Training Log Archive: PG

Phil had said the conditions at Mt. Tom off-trail were excellent, so that was enough motivation to go try our standard woods running route. Even got Gail to go along too.

A bit of warmup first.

Once out and back to the NE, then once out and back to the SW. The proper route includes another trip to the NE, but many times in the past, the spirit wasn't willing.

Good effort, the uphills felt awful as usual, walked just a little at one point going SW after I tripped and fell and it was hard to get going again.

No snow, ice, wildlife, people (Gail was off to Little Mt. Tom). Very pleasant.

And another loop through the Lake Bray parking area afterwards.

Training - Splits

Loop around both Sugarloafs. Felt like more work than it should have. Maybe it was the Hokas?

A route at Mt. Tom that Phil did a couple of weeks ago, more or less, over to Little Mt. Tom and back. Not all that pleasurable. Trails up high were fine, but very icy along the valley leading to Lake Bray, and muddy where it wasn't icy. So I was off trail as needed and generally rather slow.

Stayed upright on the ice, but one spill when angling down a rocky slope bushwhacking off LMT, banged a knee, hurt a good bit. Kept moving but it kept hurting more, so stopped for a couple of minutes and it mellowed out and before long didn't notice it any more. Must have hit the funny bone (or is that only on your elbow?).

The running really did suck. :-)

And tired legs, had to walk on the ups several times. And did an extra little loop on the trail just below LMT -- the trail forks, one way to the end at the little pond, the other way just loops around to where you had just been. Got to try them both out.

C • And I thought I was the only fool 7

Two encounters with orienteering in the media in recent days that I didn't expect.

The first was in a book I'm reading, The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell (I'm reading the english translation), where the dead body tied to a tree deep in the forest is discovered by a local orienteer out doing his regular night-O' training. Makes you wonder if in addition to t-shirts that say "Night Orienteering is not a Crime" there ought to also be ones that say something like "Fight Crime, Go Night Orienteering."

The second was in quite different circumstances, and didn't exactly involve any orienteering, though it did involve a place well known to orienteers -- Harriman State Park in NY, more specifically, Silvermine, still more specifically, the hillside just across the road from the Silvermine parking lot. Which was where Adam and Hannah and Shoshanna, on their way to extract Jessa from rehab, stop to take a walk and deal with their own issues. And there are nice scenes of the wide open forest, and also the hills and the rocks, the things you either love or hate about Harriman.

Not that any of them have a clue about orienteering.

The media here is season 3, episode 2 of Girls on HBO. Spoiler alert -- Hannah is naked well less than half the time.

C • across the road 6

C • Sounds familiar 6

C • Fight Crime 3

At the indoor track with Phil. Nice place to be on a rainy day.

Phil's choice today. First on the agenda was a 1600, alternating slow laps and fast. Quicker laps were 49.2, 46.5, 46.0, 45.6.

And then the main event, 3K. Sure it's just a training day, but no doubt that the goal was to run this as fast as possible.

Phil announced he was shooting for 54 seconds a lap, or 13:30 for the whole thing. I wasn't sure I could manage that, so let him set the early pace, just a little ahead of me. Can't say I ever felt good, never feeling it was easy, but the laps went by and even enough left to pick it up a bit at the end. 13:18, probably a personal worst, was still a pleasant surprise.

1:48.3, 1:48.2 1:47.5, 1:47.6, 1:47.2, 1:47.5, 1:45.4, 46.6. Kilometer splits were 4:30, 4:28, 4:20.

Slow.

On the south side of the Holyoke Range starting from Bachelor St. Bike trails were OK, some ice and a little mud but most could be easily avoided, whereas jeep road was all ice except for a couple of mud holes I dropped into.

Legs tired, especially starting out. Maybe because it was uphill?

Hilly roads near Winsted, CT. Definitely feeling the hills, or just tired legs, or both, but survived. And finished off another good week.

Post-game run to the car again, pouring rain, but no traffic worries. And another good game.

Same route as a couple of days ago. Late afternoon, we were stuck in a cold pocket so still mid-30s (while up in the hills it was mid-50s), rain, and dense fog.

But the run was OK, mostly on roads with not much traffic and it was going very slowly. So you run right down the middle of the road and listen for cars and then move over to the other side. Only once were cars coming from the both directions and then I just headed off into the snow. Visibility was minimal.

Listening to a FA interview with a guy who wrote a book about all his anxieties. I thought I had anxieties, but I'm nowhere close to being in his league. Maybe I just worry a bunch. But he was something else. I mean, emetophobia?

C • Anxiety 8