Training Archive: PG

Note

Went to see Up in the Air. Didn't have great expectations but thought it would be OK, but it still fell a bit short of that. Win some, lose some.

The last month has been good training, I've run at least half an hour every day for the last 32 days.

Have to keep it up for another 13 days, because 45 days seems to be all I can get AP to chart at one time (Ken says a month is all, but you can push it), whereas at 46 you're clearly over the limit.

The silly ways we get motivation, but whatever works....

road running 11:23 1.2 mi (9:29 / mi)
ahr:129 max:143 rhr:50 weight:143.5lbs shoes: x-talon 212

Warm-up. Started out with my O' pants on but decided they weren't needed, ditto with gloves.

road running race 21:31 3.16 mi (6:49 / mi) vdot: 46.7
ahr:160 max:170 shoes: x-talon 212

5K at Forest Park in Springfield. Wonderful day for mid-January, sunny, low 40s, hardly any wind, bare pavement. Brought out what they said was a record crowd of about 160 (and they have been running these races every Saturday morning from December through February for 30 years). Felt great running in shorts!

Good hard effort as usual. 50 seconds better than 4 weeks ago, but that was just a week after the Fair Hill marathon so some improvement was to be hoped for. But this was at the better end of expectations -- anything under 22 would have been fine.

Splits: 7:06 (up at start), 6:55, 6:29 (down in middle), 1:03

The course starts out with a sharp little uphill, immediately, so within a minute you feel quite wasted, while at the same time trying to shift up a gear or two at it flattens out. And wondering hw the net 20 minutes of heavy breathing is going to feel.

The legs felt pretty good today, don't think I could have done much better given current conditioning. May not get another chance at the course this winter, but will see if I can manage a weekly track workout to keep a sense of urgency.

road running 12:31 1.42 mi (8:50 / mi)
ahr:139 max:145 shoes: x-talon 212

Afterwards, with George and Lyn, struggling to keep up to Lyn, until I got smart and complained and she slowed down. Very pleasant.

C • The Strange Case of the Nordic Detectives 13

Note

Berkshire East, well it's not the Alps or the Rockies, but it is a nice little hill and it does have zip lines in the warmer seasons. An excursion there the day before the Billygoat?

C • excursion 4

Note

So we have this election coming up next Tuesday here in Massachusetts, and people seem to be getting quite excited or appalled (depending on your point of view) by the prospect of Teddy Kennedy's seat going to the Republicans. The primary was a month or so ago, and the main impact that had on my life was what must have been about 20 robo-calls that arrived here. Did not make me happy.

Well, they're at it again. Got one from Martha Cookley (the Democrat) a couple of days ago, reminded me right away of how much I dislike the calls. So I fired off the following e-mail to her campaign headquarters --

"I am planning to vote for her. But if you call me one more time, I will not. Take me off your list."

And gave my name and phone number. And waited to see if it would make a difference.

No calls since then, until this afternoon when I picked up the phone and I heard, "This is President Obama...."

That was pretty exciting for the nanosecond it took for me to realize it was another robo-call. And then, well, to be honest, I hung up on the Prez.

And considered my promise. Cookley hadn't called me, Obama had, so I guess I can still vote for her. For now.

treadmill 35:44 4.0 mi (8:56 / mi)
ahr:114 max:124 rhr:52 weight:141lbs shoes: mudclaw 270

Used the treadmill because my legs were a little achy after the last couple of days and I wanted to be able to quit if they were bothering me. But they didn't, excellent. Also wanted to have an easy workout, mission accomplished there too. Not sure if I've ever had a workout where my pulse maxed out at 124.

Might go run the 5K in Springfield tomorrow.

Miles: 9:51, 8:43, 8:35, 8:35

And then went off and filed my first returns for the season. It will be another week and a half before things really start hopping.

Note

Time for my annual outing to the ski slopes, so I headed off about noon time to Berkshire East. Very much like last year's outing, other than this time it had only been a year since I had skied and not 25 years. So I think the skills came back quicker, almost immediately.

It's a nice hill, not so big, maybe a little over 1,000' vertical, but reasonably steep. We haven't had much snow this winter but it has been cold enough to make plenty of snow, so the conditions were mostly excellent, just a little ice in a few places and even it wasn't the really hard ice you can't get an edge into. Once again the weird skis, 150 cm I think, but they sure turn easily and hold easily, just don't seem very stable as you get going faster. So, I'm not so stupid sometimes, I didn't get carried away going fast and unlike a normal O' outing, I finished the day with no falls.

