Training Log Archive: bishop22

Worked from home today, since I attended a funeral. Then I took Luke to his spring hockey game (they lost, 9-4, but Luke was +1 in his second game as a defenseman). So, I had to head over to the Y to leave myself with workout options - jumped on the bike first.

21 min Random Hills-13 @ 89 rpm
2 min w/d
10 min Manual-11 @ 89 rpm
2 min w/d

Then I jumped on the treadmill. Started at 7.0 mph and went up 0.1 mph every 0.1 miles to 9.0 mph, then backed off to 8.0 for the last 0.9 miles. That took me right up to closing time.

Did some running during the track meet today at Thomas, against Athena. The boys had a surprisingly easy win; the girls just plain won.

Chelsea had a very nice 800m race against the top girl in the area - Mindy Sawnor ran 2:16 last Friday. With the cold and wind, they followed Megan around thru the 400 in a very slow 79. With 300 to go Mindy made a move; just before the last turn, Chelsea zipped by her into the lead, and they dueled it out down the stretch, but Chelsea got nipped out in 2:31 (72 for the last 400). Chelsea then ran her first 400 (ever? since 5th grade?) in the 4x400 relay - and turned in a 66 (I had her in 65.8).

Nate's 3200 was fun to watch. Our 3 guys (Nate, KDawg and Chris) took turns leading for the first mile, coming thru in just 5:37. The two Athena kids then tried to take off, but Kenny was able to stay close (at least for awhile). Nate had something wrong as he couldn't do much the last 800, but at least his heel held up just fine.

4:15/8:29
1:33,36,32,33,32
3:28,23

Yesterday's record low weight was after orienteering. I was only able to add back 3.5 pounds - halfway back to the pre-weekend weight.

ROC Meet at Oatka Creek Park. Western Mass Rules (I've always been partial to Eastern Mass), which meant there were 27 controls on the map and Red was get 'em all, Green was "get 20", Orange was "get 15" and Yellow was "get 8". I ran Red and started out by overrunning the first control by enough that it became the second control - it turns out that something was up with this map and stone walls were not much distinguishable from trails. Since Rob had already done the Sprint, I did not want to lose to him on Red, so giving up time right away was bad news. Little did I know, there was no need to worry, as he did a shorter course.

The early trail run gave me a chance to come up with a reasonable plan, and I executed fairly well, with just a few small mistakes here and there.

Route: 26(oops)-14-11-9-27-12-17-15-23(oops)-25-10-22-24-21-5-6-13-7-4-20-19- 16-3-18-2-1-8

I meant to go to 25 before 23, but I was a bit left and saw 23, so I had to grab it. The greens near 16 were not as dark as mapped (at this time of year, so I tried a short-cut to 3, which didn't pan out as things did get gnarlier, but I didn't lose much time to the trail route. I also blew 1 slightly, again mistaking a stone fence for a trail.

I saw Patty out on the course a couple of times and she was going almost as fast as me, but I managed to finish 23 minutes ahead. Without any of the regular competitive folks on Red, my rare victory was by about 20 minutes.

Next week - time to be humbled again by West Point.

C • Map printing quality 5

C • You can put your times in for the sprint & red [hint hint ;-) ] 1

Sprint Course at Oatka Creek Park. Too many doglegs to be a real fun sprint. C2 was about 100m out & back. C4 required me to run a trail past C6, then C5, I had to use the same trail back to C5, then to C8 (I think, my map must have blown away).

I was about a minute behind Rob and Sergey, and I lost at least that much on C8, when I lost track of where I was because I couldn't see the main trail from the map in the field.

Brief w/up, then didn't get around to a w/dn, since there were too many runners there to talk to (Jim O, Erik, Vinny and DV all showed up), in addition to all of the regulars.

