Thursday Sep 30 |
 | Trail 15:53 [3] | |
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| C&O Canal Towpath, to & from the woods. When I left the parking lot, there was a sign about a closed trail, so I stopped to read it. Because of flooding, it said, the Billygoat Trail, which is on the river side of Bear Island (among other places), was closed, and they emphasized the wildness of Bear Island and how to keep it that way we must remain on the trails (when they're open, that is). I set off, thinking I'd run the towpath to the bridge across the canal & to Burma Road, then back through the uplands woods. But while the river did look high, and the Billygoat Trail (my normal jumping off trail) was roped off, the island looked okay. I decided to run there anyway. Bad citizen Peggy. |
| Orienteering 22:00 [3] | |
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| Great Falls, Bear Island. Had the map with me, for once! Without a compass or my magnifying glass, I focused on simultaneously simplifying the terrain and keeping in close contact. Despite the "flooding" elsewhere, the ponds were dry, with great runablity, great visibility, & easy navigation. I had a bunch of locations circled & on the way back I did a bunch of legs between the controls. Spiders were still out with their webs. Ick. Got a thorn in my foot and discovered my shoe has fallen apart, the top separated from the sole. The other shoe, I discovered afterwards, is missing a few spikes. They're in the trash now. They lived a good long life. |
Tuesday Sep 28 |
| Cross training (stair stepper) 28:00 [3] | |
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| At the agency gym (old one) after work. Remnants of (hurricane)(tropical storm) Jeanne blowing through so I stayed inside. Got a good sweat going at least. |
| Weights 15:00 [3] | |
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| Nautilus for legs; 8-lb barbells for arms (5 lb for one exercise -- that hefty 8 pounds is just too much for my wimpy arm muscles). |
Sunday Sep 26 |
| Orienteering 25:33 [5] 3.31 km (7:43 / km) | |
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| US Relay Champs, Pineland Farms, Maine. Ran the second leg (Orange) on OK's 4 point team (our only team this year). Dan came in smoking, just beating out Randy Hall for 2nd so I went out with Hunter Cornish. He is faster but he didn't really lose me until on the way to the second control (longer than it sounds), as he hesitated a couple times to read his map. Very fast, with mostly fields, trails, & roads, but I did get a bit confused in the southern woods with all the trails. Didn't lose much time overall, probably 30 seconds to hesitations & maybe some to fitness, but it was a decent run. Did drop to 3rd in the eligible 4 point teams (but we were only 1 second ahead of 3rd at the first handoff) and CSU's ineligible team passed me also. Saw the West Pointer a lot but I beat him in -- perhaps he was on a different course? Not sure. Very fun, especially when Spike came back after his leg just barely in 4th. But the other teams around us all had really strong anchors (Will Hawkins, Sergey Zyhk, John Frederickson, Kenny Walker, Eddie Bergeron). Mook can hang with most of those guys on his best day, but today wasn't one of them, unfortunately. But we came in a close 6th, up from last year, and overall pretty satisfying. In my own underground relay system, every team must have at least one woman, in which case CSU 1 still wins, but we're #2... :-) |
| Trail 8:00 [3] | |
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| Warm up before the relay, in the field & roads. |
Saturday Sep 25 |
| Orienteering 46:08 [4] 4.61 km (10:00 / km) | |
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| Maine & Maritimes Championships A meet, Green course. Lots of fields, several trail & road runs, so a pretty fast area. But also somewhat thickish woods and some of the fields were not fast at all. A few small errors, nothing big. Felt basically okay. Beautiful day! 1st on F40; Jim Eagleton, Don Davis & Bob Lux a few minutes faster. |
| Trail 8:00 [3] | |
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| Warm up before the race, mostly on the trail. |
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Green - Splits |
Friday Sep 24 |
| Orienteering 52:33 [4] | |
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| A little woods training at Pawtuckaway. Re-ran parts of the Green course from Sept '01. Trying to stay in contact but got off a few times. Delightful woods, great weather, really nice!! Except for the mosquitos... Glad to have the time to get a run in between visiting K & A and picking up NA at the airport. |
