Training Log Archive: PG

Woods roads in Wolfeboro, NH (visiting the Goodwins at the northern outpost and clubhouse of WCOC). Route. A nice psychological process -- committed to doing the run, just enough time after a round of rogaine practice (i.e. golf) and before dinner, which helped in a way because there was no sitting around thinking about it, just change and do it. As usual, the legs felt dead and stiff and awkward to start, but I am slowly learning just to start slowly and after a few minutes things will loosen up and feel much better, which they did.

Very pleasant (after the first few minutes), chugged up the hills without undue difficulty. No FDFs yet, I expect they will be showing up in about 10 days. 23:50 out/up, 21:07 back.

Wonderful afternoon on the golf course with Gail, Peter Goodwin, and his son Hunt. Excellent company, beautiful afternoon.

Once again I was tested -- snowmen (i.e. 8) on the 4th and 5th holes, both par 4s. And once again I did not lose my cool, just cussed a couple of times (you have to be allowed a little reaction) and then moved on. The round as a whole (86) was the usual mixture of the sublime and the absurd, but psychologically it/I was brilliant. As was the new mellow Gail.

I could look at a day like this and have mammoth regrets that it took me so long in life to learn some things, like how to deal with the ups and downs life throws at you. But a more accurate reading of my feelings would be -- better learn this stuff late than never.

Event: WCOC Osbornedale State Park
 

WCOC local meet at Osbornedale (site of the relay champs a couple of years ago).

No legs/energy today. Just sort of accepted it. Still put out some effort, but the pace was pretty slow. I compared splits with Andy V (58) and Sergei G (60) and the difference was all on the uphill legs. Just didn't have it. The warm weather (low to mid-80s) didn't help either.

Clem had 55, seemed happy enough, or at least not bummed like after yesterday's run.

My navigating was again pretty solid, can't think of any problems of any significance.

Hungry.

My route.

Warm-up. Didn't take long to work up a sweat.

Just a reminder before I forget -- I need to get an Obama shirt (or several) for the trip to Europe.

C • but... 1

Red course - Splits

Event: NEOC Gay City State Park
 

NEOC local meet at Gay City, a place that I have enjoyed orienteering several times, although there is a significant difference in the feel of the place depending on whether the summer vegetation is out or not. It's not so much that the visibility is less, it's actually still pretty good, but the ferns are up, hiding the rocks. The ferns are far from everywhere, but they make a difference where they are. So a place that is quite fast under dormant conditions changes to only moderately fast this time of year. But still a fun place to go no matter what the season.

I had a good run navigationally, but physically the same problem as last week, ran out of zip after about 30 minutes and was really struggling the last half, lots of walking breaks and stumbling and falling. No serious damage done, though at one point map and control card were quite bloody, all from a little slice at the end of a finger. I guess my blood is flowing well.

It also seemed hot, I think it was about 80F. But that's just a lame excuse. Also didn't come into to this fresh, been training through everything, another lame excuse. Really just need to HTFU and learn to push for 45+ minutes like I will have to do in 6 weeks.

At least the first half was good, ran all the hills. And the orienteering was solid all the way, getting really good mental images of how the controls sat, so never missed anything by more than 10 or 20 meters. That's good, got to keep building on that, you want to develop good habits, so that when the pressure is on you still do things right.

My routes. Nothing that I would do any differently, except not fade. Which might serve as a reminder that I have been eating too much recently. At least I was moving well the first half.

And at least one initial connection, met Marie. And came close to a scalp or two, but Pavlina ducked me by running the Green course and Clem didn't make quite enough blunders. Close, of course, gets you nothing.

C • Nice job, maybe I'll go run... 2

Warm-up. Seemed about right. Started about 6 or 8 minutes later and felt good.

Cool-down, quite literally, consisted of a trip to the pond. Very nice.

A nice evening so it seemed like more exercise was called for to break the recent habit of chowing down after dinner. First a trip to the range to swat a few, then a very nice hike up South Sugarloaf at dusk, the full moon rising over the Pelham hills.

13:38 up (brisk pace), 12:36 down (mellow pace, wanted to keep a tight ship).

So part-way up, right at the hairpin, I passed this guy carrying a skateboard. Was he really going to ride it down? Just then a gal passed coming down, and she asked him that very question. And he said he is. And she said, "Oh, that's sketch."