Sprint - Splits

Red (all 27 controls) - Splits

Went for a run during a relatively uninteresting part of the track meet. I was gone from the track for about an hour and they did not manage to complete the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. Not a good sign, when there were thunderstorms heading our way. And, sure enough, we were delayed for over 1.5 hours due to lightning over the lake (visible, but not threatening), even though there was no real rainfall - but when you have several hundred (maybe even 1000) kids at a meet, a delay is a must in that situation.

After a short re-start, the meet was ended, before the 1600 and 800 (among other events), so Chelsea only got to run the Steeplechase. She was halfway in an excellent 4:04, but sort of gave up and ran 8:47.

My run took me via the rink for some i/o ops, then up Hard to the Hojack trail, took the Vosburg Hollow option all the way to Vosburg, then back to Klem. Back to the school via Joylene because when I first took the Hojack trail, I thought there was a new house next to our old house, which seemed impossible. As it turns out, our old house just had bright yellow siding placed on it. It looks like my deck (built in 1990) is still in great shape.

4:10/8:24
1:32,34,33,33,31
3:28,27

Ran during a break in the Brighton Relays. Nate actually set 2 PRs in the 1600m tonight - I'm not sure I've ever seen that done before. He ran 5:20 to lead off the 4x1600m relay, then came back to anchor the DMR in 5:15.

I ran from Brighton HS over to the path on the other side of 590 via Westfall, then looped back around on Monroe and the neighborhood near the school. Most was easy but I did 2x5min and 1x4min at a quicker stride rate (158-160 per minute, instead of lumbering along at 150). If I can up my natural turnover just a bit, I know I can make 7:30 pace feel real easy again.

C • five 2

Calf was a little tender, so I swam today.

4:13/8:32
1:34,34,35,35,33
3:20,33 (had competition on the first one)

30 minutes on the range, most of it chipping, since they were not restocking the balls; 15 minutes on the putting green.

Uncle Tim got a couple of photos of Chelsea at last weekend's Steeplechase race in Batavia, during the Middle Champs. Here is one, I think (EDIT: I guess not, but maybe now):


And here is one where she really looks like a Steepler:

Track meet at Penfield was canceled because their lousy track couldn't handle the downpour that came thru at 4pm.

So, I headed over to the ice rink where Zach was doing his 2nd day of tryouts for next year, and went for a run on the Thomas track (where the meet should have been scheduled). Not only was the track in great shape, it appears that NO rain fell at the track - the long jump pit was dry as a bone.

After a little more than a mile warm-up, I did a 3200m tempo run on the track. I was planning on doing 2x1600m tempo, with a short break, but I decided to man-up after 3 laps, and just continue on. Plan was first mile under 7, second at 6:40. Actual was 6:50 and 6:35.

w/dn was a little under a mile.

C • Back in the day... 2

Couldn't get out at lunch, so I ran during Luke's T-Ball practice - some parents were impressed with his wheels. Ran over to 1000 Acre Swamp, went down Deer Run until it became impassable (at least with the new shoes on) at the same old spot. On the way back, I ran the trails to the left out to the meadow. There is actually some sweet white (at least at this time of the year) woods out there. I wonder if this could be mapped, or whether the passable route is too narrow. It could actually be used in conjunction with Town Hall park, which in addition to the ball fields and soccer fields, also has some woods (mostly not white though). I ran for almost 50 minutes without really repeating much, and I could have gone longer without repeating.

I didn't go too far into the woods north of the main swamp, and so I'm not sure how usable it is, and it may not have enough features, but there does seem to be a series of ruined stone fences.

Ran with the team for the first part of track practice. With Chris out of town, taking Chelsea to Bulldog Days, I had to leave early to get Zach to hockey tryouts for next year.

10 min w/up
The team did 1600, 1200, 800, 600, 400, 200. I had to leave after the 800, but first I ran: 6:09, 4:31, 3:02. Not too bad, perhaps I can go sub-20 for 5K now. I have to figure out when I can run a road race.

Not much of a w/dn.