Thursday Sep 23 |
| Cross training (elliptical trainer) 31:00 [3] | |
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| At work during a lull, figured I had my gear, it was slow, I should work out. Got a nice sweat going. |
| Weights 9:00 [2] | |
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| Nautilus for legs, 5-lb barbells for arms. |
Wednesday Sep 22 |
| Road run 31:42 [3] | |
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| Rosedale Park & East Bethesda roads to Georgetown Branch Trail, to Connecticut & back. Morning before a long day at work. Cool, not quite 60, but sunny & calm -- overdressed a bit. Foot sore. |
Tuesday Sep 21 |
| Trail 14:22 [3] | |
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| Mostly C&O Canal Towpath, plus some footpaths on Bear Island -- to & from the terrain. |
| Woods run 29:13 [3] | |
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| Great Falls, MD, Bear Island. Rocky, open, quite delightful (though the spiderwebs are still out in full force). Right foot a bit sore, and I aggrevated my right Achilles a bit. I think it'll be okay. Top-notch weather (unless I'm being picky, in which case it was a few degrees too warm for comfortable running). Just free-form running through the woods, over the rocks, up & down the small hills. Good stuff. :-) |
Monday Sep 20 |
| Trail 52:46 [3] | |
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| Lake Fairfax Park, Reston. From class at Sunrise Valley & Wiehle Rd, across all the very pedestrian un-friendly roads to the trail at Lake Fairfax. Love the trails, through decent woods. All my sore bits (left knee, right foot, right hamstring) hurt to some degree. But the weather was perfect, about 70, clear, & calm, and the route was very nice (except for the half mile to & from the park -- LOTS of cars & waiting to cross busy streets). |
Sunday Sep 19 |
| Orienteering 1:49:21 [4] 8.5 km (12:52 / km) +280m 11:03 / km | |
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| Hemlock Overlook, Blue course. Nice woods, nice course, except for the last part through the really hilly/green/yucky area. Made a couple mistakes -- turned the wrong way on a hillside & had to run back, and a worse one, when I was almost on top of the control, didn't see it, and thought I was somewhere else -- did a largish loop and ended up in the same place but this time I saw the control. D'oh! Pretty slow mostly but felt strong, running up most of the hills. Great weather for o', around 70 & clear. :-) |
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Blue - Splits |
Friday Sep 17 |
| Cross training 35:40 [3] | |
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| Stair stepper at work. Worked up a nice sweat. Nasy conditions outside (tornados, rain, wind ...) so an indoor workout seemed the best choice. |
| Weights 15:00 [2] | |
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| Nautilus machines for the legs, wimpy 5-pound barbells for the arms. |
Wednesday Sep 15 |
| Trail 1:42:41 [3] | |
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| Great Falls: C&O Canal Towpath and other flat trails. Steady, but mostly light, rain. High 60s. The towpath was a bit muddy of course. It wasn't altogether pleasant but it wasn't bad. Mostly running about 9:30-10 min pace, according to the mile markers. Felt okay, not great. |
| Trail 38:27 [4] | |
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| Great Falls, MD uplands. After 100 minutes of running on the towpath etc, I did the test loop at a higher intensity. It was difficult to pick up the pace after so long of running in the rain -- knees were a bit stiff, and I was already tired of running. But, in addition to the physical training, it was a very good mental challenge. And I rose to it. My overall time for the test loop was my fastest yet, with 4 of the splits faster than the previous two times, one tied for best, and the other two second fastest. I wasn't sure how well I was running, but I was pushing it and I worked pretty hard. Pleased with the effort. Pretty tired, and of course, soaked, afterwards. |
Sunday Sep 12 |
| Orienteering 1:21:05 [5] 8.2 km (9:53 / km) +326m 8:15 / km | |
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| McKeldin, Blue course. Lots of trail & road running, plus fields. Preferable to tons of up & down, which would be the alternative. Very humid -- really felt it & was quite drained at the beginning. Felt better later. Course nearly identical to Red; saw a young guy when I was leaving #2 & saw him most of the rest of his course. He was much faster than I but made several small bobbles that allowed me to catch/pass him. Nice course. Jon T - 52 min; Marek - 63; Nadim - 67; David - 73; Erik B - 79. |
