Sunday Oct 28 |
 | Orienteering - Training (Gay City) 10:00 [1]*** | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| While waiting for Sue & Mike to arrive, Hayden & I took a map for some quick orienteering practice. 3 control sites near the parking lot. First one was a dot knoll at the south end of a field. Got there and there's no dot knoll there, maybe a gentle rise in the terrain near the power line pole, but definitely no dot knoll. I wonder what chucklehead mapped this area :-) Rest went ok, but a couple of small trails behind the ranger cabin have pretty well disappeared, but its been 10 years and those trails aren't' part of the regular public network. |
| Hiking (Gay City) 1:15:00 [1]5 km (15:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Family hike on a fine afternoon. Took a couple maps with us and Hayden and I did a bit of reverse trail O. As we walked along the trail I'd point out a visible feature from the trail and ask him to locate it on the map. Most of the time I had to help him relocate where we were on the map, but then he usually found the feature ok. At least he's excited about doing the orienteering. |
Thursday Oct 25 |
| Trail Run - Long / Easy (Bolton Notch) 48:47 [3]8.1 km (6:01 / km) +210m 5:20 / km | |
| shoes: Adidas Response Trail XI |
| Some talk about putting together a regular mid-week trail running thing over at Bolton Notch. So I decided to go run around a bit today at Bolton Notch SP and Freja (Bolton Town Land).
First tried the yellow trail up from the rail trail - steep right off the bat, but just went up to the rocky outcrop overlooking the notch. A lot of little trails leading away, but they all petered out rather quickly. Back down to the rail trail, headed toward Vernon and then up into the Freja area. Got onto a stony wide trail headed north, quickly out of Freja but no indication that it was out of bounds so kept on going. Always had higher ground to the west so was surprised when the trail dumped me into a couple of back yards after a few miles. Oh well, turned around and headed back over to the old drivein, then followed the Shenipsit Trail around the pond and then back on the rail trail. Followed a couple false trails that petered out.
All in all, nothing terrible enlightening - everything pretty much dead-ended on me and the longest out and back option, while not terrible, did have a lot of small rocks underfoot so it really wouldn't be enjoyable as a regular venue. I'll go back and hunt around some more to see if I can't find something better. |
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| C • Missed you 2 |
Tuesday Oct 23 |
| Trail Run - Long / Easy (Happy Feet) 30:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Happy Feet club - jogging on the the trails in the woods, then around the ball fields. |
| Terrain (no map) (Crandalls) 36:30 [3]5.25 km (6:57 / km) +180m 5:56 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Some moderate paced terrain running at Crandalls staying off trails for the most part. Was wandering a bit in the far NW section and am pretty sure I wandered over the vague boundary onto a private parcel. Shame too as there was a really nice 3m glacial erratic up in that section. If its a large private parcel, perhaps I'll seek permission from the landowner to include it on the usable portion of the map.
AOWN - was heading down into a small ravine to hop over a pretty dry brook when out from under my feet zipped what I'm pretty sure was a mink. Disappeared into a hole under a rock that looks like a pretty viable spot for a den. Way cool..... |
Monday Oct 22 |
| Note | |
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| Didn't manage to get out the door today. Will try to bring do some training at Crandalls tomorrow afternoon.
But I did get around to updating the Striders website which was long overdue. Added a few new photos including a couple unsavory AP types.... |
Sunday Oct 21 |
| Road Run tempo (Snip & back) 27:27  6.2 km (4:26 / km) +50m 4:15 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| run at dusk while kids watched a movie (Jungle Book). Ran hard from the start, determined to see if I still had anything close to a 20 minute 5k in me. Hit the 2.5k mark in exactly 10minutes, but knew I couldn't keep that pace up for another 10 minutes. Kept at it as best I could out to the bridge at the lake, turned around and headed for home. Hit the 5km mark (according to GPS) at 21:01. Eased off and ran easy the remainder of the way.
