wait for him.

Power line 17:57, start of loop 31:31, end of loop 41:21, power line 54:44, back n 13:51.

C • bridal loop? 2

From Mill River up to Atkins Reservoir (28:15) and back (24:59). I thought of calling up Phil to see if he wanted to join me, but i figured (1) 4 pm was a little too early for him, and (2) more importantly, I didn't need the struggle to try to keep up with him.

Although the legs felt at least mediocre, certainly better than yesterday.

C • Surely, you jest. 4

At Northfield Mountain after a round of rogaine practice at Northfield, which itself was after a morning of trying to get things done at home, where there is a long to-do list. Gail, of course has her own to-do list, one item is apparently to clean/organize her studio. Meanwhile, she has put on my list (is maybe it's our list, I'm not sure) to clean out my office enough that the floor can be vacuumed, something that has not been done to parts of that room for, well, it's certainly more than years, maybe best measured in decades.

So anyway, it occurred to me this morning, a little competition sometimes being good for the soul, that maybe the motivation I needed was to see if I could clean out my office before she cleaned out her studio, keeping in mind the likelihood of a long-term tie if neither of us ever got the cleaning up done. So I launched into cleaning, except I started in the bedroom, my side, and it is looking quite nice now, about three grocery bags of old magazines and papers are now ready to go out for recycling on Wednesday. Which is all great, except that pretty much used up all the enthusiasm I had for cleaning for the day (or maybe the week, or, one hopes not, maybe the month). So the office is in the exact state of chaos as it started the day. But I still have hope. After all, I voted for Obama.

Oh, yes, the run. Slow, dead legs. But necessary under the new program to both improve conditioning and lower the G. All necessitated by my signing up for the Blue course at the Team Trials. Such foolishness....

C • Why does the floor need to ... 2

Stopped in at the office after the run to deal with a late-filing client. Pure vanilla, absolutely simple, except he had figured he could do it himself. And when the bottom line showed he owed $1800, he gave me a ring. So we got that straightened out, modestly on the plus side with both the Feds and the state, who knows what he had done. And meanwhile we're chatting, he's the manager of a gas station / convenience store, and he's filling me in on all the latest, which station I shouldn't use a credit card at because they not to be trusted with such things, and what's happening with the guy who owned several stations and recently sold out and laid off several long-time employees with minimal severance packages, and a little more of this and a little more of that, and then he says,

Oh, and did you know, Swampfox turned 50 last week.

And I said, No, you're shitting me, or something like that. Followed, of course, by, How the hell do you know that, do you know Swampfox?

Well, of course he didn't actually know Swampfox, but the word on the street was that Swampfox had indeed turned 50, and he wasn't taking it very well. I mean, if you did a cross-section and counted the rings, old Mr. Swampfox would have as many rings as Ross and Samantha put together. And I'd guess pretty much anyone would rather be Ross and Samantha than an aging Swampfox.

So, needless to say, I was in a bit of a state of shock, which I worked my way out of only by the realization that Mr. Swampfox, intelligent fellow that he is and also a fan of good comedy, and I'm sure of Dave Barry, well, I'm sure that Mr. Swampfox has already scheduled his first colonoscopy. So fine.

Finished off the day at the gym, also a struggle, but got it done.