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Blue - Splits |
Saturday Sep 11 |
| Trail 55:00 [3] | |
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| Blockhouse Point Conservation Park, while Nadim was fieldchecking. Checked out all the trails on the north side. Three dead-end above the canal. Some neat rocks there, but also pretty steep. Woods were variable, some quite nice, many not so pleasant looking. Hilly area. Felt rather tired. |
Friday Sep 10 |
| Trail 28:00 [3] | |
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| White Marsh Park, Bowie. On the way home from various errands in Bowie; enjoyed running on my old training trails. Mostly unpaved, one bit paved. |
Thursday Sep 9 |
| Road run 55:00 [3] | |
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| McLean, VA. From work. Ran south of 123 in the residential area, on a couple out-&-back roads. Lots of big houses, nice yards, but too big for me. Felt okay. Ran longer than I planned, which isn't a bad thing. |
| Weights 15:00 [3] | |
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| Nautilus machines (3) for legs, then arm exercises with 5-pound dumbbells. Just saw them there and picked them up, started playing around with them. Kind of fun. |
Monday Sep 6 |
| Biking 2:17:15 [3] 27.4 mi (5:00 / mi) | |
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| Western Montgomery County with Nadim. First Nadim had to teach me how to use my new clipless pedals. That was an experience (and not in a good way...). The woman at REI was right ("You're going to fall, ha ha!"). My right shoe is very tight and I was having real trouble both getting it clicked in and then out, and once while trying to get it out -- from a standing position -- I just lost my balance and fell over. Ouch. Road rash on my lower right leg, plus (I later discovered) a huge bruise on my upper thigh. Eventually I decided I would just click in and out of my left pedal, as that was working okay. So we did the whole ride that way. I was always a bit scared of having to stop and get out of my pedal, but it went fine. The ride had a few tough hills (for me) but it was really beautiful terrain, mostly rolling farms. Enjoyable ride, the pre-ride notwithstanding. |
Sunday Sep 5 |
| Orienteering 2:16:09 [4] 10.2 km (13:21 / km) +440m 10:59 / km | |
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| Fountainhead Reg. Park, Blue course. We had the option of running on a map without the trails, ordered ahead of time (Jon T. very kindly produced them :-), so I opted for that. The trails are so out of date anyway, this was probably less stressful. It was great training, having to concentrate on the contours, and only run on the trails if they were going the way I needed to go. Made several small errors, well one not that small -- probably wouldn't have made some of them had the trails been shown. But that's okay, it was fun to try to relocate. Beautiful woods, very open. Spider webs were out in abundance, and the chiggers were biting. Saw Nadim towards the end; he passed me on a long trail run leg, but I beat him to the control :-). Then he made a large mistake (skipped a control and had to go back ... ) and I finished ahead of him. But of course he beat me easily. Warm day but not as bad as last year, and plenty of water. |
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Blue - Splits |
Thursday Sep 2 |
| Woods run 49:07 [2] | |
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| Warm-up (15 min), cool-down (12+ min) and recovery between the intervals (aka spider web removal period). Nice to be in the woods again! Right foot a bit cranky. Better ice it tonight. |
| Woods run 30:00 [5] | |
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| Intervals by time in the woods, Great Falls, MD, uplands. Skipped the biggest hills (figured I couldn't run hard up them anyway and that would defeat the purpose of the workout) but did go up some of the smaller ones. Annoying spider webs but otherwise delightful woods. Did two sets of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 min with a half-time recovery & 5 min between sets. Felt so good to be running hard in the woods again! This was a bit faster than my normal race pace. |
Wednesday Sep 1 |
| Road run 42:29 [3] | |
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| From Rosedale Park to the Georgetown Branch Trail, under E-W Hwy to Town of Chevy Chase. Enjoyed running through the streets of this upscale neighborhood. Yet another place I wish I could live... At least I can run there. Somewhat hilly. Left knee achy. |