Thursday Jun 30 |
 | Cycling 1:16:00 [3] 15.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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| The hell with this resting my aching legs - time to do something again. In this case, the usual commute plus a side trip volunteering at PCRM. |
| Form exercises 40:00 [3] | |
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| The usual jogging, 8x100m strides, silly walks and bounding. In a rare burst of urban wildlife viewing, I saw a fox on the grounds of the US Soldier's and Airmen's Home while cycling home, then a mouse and a family of racoons (the kits were beyond the adorable fluffball stage but still recognisably juveniles) while doing my first few strides. |
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| C • More Wildlife 1 |
| Core exercises 6:00 [4] | |
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| Capped off my return to training with some crunches, bicycle, etc. |
Wednesday Jun 29 |
| Note | |
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| Haven't vanished; merely engaged in trying to let my hamstring complaint resolve itself by going three days doing nothing more strenuous than walking. Amazing that people can live like this, more so given that my minimal walking may well be more exercise than many Americans usually get daily. More irritating, it doesn't seem to be working. Not as well as I'd wish, at any rate. |
Sunday Jun 26 |
| Cycling 32:00 [3] | |
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| Biking out to Peggy and Nadim's place. |
| Orienteering 2:20:00 [1] | |
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| Exploring a section of Seneca Creek State Park on the shore of the Potomac and the adjacent McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area. All extremely thick except where corn or other crops were being grown (not sure how they square that with the purpose of a WMA) - useless for O so this was just a long, hot, very low intensity run. |
| Running 1:00:00 [2] | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| Nadim and I headed upstream on Seneca Creek to the Schaeffer Farm area containing a significant network of mountainbike trails. The area as a whole is fairly big (around 4 square kms) though a significant amount of the northern half is cornfields and fenced-in pasture. Nadim scouted on his mountain bike; I ran, mostly sticking to the trails. There's O potential but I'm less positive than Nadim about the area - runnability was merely OK in most areas and there wasn't much other than contour features. It was also very steep over most of the area I saw. Beginner courses might be a bit of a problem due to the layout of the trail network (very little branching until you're a long way from the parking) and even more so due to the high level of mountain bike traffic - I had no problems but mixing in a lot more pedestrians could be more of a problem. Also, the parking lot wasn't huge - mountain bikers plus orienteers could easily exceed its capacity. |
| Cycling 38:00 [2] | |
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| Cycling back home with grocery shopping on the way. |
Saturday Jun 25 |
| Modern Dance 1:30:00 [2] | |
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| Had a noon appointment so took class with Carla (earlier than Deborah's class, slightly higher intensity as well). |
| Form exercises 39:00 [3] | |
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| The normal jogging, strides, silly walks and bounding, somewhat restrained by the continuing trouble with my left hamstring. |
Friday Jun 24 |
| Cycling 1:06:00 [3] 13.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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Thursday Jun 23 |
| Cycling 1:16:00 [3] 15.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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| Core exercises 8:00 [4] | |
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Wednesday Jun 22 |
| Cycling 1:06:00 [3] 13.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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| Commuting with no side trips - what will I think of next?
Left hamstring doesn't feel as though it's mending as I'd wish - feels fine after a night's rest but it doesn't take much moving around before I can tell it's not the same as the right one. Not sure what, if anything, to do - suppose I could try spending an entire day lying down but it seems a bit extreme. Perhaps I'd better try some stretching despite my normal inclination not to go pulling on a muscle I don't trust to take the load without complaint. |
Tuesday Jun 21 |
| Cycling 1:38:00 [3] 19.0 mi (5:08 / mi) | |
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| Commute plus going to see "The Music Man" at the Library of Congress. |
Monday Jun 20 |
| Cycling 1:16:00 [3] 15.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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| Core exercises 8:00 [4] | |
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Sunday Jun 19 |
| Orienteering race 3:15:00 [3] | |
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| DVOA Hickory Run Score-O - occasionally sloppy navigation on my part in rather thick woods with much deadfall and rock underfoot overlying mostly bland contours. Worst problem was with (I believe it was) control 18 - a depression in a flat area north of a stream itself north of a power line cut. Thought I could simply aim off to the east on the stream then run west along it tracking bends and nearby features to decide when to attack north to the control. Still not clear how that went wrong but it appeared from my eventual bailing out to the power line that I'd been searching and trying to make sense of the stream's meanderings much too far to the east. Might have made it in on time with what I found (all but four or five?) if it weren't for that. Would have had to be fresher and less sloppy for any chance at getting all of them. A good weekend of training. Time for some rest now as this not quite right feeling in my left hamstring is annoying me with its persistence. We'll see what leaving off running until next weekend does. Then we'll see about shifting to faster running training. |
Saturday Jun 18 |
| Orienteering 4:20:00 [2] | |
| shoes: Surrey K100s |
| Training in Harriman - I got myself a site at Beaver Pond and went for a long, slow map run on the Rockhouse Mountain and Surebridge Mountain maps. Much of this was rather like a line-O. I walked and stood a lot in one small area of extreme rock detail just after crossing onto the Surebridge map. Visited the upper clearer areas of Rockhouse, Hogencamp, Bald Rocks and not quite Surebridge (not sure whether it has any clear area up top to speak of) - rather neat being able to see nothing but Harriman highlands (or other indistinguishable West Point or generic Hudson Valley Highlands) though it was possible to see a town to the northwest from Bald Rocks. My Surebridge map had an old red course on it so I found 6 of the controls in a slightly more realistic simulation of a race.