Various running around before and during the US Relay Champs at Mendon Ponds. Had to cut a hole around some fallen trees on a path near the model start, then put out some e-punch units, which took two trips, since I forgot to bring the extra units that went to the first controls and the road crossing control.

The race seemed to go quite well. Plenty of spectator opportunities kept things interesting. Nate had another MSP. I was too busy getting things ready to remind him to check the control codes, every time, and I don't think he read the meet notes.

Zach zipped around the Jr Jr relay course quite quickly, taking the lead when the first 2 kids ran the wrong way from the first control. I was nervous for a few seconds when he was going a different way, but the others corrected. Then it was Luke's turn. He held on for 3rd place, which seems to have been updated to second in the official results, since someone on the 2nd place team missed a control.

I'm not sure whether my biggest error of the weekend was not making sure the maps were collected at the end of the relay, or not realizing that all of the Jr Jr participants should get medals - a nice precedent was set last year. Of course, there are probably several other contending errors that I have repressed or something.

Other than not being able to compete, I was very happy with the weekend. Our club is quite lucky to have so many dedicated volunteers. We may not compete for relay medals (yet?), but we must be one of the best volunteering clubs, and many of the key folks have been doing it for years (dare I say decades?).

Event: US Middle Distance and Relay Champs
 

Various running around before, during and after the US Middle Champs at Letchworth. I did not have any course maps, so I couldn't try out one of the courses in the early AM, but folks seemed to enjoy them.

I did get to pick up a few controls at the end of the day, one of which took a second attempt, without a compass.

Nate had an OK race to get 3rd in M-20, about a minute behind Gabe, but 5 minutes behind Jordan. He edged out John G and Michael Norris.

Zach got drawn down the mandatory trail towards the Advanced start triangle before he was able to correct, and lost several minutes to the first control. Had a couple of other errors, but managed to be the first USOF finisher (2nd overall) up on M-14.

And Luke made his A-meet debut. He managed 2nd place in M-10, and that can still be his official category for 3 more years. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to see him finish (or start).

Ran with G2 at lunchtime. That made me go 7.5 minutes longer than planned and about 30 seconds/mile faster than I would have, so not a bad run.

We ran the river loop in the usual clockwise fashion, crossing at Elmwood. I've forgotten about dodeca-Tuesday in recent weeks; we'll have to start making another run at that.

The weather was fan-freakin'-tastic! I hope it doesn't warm up too early tomorrow. It looks like the 10am conditions could be nearly perfect.

50 minutes on the range.

Chelsea was in a photo, from yesterday's track meet, on the Rochester D&C web site this AM. I am trying to include it here:



Too bad she is getting edged out, but at least it's a Hilton runner.

RH3 in Scottsville. The opening loop was a short, 9-minute, jaunt thru some woods, a marsh and a farmer's field. Excellent terrain but I wasn't warmed up, so I couldn't run it that hard.

The next 45-50 minute section involved a lot of medium green, marshes, swamps, some light green and occasional patch of white forest. We were also nicely informed that we were on private property. The laborers were going around putting up some posted signs that would have warned us, had they already been up. Apparently the swampland neighborhood watch took over, because a couple of SUVs started to follow us around. There was a HH at a power line, and the final section (10-15 minutes) of trail paralleled a posted property boundary (but didn't cross it) until there was a spot parallel to some RR tracks to get back to the road. A bit down the road a woman, not so nicely, informed us that the police had been called. I wasn't really concerned, since I did not run past any posted signs, but we decided not to circle at the parking lot, just in case.

Ran during the Hilton Spring Breakout meet.

Nate opened with the steeplechase, and did OK, 11:29. He has to drop at least 12 seconds to have a shot at Sectionals. He has to go under 10:45 to qualify in the 3200.

Then I ran a little over 3 miles, into the village of Hilton, around and back out to the school, then around the school a bit. On the way back I picked it up (tempo-ish) for a bit over 5 minutes. 23:30 was the total elapsed time.