And he said a couple more things about maybe not going all the way to the top because he's forgotten his slide gloves, not sure exactly what they are, but they sound like what you might wear if your confidence is not too high.

And again she said, "That's sketch."

Now that's a new term for me, and I'm not sure if it means, "That's awesome," or "That's idiotic," or maybe a little of both.

I got up to the top, admired the moon and the darkening landscape, and then headed down. Just as I was getting to the hairpin, I could make out the skateboarder, and he was riding down, but he wasn't going very fast and there was a terrible grinding noise.

And I was thinking, how sketch can it be to ride downhill with the brakes on max and going about 5 mph? Unless sketch means just idiotic, in which case he was absolutely sketch.

He got down ahead of me, but not by much.

C • sketch 15

Gail announced that she too is getting more mellow. That is such excellent news. :-)

Red - Splits

Back over to the other side of Mt. Toby for another test on the Power Line Power Climb (.85 miles, 800' climb). Last time a couple of weeks ago was 13:54 on a day when the legs felt good, and when I was surprised and delighted by the time.

So today's plan was to match or better that, and in particular to run at least all the first quarter (the steeper pitches get steeper as you work your way up, and each quarter on it's own is tougher, plus there is the cumulative effect).

Splits from last time at the usual places: 3:45, 7:26 (3:41), 10:13 (2:47), and 13:54 (3:41). But I forget to check these numbers before I left, so I didn't really know how I was doing. All I know is it was a struggle and I felt slow. So this time the surprise was even greater as I reached the top in 13:07. Where did that come from? Whatever, very cool.

Pulse was around 170. Ran all the first quarter. Running all the first half would be really hard.

Splits this time: 3:29, 6:58 (3:413:29), 9:37 (2:39), and 13:07 (3:30).

Plus over to the start (6:28) and back down the jeep trail from the top (21:08, includes a bit of time dealing with a dog, owners couldn't be bothered to do anything to control it).

Thursday evening track group. And a nice evening it was. And there's is no other way to put it -- just a great workout. :-)

A good crowd, maybe 15 people, I was roughly in the middle as far as speed. The plan was 2x800, then 2x1000, then 2x800, with a modest amount of rest in between. Two weeks ago I did a similar workout with 800s from 3:19 to 3:23, so the goal this time was 3:20 or just a little less.

(distance, time, rest)
800: 3:17.9, 1:14
800: 3:16.4, 1:15
1000: 4:06.7 (800 in 3:17), 1:38 (including back to the start)
1000: 4:02.2 (800 in 3:14), 1:47 (including back to the start)
800: 3:13.5, 1:24
800: 3:09.9

All of them felt easy except the last one, easy meaning around threshold pace, no faster, could have kept going. Felt really good.

15 down, 35 to go.

Five laps before, one after.

So a little over two weeks into an 8-week training program. Not that there is a real program with workouts planned for the whole period. The goal is just to get in a lot of quality workouts, try to recover the feeling of what it means to race. And try not to get injured. And try to keep up the enthusiasm, because sometimes training hard just plain hurts.

So far, so good, for sure. I'm clearly reaping the reward already from the drop in the G. The hard workouts are still hard, but when the legs feel good, the workouts are so much fun (just have to think back to various times when a month or two would go by and not a single run felt good, but you keep at it because there is no alternative). At the end of this evening's, I was just ecstatic, rather than the usual more subdued glad-it's-over feeling.

But keeping the fingers crossed that I don't self-destruct. Then again, even if I do, in the meantime I'm enjoying the journey and not just looking forward to the destination.

Back from the track, 5 minutes to change, and then off to see The Garden, yet another fine flick. I seem finally to have expunged from my memory some horrible flick I saw a week or so ago, can't even remember the name....

Got me thinking on the way home about local politics and what needs to be done. We are facing a mammoth budget deficit in town, mostly for reasons beyond our control, and it's not clear how we will deal with it. Town meeting in a week, time for some creative thinking.

C • State & local finances 6

A day off from running, got out to bike instead. In to Northampton to pick up the car. A bit of a headwind, felt OK. Good for dispensing with a little irritation at the car folks who took most of the day to determine that they had to order a part and therefore couldn't fix what was wrong. So I get to do it again next week. At least I was mellow when I got there.