The place wasn't crowded, so most of the time I rode up the lift by myself, but one of the times I had company, it was with two farmers. Yup, farmers. Both female. Friends, each had a farm. One of them had some horses, a few cows, a bunch of chickens, and 23 goats. Only milked the goats occasionally to make a little cheese, mainly raised them for the meat ("Much better than lamb"). Minding my manners, I did not inquire if my one bit of information about the care and feeding of goats was correct, namely that, according to Mary Smith (Ross's mom), "A sick goat is a dead goat."

The other farmer had no goats but lots of sheep, but by the time I got around to questioning her we were at the top of the lift and that was that. Of course I also refrained from asking about my one bit of info about the care and feeding of sheep, also courtesy of Mary Smith, "A sick sheep seldom survives."

Though I wonder if Mary's maxims are just ploys by the large animal vet crowd to lower expectations of their clients so much that they are considered miracle workers if even one goat or sheep pulls through.

So it was a fine couple of hours on the slopes. Though I must say I was always a little on guard, not wanting to do something stupid. And the one time I was a bit off balance, coming down through some bumps that suddenly got more severe than I expected and I did an extra hop to make sure my tips cleared a steep little face, and at the same time my mind was automatically flipping back to April 1966 at Cannon Mountain and burying my left tip in the side of a rut and doing major damage to my lower left (which is why that foot always points to the right). And I didn't want to go there again.

Not now, not ever.

C • goats 2

C • Cannon Mt. 1

road running 1:12:27 7.66 mi (9:27 / mi) +380m 8:12 / mi
ahr:140 max:158 rhr:54 weight:142lbs shoes: mudclaw 270

Finished up with the skiing, turned in my gear, and headed just down the road with just enough time to get a run in before it got really dark. The route was one that I had never done before on foot, but I had done it on a bike as part of the Mt. Greylock Century a few years ago. It's about halfway through that course and I had suffered going up it then.

So for some reason it seemed reasonable to run up it today, and then back down. Am I nuts?

I was tired when I started, plus my quads had been sore since yesterday's intervals, but I really didn't consider bagging the workout. Rather, it was just, start out, go slow, see how far you can get, and don't give up too easily. And I did just that, plugged away, pretty slow, but the kilometers went by and eventually I was at the top. And then turned right around and back down, also a bit unpleasant because it also seemed never to end. But of course it did. And I was pretty much toast.

Good entertainment from This American Life, the most recent edition, the segment about the guy seeking parole from a life sentence especially fine, got me just about all the way up the hill.

41:57 up, 30:30 down.

yoga 45:00 [1]

Seemed like a lot of work, quite beat by the end.

Though still quite enjoying the news that the instructor is 3 months pregnant. She are her female partner already have one kid, though I wasn't doing yoga when he was born and I've never asked who the birth mother was, so I'm not sure if this is her first time or second.

track 12:32 2.4 km (5:13 / km)
ahr:135 max:157 weight:141.5lbs shoes: x-talon 212

Indoor track at Smith. Warm-up. Nice, not crowded, a few walkers in the outside lanes, 3 or 4 runners, including Sidney Letendre, she's probably the best 50+ runner in New England at 5K and Dawn Roberts, her dad is my age and we've raced quite a few times over the years. They were cranking out 3:00 800s and no way I was going to join them, but it was fun to see them.

Did a mile and a half, including a few strides to get the legs moving.

track 22:46 4.8 km (4:45 / km)
ahr:151 max:168 shoes: x-talon 212

Like last week, the plan was 8x400, though this time I figured it made more sense, and gave more chance of finishing, to do a 200 recovery at an easy jog. Made it through, working hard by the end and the recoveries getting slower, but on the other hand the intervals were a little faster than I expected. So that was a pleasant surprise,

1:39.9, 1:11.8 for the recovery
1:37.1, 1:10.3
1:37.2, 1:13.9
1:36.9, 1:15.1
1:36.9, 1:18.4
1:35.8, 1:15.5
1:35.8, 1:15.6
1:33.3, 1:13.3

Hard to believe from the map (click on the little globe at the end of the first line of this entry) that I was doing laps around a 200-meter track. But the heart rate graph in the upper left looks just right.

track 4:38 0.8 km (5:47 / km)
ahr:131 max:138 shoes: x-talon 212

And a slow half-mile after. Had a nice chat with Dawn, who I hardly know, very pleased with myself for taking the initiative.