Bash-style, the wildlife sightings were seven or eight deer, three chipmunks, a squirrel, a few miscellaneous birds, the fleeting impression of a great many frogs jumping into the water and one red fox. |
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| C • Wildlife 3 |
Friday Jun 17 |
| Cycling 1:06:00 [3] 13.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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Thursday Jun 16 |
| Cycling 1:33:00 [3] 18.0 mi (5:10 / mi) | |
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Wednesday Jun 15 |
| Cycling 1:28:00 [3] 17.0 mi (5:10 / mi) | |
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| Back to resting the running muscles - the coming weekend will be heavy on orienteering. |
Tuesday Jun 14 |
| Running 1:35:00 [2] 10.0 mi (9:29 / mi) | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| Easy run in by way of Rock Creek Park. Early enough to be slightly cooler than Sunday although I was still drenched in sweat twenty minutes into the run. |
| Running 1:40:00 [2] 10.0 mi (10:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| The return leg at a slightly easier pace - heat index reportedly at 106 just before I left work so one more brick in the wall of acclimatisation for Japan. |
Monday Jun 13 |
| Cycling 1:16:00 [3] 15.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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Sunday Jun 12 |
| Running 3:06:00 [2] 20.0 mi (9:18 / mi) | |
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| Long hot run in Rock Creek Park. Took Mike Smith's advice to practice running with a Camelbak - just as well since this would hardly have been survivable without it. Starting from near Pierce Mill, I took the Valley Trail north to the Pinehurst loop then came back south around Fort DeRussey, down to the creek, up again past the stables, north to Pierce Mill again, north along the creek back to Park Police station then south back along the Valley trail - about as much distance as can be wrung from the area without much repetition of the same trail segments. Having drunk about a liter of water before heading out, I downed two liters from the Camelbak while running and a liter of Gookinaid plus eating some watermelon when I got home - it scares me that this didn't have me leaking water like a sieve for the rest of the day. Will have to refrain in future from doing this in sleeveless tops - I managed to rub the insides of my upper arms not raw but quite irritated - or invest in some Bodyglide.
Rather struck by the fact that many of the world elite who follow the high volume training philosophy basically do this much exercise every day all winter. Admittedly while risking frostbite rather than heatstroke and often with a fair bit of it lower impact skiing but I'm quite impressed. |
Saturday Jun 11 |
| Cycling 1:10:00 [3] | |
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| Basic errand running on an otherwise rest day - headed out to Potomac River Running to spend the gift certificate I won in a trail race back in March and went to see a Sam Peckinpah film, "Major Dundee", at the AFI. Great Mexican scenery. |
| Note | |
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| Finally did a pass through the George Mason University campus which we tentatively plan on mapping (no fixed schedule; all I've done to date is trace buildings and roads from county maps in OCAD). Having now seen it, it should make an interesting contrast with our map of the UMD campus - where the latter is mostly wide open, this one is largely forested and the forest is usually thick tending towards impenetrable, i.e. there should be lots of route choice deciding what the best way around and very occasionally through the blocks of forest will be. |
Friday Jun 10 |
| Note | |
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| MCRRC Gaithersburg Cross Country 5K - 7pm and very close to Shady Grove Metro. |
| Cycling 1:06:00 [3] 13.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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| Running 15:00 [3] | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| Foolishly trusted Metrobus to get me out to Shady Grove on schedule. Though they might have if there hadn't been construction narrowing Veirs Mill Road down to 1 westbound lane. This left me running to arrive at registration for the MCRRC Gaithersburg X-Country 5K about 3 minutes before start time. Which turned out to be just enough. |
| Running race 18:09 [5] 5 km (3:38 / km) vdot: 55.8 | |
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| The aforementioned race. Barely X-country - the race took place all but entirely on mowed grass. Fairly hot and very humid so undoubtedly good training for pushing myself in similar conditions in Japan. I imagine I could have done slightly better without the excessive warmup. Also if my hamstrings, the left in particular, hadn't been feeling fragile going in. Though the warmup likely helped with that.
