Training Log Archive: Wyatt

My first run of the Misery Vandal's loop. May become a time trial loop.

(revised entry to included only the warmup/cooldown)

Background:
Surveyors have been streamering and staking out the edge of VF Park for more than a year now, so occasional glaring orange or pink in the otherwise natural woods of VF park has become staple of regular runs.
So it wasn't until about a week ago, that I realized that some of the new 'surveyors' marks I had seen about 2 weeks prior to that (say, new as of ~6/20?) weren't really following the park boundary. At first I had thought they were maybe directions from one surveyor to another, about how to get somewhere, but I followed them a bit, and found the trail pointed off into the woods at some point, nowhere near a park boundary or trail. So I realized something was up.

I then followed them for a bit - orange spray paint dots and/or arrows on trees, spaced about 10-20m apart, and found they formed an elaborate, on & off-trail adventure run, including some really rugged parts of the park that I had never ventured into. And, in some cases, rather elegant looping back to within a few meters of a previous section of the trail, but with the spray paint dots and the sides of trees so as to never have been seen when on the previous segment of the path.

Last Tuesday, I followed about 30 minutes of the Vandal's trail, and then chanced across a few more segments on the way home. This Tuesday, I managed to follow it back to what appear to be the start - an orange arrow on a rock, tucked under a bush, right near the start of the trail near the small parking lot just SW of the Covered Bridge - and the arrow points up the creek of course, not the trail...

Overall, quite rugged. The Vandal's loop portion took me 66:07 to go 6.79 km, at level 2 pace (AHR 133.) Going above level 3 pace would be somewhat treacherous in parts...

If you're going to attempt it, 2 notes of caution:
1) at the 0.5 km mark, there's a loop with a visibility mistake, where dots from a later segment are visible. Follow the arrow to turn back down the hill to avoid skipping a section of the trail.
2) at the 6km mark there's a very long gap by this trail's standard - 100m - without another mark. Just keep going south on the gravel trail. (I'll go scout that area again at some point, just to make triply sure I didn't skip a loop in that area.)

Any finally, if anyone has a clue who set this, I'm curious. Googling has gotten me nowhere.

C • sounds like a tough loop! 4

C • GPS track please? 2

7/20/10 set - R-IT was pinchy again after the intervals, which inspired the resumption of this, at least for a day...

8x600, 2x200 - compare to Daniel's goal paces of 2:13 (I) and 40 (R)

2:18, 2:16, 2:15, 2:12, 2:11, 2:12, 2:10, 2:12
40, 37

Last week's range was 2:14 to 2:06, so I was a bit slower this week, but I did have 2 more? I think my fueling was poorly too. Light lunch, followed by a bit too much OJ & Mt. Dew in the 20 minutes before starting this workout caused a bit of bloating

Wt. after run, before lunch - same as last wk.

Got a new computer at work, which is where I download the Garmin stuff most directly. Update coming soon.

Event: DVOA Gould Run
 

Ankle rotations in the afternoon... No IT specific stuff.

(click to zoom)

24 control score O'. Good crowd with Clem, Vadim & Sergei Z. all there. Clem had a crazy fast start, splitting off from Sergei & I after the 2nd control. I ran 2 more with Sergei, leading one and trailing the next, before I split off on a different loop choice.

I was the only one to get them all, thanks to a close eye to find all 24 controls on the map ( Sergei didn't see 2 of them ) and perseverance though the visibility reducing ferns.

Overall, runnability wasn't too bad for mid-summer.

GPS tracks show I lost 5:30 on one control, and 6:00 (730m) on another - in both cases coming within 10-15m of the control on the 1st attack...

On the 1st one I missed, I arguably hit the circle center, but the control was a bit off - hard to say given how dry the indistinct marsh was, and on the 2nd, I was in knoll/depression/broken-ground bingo land, where, like much of the terrain, there were a ton of these features, but only some are mapped.

A tough park to nail stuff in repeatedly, though Sergei managed to do so a bit more than I did, getting 22 controls in ~75 minutes. Likely he could've added on the other 2, had he seen them, in another 5-7 minutes.

C • GPS suggests some map/placement issues 5

Some DT on the R-IT in the evening. No strength yet as of 10 pm... I guess I should keep it up but after Wed. my IT was fine until I did the strength routine...

Worked in Bridgewater, NJ office today, so went for a run at lunch at Sourlands Mountain - outer 5 mile loop. Had the old map of the park - new one is much better. Forest was reasonably cool, given the ~90+humid+sun made RF in the fields >100... Reasonably cool means that via sweating buckets, and running level 2, I never quite got overheated.

1 set of the 7/20/10 strength. None yesterday.

R-IT was pinchy on yesterdays run, but otherwise not bad yesterday/today. Until I did the strength, and now it's sore again. Can't win this easily...

6x600, 300 rest
3x300, 100 rest
3x300, variable rest (beyond Coach J's workout)

Coach Jason's target paces of 10k race & 3k race: 2:19 & 63.
Daniel's paces given best road race in past year: I: 2:13, 67, R: 2:02, 60


2:14, 2:13, 2:14, 2:12, 2:08, 2:06
62, 63, 61, 57, 64, 65

Wt. after run, before lunch

Event: Pitman 4 miler
 

Event: Wildwood Boards & Bech 5k
 

Wildwood 5k. 4k on packed sand. They started the race a few minutes early as I was jogging to the start, so I jumped in a bit late. Winner ran a blazing 16:35 on the sand.

1 set, after the 5k