Then it was Chelsea's turn in the 800. She was back in 7th or 8th nearing the 400, got by a couple, then a couple more at the top of the back stretch, then took off with about 250 to go and moved clear of everyone except the 2:20 Mercy girl. One girl (Hilton, I think) came back and edged her at the wire in 2:32.

Then I went north from the school for just over 16 minutes and turned around. On the way back I did 2 x 3min hard (interval-ish), with a 3 min jog in between. It was into the wind, but I was still under 15 minutes on the way back.

Back to the track and Nate's heel was very sore (same as in Texas), so he sat out the 3200, so it was just Kenny and Afro Thunder. I decided I had run enough, so I just hung out until the 1600 (Nico, Chris and Alex N) and the 4x800 (slow - AB, Whitty, KDawg, Nico)

C • Cover of Sports section 2

4:12/8:31
1:33,36,37,36,36
3:34,34

It has been quite some time since I've been in the pool, so I was sloppy and slow.

21 min of Random Hills-13 @ 89rpm
2 min w/dn-12

Legs felt a little lethargic, but my tender calf didn't bother me at all, so, I decided to push my luck and make it a mini-triathlon.

Beautiful day outside, but I had just gotten off the bike inside, so I just jumped on the treadmill, instead of going out. Calf did not bother me at all; it must be a bruise or something, not a strain.

1/2 mile @ 7.0mph
1 going 7.1-8.0
1.5 at 8.0

Another long day at the desk, with no break for lunch or swimming (but not nearly as long as last Monday).

Event: 30th Annual Billygoat Run
 

Billygoat at Clear Lake Scout Reservation.

After lining up the line, I didn't much look at the map on the way to C1, until we hit the trail - there were too many good navigators leading the way, so I just focused on not falling or running into people, as it was fairly crowded. When I did look at the map, I couldn't see a skip, so I figured I'd postpone thinking about that for a while. I punched C1 just ahead of the Saegers, and there was a clear line of runners to C2, which was due north, so I stayed ahead. As I approached, I saw Brendan taking a fairly long look at his map, and he went left, so I followed him. I noticed the Saegers went right, so I got quite worried. I didn't see Brendan's plan on my map, so after we went left of the big swamp, I thought we were going to go right of the next 2. Between verifying that C13 was C13 and starting down the wrong trail, before spotting Brendan on the trail (he had gone between the pair of swamps) across the way, I had fallen a minute behind him, but I ran the trail fairly hard and had caught up when we left the trail. When we joined the pack that had gone right, I had caught up to Nate, despite my delays and was still ahead of the Saegers.

I ran into trouble in the thick stuff leaving C4 and several people got ahead of me, including the Saegers and Randy. I think it was C6 where Joe B came in the wrong way and I had his bright yellow shirt to follow for a bit. I didn't see the trail that should have been used to get to C10, so I lost some time there. Before getting to C11, I thought about skipping the short out-and-back to C12, but I could see Joe went straight, so I continued on.

I punched C12 just after 3 cadets and they stopped to look at their maps, but I just got out of there, on the line. Happily, that brought me to a trail that I stumbled on before seeing it on the map, and I saw that it was going to be a good route for most of the way, so I picked up the pace, significantly. Sitting still, I think I have pieced together what I did. When the small trail curved around the spur near the main trail, I thought I was curving around back between 8 and 9. Somehow, I missed the main trail as I was distracted by the maze of stone walls (I must have thought the main trail was just a path alongside a wall). Then, I heard the creek and continued on the path to where it crossed. I thought I was at the main crossing, but when I got across, none of the contours lined up, and the trail was south of west, rather than north of west. I spent several minutes trying to figure out my error, looking for parallel creeks, etc. Finally, I realized that the creek had ended and the trail was running alongside a creek, and I figured out where I had to be. But the damage was done. Peter came in from the proper direction and punched just ahead of me, so I followed him past the pond and out to the road.