Tim Good managed to show up even later than I did, missing the start by about a minute and still putting in a respectable time slightly under 22 minutes. |
Thursday Jun 9 |
| Cycling 1:22:00 [3] 15.5 mi (5:17 / mi) | |
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Wednesday Jun 8 |
| Cycling 1:16:00 [3] 15.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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| Stuck to cycling, an occasional rest from running being a good thing in general plus my left hamstring feeling not quite right seems like a good reason to avoid using it heavily for a couple of days. |
Tuesday Jun 7 |
| Running 1:35:00 [2] 10.0 mi (9:29 / mi) | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| Morning run in through Rock Creek Park - some mud in places, one noticeable new tree down and a new lot of flotsam along the edges of the creek. |
| Running 1:40:00 [2] 10.0 mi (10:00 / mi) | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| Run home through Rock Creek Park at a somewhat easier pace. Different route with some rather more impressively big trees down due to the thunderstorm the night before. |
Monday Jun 6 |
| Cycling 1:06:00 [3] 13.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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| Normal commute - thankfully the thunderstorms held off. |
| Form exercises 40:00 [3] | |
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| To atone for my wussiness last Friday, I busied myself with household chores until the thunderstorm hit, then went out and did my workout - strides, silly walks, bounding and leaping. Wet grass/mud forming and poor visibility through the rain made the strides extra-relevant to terrain running. Though next time I think I'll arrange things so I'm not doing these facing the oncoming headlights on the same side of the street I was running along - there's such a thing as excessively good practice for being unable to see precisely what you're about to step on. |
Sunday Jun 5 |
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| Event: The Beer Chase
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| Orienteering race 38:19 [4] 6.23 km (6:09 / km) +210m 5:16 / km | |
| shoes: Silva K100 |
| The Chase - just barely first over Eddie. Made a boneheaded mistake on the second control of the first loop, caught up again easily enough running along the string of people between me and Ted and Eddie up front, then put a bit of separation between Eddie and I at the end of the two control fork on that loop where both of us initially thought we ought to be looking for the control in a pit rather than in the southern gully. Eddie made that back in the second loop fork by taking the slightly harder but shorter and less climb option in the fork where I didn't even notice it was the fork until I punched the control on the other option. Had to outdrink him and then stay ahead through the final beginner loop and was worried heading uphill to the map exchange just behind him since I was feeling the heat and effort up to that point and certainly sounded to myself as though I was huffing and puffing more than Eddie.
Played a full round of disc golf with various orienteers not including Eddie (whose disc skills allegedly (he being the alleger) might cause some confusion as to which side of the Iron Curtain he was raised on - in my experience, Eastern Europeans tend to be good with maps and lamentable with frisbees) after the picnic following the race. A lovely day but one to give one pause for thought - I've signed up to go to Japan where all the races may well be that hot and humid? |
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| C • Heat 1 |
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The "Beverage of Your Choice" Chase - Splits |
Saturday Jun 4 |
| Stretching 15:00 [1] | |
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| Showed up more than minimally early for dance class for the first time in ages. |
| Modern Dance 1:30:00 [1] | |
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| Class with Helen again. On the floor the first half. Nice to start a Saturday again with what used to be my traditional mood picker-upper to begin a weekend. Now to rest for the all-important Chase. |
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| Saw "Kung Fu Hustle" in the evening, between efforts to win a game of phone tag with Nadim and thereby establish precisely when I ought to show up on his and Peggy's doorstep in the morning to ride up to McKeldin. Great fun - managed the amazing feat of making "Shaolin Soccer" seem plausible by comparison. |
Friday Jun 3 |
| Running 10:00 [3] | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| Totally wimped out on running to work once I heard the rain outside so this was running at either end of the Metro ride. I ought to be able to steel myself to run home, despite the forecast of periods of rain all day. |
| Running 1:46:00 [2] 11.0 mi (9:37 / mi) | |
| shoes: NB856 |
| Run home through Rock Creek Park including the loop uphill on the Pinehurst Branch Trail for a bit of extra distance. Much less muddy than I'd feared. |
Thursday Jun 2 |
| Running 16:00 [1] | |
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| Easy running associated with I interval workout. |
| Running 16:00 [5] 4.4 km (3:38 / km) | |
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| 4x1100m on grass. Pleasantly cool at about 6:30am and the best I've ever felt during a rare early morning hard workout. Though it still took me twenty minutes after waking to drag myself outside. |
| Cycling 1:20:00 [3] 16.0 mi (4:59 / mi) | |
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Wednesday Jun 1 |
| Cycling 1:16:00 [3] 15.0 mi (5:04 / mi) | |
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