Training Log Archive: PG

For anyone who happens to see this, and be interested, there will be sprint training at UMass this afternoon at 5:30 pm. Contact me before 4 pm if you want to come so I have a map for you, and you know where to come.

C • I was going to come up and ... 4

South Deerfield and Whately, modest effort. Nice day out, a little breezy.

A little war-op before the sprint. Actually did a lot of good. Legs felt totally dead, but a little running and then a little time to relax, and in the sprint they felt OK.

Sprint training at UMass. The course was going to be the first course we did there last fall, set by Alex or Greg, the event called SSDTAAR (Super Secret Don't Tell Ali Alex Run), because Alex was injured and wasn't supposed to run, but obviously did.

But the map Alex sent me was cropped so it didn't include a couple of controls. So I used the same beginning, S-6, and the same end, 16-F, and made up a different middle, including what I'll call an Ali loop, which is to send her (and the rest of us) up the steepest available hill to see if she can run it. Which, of course, she does. And no one else.

But it was good training, got to keep focus and a clear head even when the heart is pounding. And all you need is a map, don't need controls, or much organization, or even permission.... :-)

885/1000

C • One month to go 2

- Splits

Amity hills with Dave, also a couple others from his group. So nice to get it done early in the day. And then sitting out on the sidewalk at Amherst Coffee shooting the breeze for almost another hour, no one in any hurry to get to work.

C • Amherst coffee shop 1

Back roads in the valley, a few hills but none very long. Nice to get out before it gets too out. Legs felt OK, though perhaps because I wasn't pushing it.

Keep forgetting to update the control count, now 861/1000. Have only 5 races scheduled before 8/10, so I guess I will have to do some training.

Got my entry in for the NY events at the last moment for the lower fees. Seems I have signed up for Green at the Classic Champs, Blue for the Middle and Long at Buffalo, and Brown for the sprint at Buffalo.

M60 for the Classic Champs sort of makes sense. M65 has too little competition, M45 a little too much. I thought of M55 since recently that seems to been been grouped with M50 while excluding M60 to a different course. But they haven't said how the classes will be distributed. So, by default, M60 it was.

For Buffalo, it was time to have a little fun. So far this year at A meets I've run 3 days on Green (West Point) and 5 days on Red (Team Trials and Western PA). Coming up in the fall will be the Boulder Dash and the SML Champs Boston, and that's probably it for me. So why not go for, well, what's the word for one more than a trifecta, Quadfecta? Meaning, why not get ranked on 4 courses this year? Red is done. The Classic will take care of Green. I can run Blue at the Boulder Dash, it will be nice to see a lot of a park that had the first color O' map in New England but that we haven't been to in decades. And then mellow out on Brown at the SML.

All quite foolish, but I think, to make a sweeping generalization, that life is better with a little foolishness.

C • Foolish? 4

At Kennedy Park in Lenox, around and about. I didn't have a map, but there were maps posted at a few intersections, so every once in a while I'd stop and see where I'd been and where I might want to go. My map memory is pretty worthless (I can remember well after I've been someplace, but not before).

It would be a fine place to make an O' map.

C • JT? 4

Over to and up South Sugarloaf, and back. A good hard effort. Up in 9:05, best I've done in quite some time. Must be the early morning hill workouts....

Looking at the results from WMOC, wishing I was there, but it didn't work out. Maybe another year.

Had my annual physical a few days. Nothing surprising, which is always good. And a blood test, from which I just got the results.

A year ago I was complaining about feeling tired and the blood test then showed that I was somewhat anemic --

Hemoglobin 12.1 (normal range is 13.0 to 17.0)
Hematocrit 37.4 (40.0-51.0)
RBC 4.10 (4.5-5.5)
Ferrtin 25 (30-400)

The ferritin (reflects body's store of iron) was low enough that the doc said he wanted me to see a GI guy to stick something down my throat, or up my rear, or both, to check that there was no bleeding. His office would set it up, he said. Well, they forgot, and I wasn't really eager, so it never happened. But I started taking my multi-vitamin/mineral regularly, plus an iron supplement. And after a while I seemed to be less tired.

I was quite curious about this year's numbers. And they were certainly better --

Hemoglobin 13.4
Hematocrit 40.5
RBC 4.38
Ferritin 46

The doc seemed satisfied. And I will keep taking the extra iron.

Nice morning ride to Whately and Conway, though the bridge on the Whately-Haydenville road is closed for repairs and there is a bit of a dirt road detour (short-cut in this case). Legs felt OK.

Amity hills with Dave.