On the plus side, finally got tickets for Europe, thanks to George being clever, got a good itinerary at a good price. Though those folks were also trying to drive me crazy in the process. We must have tried 6 or 8 times to book some flights, get all the information in, click "Purchase" or whatever, and then get told the flight is sold out or the price isn't valid or something, in other words, start all over again.

And really, customer service isn't hard if you just try a little.

Movie time again (got to wipe out any lingering memories of ST). Got going a little to late to see The Garden (which has its last day tomorrow...), but in time for Summer Hours. Very very fine.

What a great day! Well, maybe the running was a little sluggish, but I got it done. But first....

An early start, headed up a ways into Vermont to meet up with Mike Fritz for a round of golf. I've hardly played at all this year, maybe a couple rounds, plus a couple times just a few holes. But it's fun to get together with Mike at some course between us, get to play at different places and catch up on life.

Today was a test as to how I would cope with the usual adversity golf throws at you. And the bottom line is that I was brilliant. And my golf wasn't so bad either, much to my surprise.

It ranks right up there as one of the most enjoyable rounds I have ever played. Good company, of course. A beautiful day. But among the adversities were a rather slow pace of play ahead of us, and I am usually very impatient, and greens that were pretty horrible, having, along with most courses in central Vermont, suffered a lot of winter kill. Normally the slow play would drive me nuts. Not today. Normally greens this bad would really drive me nuts. Not today. As I said, I was brilliant, psychologically speaking. It just happened, no special trying, no gritting my teeth, no talking to myself to get myself to behave. It just happened. And that is so cool.

Towards the end we were talking about how often we played, and how you didn't want to play too often, would waste too much time that could be spent productively. I said some people manage to play all the time and always enjoy it. Mike guessed neither of us was sociable enough to just play for the social pleasure, or drank anywhere near enough to fit in with that crowd. I guessed we might also both be too competitive, that it's hard to play without caring about the score, and that meant some days were going to be less fun.

I also guessed I was still caring about my score a little, but caring less. And that was a good thing.

Played #18, long par 3 across a valley to an elevated green. Beautiful 5-wood left me 40' across a stretch of green that would have been mapped with lots of little brown dots (broken ground), just terrible. Three putts, the miss on the second followed by the usual "Shit." Mike said, Don't let it bother you, it's the green. I said, it (meaning being pissed) was already gone, it hung around for 5-10 seconds at the most, and then gone. All smiles walking to the car. And that is so nice.

Initial plans to play again in 2 or 3 weeks. And then a quick departure since there was only so much time to get a run in....

Drove down to Putney and then up into the hills for a run I did once with Ken Walker on Putney Mountain Ridge, starting at the south end. The initial hope had been to run to Pinnacle Mt. and back, about 10 miles, but I didn't quite have enough time for that after the slow golf. So I just headed off, thinking I had time for about 80 minutes.

Within a couple of minutes I decided 60 minutes would be enough, and even that a struggle. Dead legs, also tired from being on my feet for 4 hours, plus dehydrated for sure. Of course I had no water with me.

But I kept plugging away, and at 30 minutes I looked on the map at what lay ahead and decided I wanted to go to the next junction. That added a couple more hills. Got there right at 40 minutes, perfect, headed back. Hung in there OK until the last up, had to stop a couple of times for a brief break as I was quite wasted. But before much longer it was done.



Started at the kiosk at the south end, as far north as where the Headwaters Trail branches off.

And then quickly as I could, back to the office for a late afternoon tax appointment. This time of year things are seldom simple, and this seems to have been no exception. Guy about 70, had a stroke a year or so ago, managing pretty well, had a young friend along to help. They'd brought no papers, so this was just a session to figure out what he needed to try and find. It will be a challenge, it may require a bit of careful fiction. But rather than kicking myself for getting involved, I was quite looking forward to helping him out. So I gave them their homework, list of all the stuff I needed, and then headed home.

But not before dealing with another new client to be, buying a house in 2 weeks, first time, can get the 8K credit. Things are picking up.

Dinner just about ready when i got home. Homemade pizza, new variety (asparagus, onions, just a little bit of a couple of kinds of cheese), wonderful whole-wheat crust made from scratch. Delicious.

What a great day!