And, as always, such a feeling of satisfaction when the workout is over.

yoga 45:00 [1]

trail running 2:52 0.29 mi (10:02 / mi)
ahr:115 max:123 weight:141.5lbs shoes: mudclaw 270

According to Phil the trails at Mt. Tom were excellent so I thought I'd go give them a try. First, a very short loosening of the legs, also to check if this section was actually OK, which it was. Last time I'd been over here it had been a lot more ice.

trail running 58:38 4.55 mi (12:53 / mi)
ahr:146 max:161 shoes: mudclaw 270

Then did his loop. Felt pretty feeble, physically and mentally. Did a lot of walking on the climbs up the shoulder of Goat Peak and up Whiting Peak. And as far as mentally, hit the wrong button on the 305 on Goat Peak, so when about 3 minutes later I looked to see what my time was, hmmm, still the same. So the 55:24 on my watch at the end was about 3 minutes short.

The trails were pretty good. Hardly any ice, though I was a little cautious on the steeper downhills, also some sections with signs of frost holes, but I never really went in one. And in some places the snow filled in the gaps between the rocks so the running was maybe even a little better than summertime.

But I still didn't have it any time the trail turned up. A lot of work needs to be done.

Splits: 18:05 top of Goat, estimated 4:30 to road, (22:35), 14:30 to turn after Whiting Peak (37:05), 21:33 to end (58:38).

trail running 10:56 0.81 mi (13:30 / mi)
ahr:137 max:146 shoes: mudclaw 270

So I was feeling quite annoyed at myself for screwing up the time-keeping and distance-measuring, so the obvious thing to do was to remedy that by going back up and redoing the section. Drove up the road and parked where the trail comes out. Ran back the gentle part and then walked up the hill to the top of Goat (6:39), then ran back to the car the way I was going earlier (4:17), probably a little faster than earlier because I knew there were no bad icy spots.

So now enough data. And glad I had done it.

Note

Here are the maps from Saturday -- course A, which Gail ran flawlessly, and course B, which I botched, especially #3, the exit on the way to 4, and #8.

Results/splits are here.

C • Phone -O 3

trail running 33:23 3.19 mi (10:27 / mi)
ahr:135 max:153 rhr:52 weight:141lbs shoes: mudclaw 270

In Greenfield, a short outing on Poet's Seat ridge from the gym. Everything is still snow-covered, but packed pretty nicely, so the running is just fine.

Legs were feeling yesterday's long run, so I didn't see any need to go any longer or faster. Pleasant out except for 3 yapping dogs and the usual owner with no control of them. I suppose that's the one downside of running where there are enough walkers to pack out the trails.

Also more time at the office than I expected, installing new software, dealing with the inevitable issues. No crises so far. Also have a new person there, a fourth lady, this one quite young and quite gorgeous, among her duties as the newest person on the block is handling all my appointments, so I suppose I will have to interact with her reasonably often. Life is hard....

C • new person 1

road running 2:24 0.26 mi (9:04 / mi)
ahr:123 max:135 rhr:52 weight:141lbs shoes: mudclaw 270

Heading over to the start of the 10-mile course.

road running 1:22:25 10.02 mi (8:14 / mi)
ahr:151 max:164 shoes: mudclaw 270

Ten-mile course in Amherst. A classic course, site next month of the New England 10K Champs, run it many times, both racing and training. Would be flat for an orienteering course, but hilly for a road race, especially the long hills at mile 3 and mile 9. Certified course, nice to see the distance checks out just right.

Ran with Dave, real nice to have company. Cold morning, about 12F, but sunny and hardly any wind so exceedingly pleasant. Except for the hills, though I croaked less than I feared, especially on the last one, hung in well even though by that point the legs were getting tired. This is a long run for me these days.

So overall, great, was figuring something between 85 and 90.

By the way, my record at the 10-miler:
1980 (age 35): 65:11
1982 (37): 63:56
1984 (39): 66:32
1985 (40): 66:36
1987 (42): 63:25
1988 (43): 62:27
1997 (52): 66:20
1998 (53): 63:57
2002 (57): 72:50
2004 (59): 71:16
2005 (60): 70:21
2008 (63): 78:31

Best was 1988, best age-adjusted was probably 1998. Was in charge of the results many years between 1988 and 1997, a good excuse not to run.

road running 7:24 0.86 mi (8:39 / mi)
ahr:148 max:152 shoes: mudclaw 270

And then back to the cars at the Amherst Women's Club. Legs were dead.

C • pants 7

Note

And then SMAC's (Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club) annual meeting. I've been a member of the club for over 30 years. It's added a lot of enjoyment to my running training and racing, a nice complement to orienteering though always taking second place.

And even got the club's "Most Outstanding Runner" award for 2009. Nice surprise.