Nice way to end a gorgeous day. Need to force myself out the door more often, but perhaps not quite so hard |
Saturday Oct 20 |
| Trail Run - Long / Easy (Sampler) 35:15  5.75 km (6:08 / km) +150m 5:25 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Sampler on a damp, overcast morning. Easy running with Dave & Ginny until Woodchuck Hill, then I pushed hard up and over to the parking lot. |
Wednesday Oct 17 |
| Mixed Run (Shafran) 50:00  10.4 km (4:48 / km) +170m 4:27 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Ran over to Shafran - 5 min on road, then trails taking a random assortment of options, skipping bridges in favor of direct stream crossing, cutting some trail corners in the woods etc. Distance is GPS time. When I reached 9km at around 40 minutes, I decided to head home and do it as fast as I could so roughly 10 minutes at intensity 5. Hit the road and kept pushing to see if I could get home under 50 minutes. Hit the driveway exactly as it rolled over. Then proceeded to collapse in my chair on the breezeway in the fine autumn sunshine for well over a half hour. Legs are quite tired now (in a good way) |
Tuesday Oct 16 |
| Mixed Run (Happy Feet) 20:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| helping out with running club. Jogging in/out with the kids, but not much running (for me) otherwise. |
Sunday Oct 14 |
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| Event: NEOC Wells State Park
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| Orienteering - Event race (Wells SP Green) 47:19 [5]*** 3.85 km (12:17 / km) +150m 10:17 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Nice day in the woods, used new map of Northern section of park. Still have some areas of questionable mapping. Also using a 1:7500 so I ran a little more conservative to avoid overrunning things which I saw as a distinct possibility. One major blunder on #6, otherwise just minor misses. |
| Orienteering - Event race (Wells SP Yellow) 13:48 [5]*** 2.2 km (6:16 / km) +50m 5:38 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Sprint Training on the yellow course. Realized enroute to #2 that my R shoe was untied, but didn't stop to fix it, ran with it loose. Good running speed, but I had copied new course onto my used green map, so upon leaving each control I had to stop and read it carefully to make sure I was heading to the correct control, picked a route and strategy then ran it hard without further referral to the map. Only real troubles were on #6 I opted to shortcut in the powerline area and got mired in brambles that were deeper and thicker than I realized - trail around would have saved me 30s or so. And then on the penultimate the clue said pit, but there was a depression AND a pit in the circle (and the master map was centered on the depression) so I checked that out before hitting the pit. Maybe 10s on the diversion. Add perhaps 30-40s loss on the loose shoe (slower pace) for maybe 75s total loss. Probably wouldn't have hurt my time to tie it when I noticed it. Also lost maybe another minute unfolding map to punch (card stapled to map) over what would have been with e-punching. I'm just not smooth enough when futzing with the pin punches.... |
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| C • Boy, add up all those times... 3 |
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Green - Splits |
Saturday Oct 13 |
| Orienteering - Training (Crandalls) 20:00 [1]*** 2.2 km (9:05 / km) +40m 8:20 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| hanging streamers for cub scout orienteering session this afternoon. White and yellow level, short legs - 12 controls in 2.2km. Quite enjoyable in the woods |
| Orienteering - Training (Crandalls) 13:23 [4]*** 2.2 km (6:05 / km) +40m 5:35 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| then turned around and tried to run the course hard. Difficult to breathe at higher intensity, no energy in the legs. Of course Anna's birthday is on Monday so she had a half dozen 6th grade girlfriends over for a sleepover last night (not a lot of sleep on my part) and then helping with things this AM I never ate breakfast. So in retrospect its no surprise I had a tough time.... |
| Orienteering - Training (Crandalls) 50:00 [1]*** 2.2 km (22:44 / km) +40m 20:50 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Cub Scout den meeting event. 5 boys (3rd grade), 1 younger sibling, 3 adults. Did a quick intro with a bunch of old maps to get an idea of what the various colors stood for on the map, then more into specific types of features. Then walk to start and begin a series of short white legs having everyone orient their map, and discuss the options, then took turns with one boy leading each leg once decided on the particular course. Plenty of running along in the woods and when I saw the plan going awry, I told them to stop and re-check their map and to review their pre-ordained plan. Most of the time they figured it out on their own and got right back on track. Last 4 controls were yellow/orangish but had the huge handrail of I-84 visible in the distance. Everyone had a good time and enjoyed the fact that this was a running sport, not just a walk in the woods. |
Tuesday Oct 9 |
| Hiking (Crandalls) 1:00:00 [1]5 km (12:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Family walk, up the red trail along the N boundary, around up top, then down the faint white trail in the middle of the hill. Kids weren't convinced we were on a trail as it was totally obscured by fallen leaves, but we were... |
| Bike - 'bent (ECG) 49:00 [1]8.1 km (6:03 / km) +65m 5:49 / km | |
| shoes: Slipstream |
| Took Hayden over to Manchester and rode on a section of the greenway along 384 from Gardner to Keeney and back. Being along the highway at times it wasn't exactly scenic, but it rolls and dips a bit and was a nice outing. With the traffic on Rt 83 over the highway we walked our bikes across the bridge and while we did a local cop pulled up and got out and gave Hayden a ticket (for a free ice cream cone) because he was wearing his helmet.
So of course after our ride we had to go to DQ to 'pay his ticket'.... Chocolate malt for me... |
Monday Oct 8 |
| Bike - 'bent (ECG) 3:12:00 [3]60.5 km (3:10 / km) +550m 3:02 / km | |
| shoes: Slipstream |
| Decided not to make the journey to Grafton as the weather was variable and didn't want to drive that far to run in the rain. So after waffling a bit, decided to just go out and ride the bike.
Pinnacle > Ellington > Rockville Spur > Bolton Notch where I picked up the East Coast Greenway south and decided to try and follow the on road markings over to Manchester and pick up the bike trail that paralells 384 down to East Hartford. But I must have missed a key turn as I ended up on the Manchester Race course so wandered down into Manchester (I could have just cut over most any road at this point to pick up the EGC again, but since I had wandered off route I just decided to keep wandering off route). Down to Cheney Hall, then back up into downtown, then over to the industrial park where I picked up the rail trail and headed back from there.
Was a nice ride, kept the GPS on the menu page so I wasn't obsessing about moving speed or anything, just picking gears that felt good to spin at 90-95. Didn't really care if my speed was slow or not, just enjoying the day and trying to avoid squirrels and chipmunks. Legs feeling dead in the last bit around the lake (really, really low) and had to mash on a few short steep bits on the east side of the lake. Shouldn't have, but didn't drop into the granny in time so just slogged them out. |
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| C • ECG bikepath along 384 4 |
Sunday Oct 7 |
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| Event: NEOC Diamond Hill
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| Note | |
| (injured) |
| tweaked my right knee walking down the stairs on Thursday. (most work days I probably average 35-40 flights of stairs between the two buildings) A sharp teaing pain above the knee proper. Not sure how but damn it hurt. Eased up after a few minutes, but recurred a couple times on Thursday and Friday so haven't done anything since just to let it rest. But no problems Sat or Sun (so far) so perhaps I'll go for a ride or run tomorrow.
Also appear to have a Mortons neuroma in my left foot, feels like I've got a marble in my shoe right between the 3rd & 4th toes. But the shoes I've been wearing lately have felt a bit tight in the toe box, so we'll try some vitamin I and stick to the looser shoes to see if it goes away. |
| Orienteering - Training (Crandalls) 35:00 [1]*** 2.5 km (14:00 / km) | |
| shoes: Salomon TR2 |
| Out retrieving some old controls with Hayden. He did a remarkable job considering 3 of the 5 were yellow/orange level control locations. Fine day to be in the woods. Noted that the Hashers had been out sometime fairly recently.No issues with the knee, could feel the foot but not really uncomfortable.
Scoped out a couple locations for a cub scout training event I'm doing next Saturday. Most of the control locations are pretty simple, but a couple are off trail and I wanted to ensure the woods were clean enough for 3rd graders.
Probably head up to the Columbus Day event at Grafton Lakes tomorrow. |
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| C • 1 |
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| C • Controls 3 |
Wednesday Oct 3 |
| Bike - 'bent (Gulf Road & back) 28:05 [3]10.6 km (2:39 / km) +160m 2:28 / km | |
| shoes: Slipstream |
| Quick ride after work up Webster to Gulf Road and back. Contemplated going up Gulf and climbing to the upper lot on Soapstone - but not today... Back just after the bus came. Cranked it up to 53km/hr on the way down. Not sure I want to go much faster than this... |
Tuesday Oct 2 |
| Mixed Run (Happy Feet) 35:00 [1] | |
| shoes: Adidas Response Trail XI |
| Helped out at Hayden's Happy Feet running club this afternoon. Bit of butterfly sprint on the field - sprinting in the middle, followed by following either the walk or jog 'wings' back to the start of the sprint up the middle. Followed by a jog/walk on the trails in the woods. |