I was going to stay with Peter, but he is still coming back from injury, so I picked it up a bit and passed someone, then passed Jeff Saeger. I had planned on cutting left of Sperling Pond, but when I got to the trail junction, it looked real nasty getting down to the small trail, so I decided to go right. I got to the turnoff that was mapped, but there was a gate there, and it looked like it may be a private home, so I was stumped. First I doubted that I was seeing the right driveway, then I thought I might have to go around, but I was at the edge of the map. I finally convinced myself that I was supposed to cut thru, just as Peter came to the intersection - I had lost all of my hard effort. This was quite depressing and made it difficult for me to do much running towards C15, 16, 17. I committed to C18 before I noticed the little trail that I could have taken, had I gone left of the little pond. I walked most of the hill to C18, so Peter and Jeff were still just a bit behind.

So, now I had no choice but to skip C19, so I fought thru the mountain laurel towards C20. I knew I had gotten pushed to the left, but I didn't know how far left, but, luckily, there was a trail junction to confirm my position and the cairn was very prominent. I angled left to the trail and followed it all the way to the T, for an easy C21, then used the stone walls to aim for the patch of open land, to the road, for the final run.

I should have been under 2:10 (8 minutes on C13 and too much walking after I was bummed out and no longer behind anyone). Oh well, it just increases my desire to return next year. Nate had a pretty fine run. He needed to follow the 2nd group, instead of the 3rd.

The Goat - Splits

Ran around the race course are before and during the 5K Sarah's Run at Holy Trinity. Nate, Joe Freshman and Bobby joined me. Nico, Chris and Whitty ran the race, finishing 3rd, 5th and about 12th.

Brought stuff to run or swim, but my boss moved a 2pm meeting up to 1pm, so I ran out of time to prepare and had to work thru lunch.

Probably a good idea to take the day off, since my legs are still feeling pretty beat up.

With the rest of the family at MIT, Nate and I did the next best thing and went to see 21. I never watch BOATS movies (well, except something like Pre), because of the way they twist the truth. I really liked the book and I knew the movie was going to be different, so I just ignored any link to, or departure from, reality.

Oh, then Nate and I got home and watched Numb3rs and saw one impossible chess position displayed. Someone dropped the ball.

Steeplechase intervals with the Distance Runners. Ran from Schroeder to the Thomas track for a warm-up - the big boys absolutely smoked me on the way over. We carried 3 barriers out of storage - one couldn't be adjusted, so we left it at girls height.

The boys did 6 x 750m, going over 6 barriers. Some of the younger kids did 5 and Bobby and I (and JP, after his late arrival) just did 4. My excuse was that my legs are still pretty beat-up from the weekend and yesterday's long outing. And I want to try to recover for the Billygoat on Sunday.

I went 3:20, 3:14, 3:09, 3:07. The barriers were not easy to get over. I only hurdled the low one and a high one a couple of times. I almost fell backwards off of one. The boys did quite well. Nico was around 2:30 on all of them. Nate was 2:32 and then just a bit higher. Alex beat him on most and Kenny beat him on some.

The jog back to Schroeder was much friendlier.

Vetting control locations for the Relay Champs next weekend, so the maps can go to press. William has some sweet courses designed. I wish I was running. I guess spectating should be quite fun, though.

Time was kept by starting and stopping my watch as I started and stopped running or jogging or doing something slower. I was out for about 2:40 total.

As baseball players say, it was such a nice day, let's play two, so I checked out the Rec course locations as well.

Ran with a gmap-pedometer print of the area around Gates-Chili HS before (28 minutes) and during (14 minutes) the meet.

Chelsea (and 2 others) got yanked off the 1500m starting line, since Gates didn't enter anyone. That meant she was fresh for the 800 and ran a pretty decent 2:32, to finish 1 second behind Megan. Then the coach told her she was going to run the 3000 (unplanned), and the coaches decided to run the 3000 and the boys 3200 at the same time, so Nate got to catch up to her. Chelsea just ran hard for a couple laps, learned she wasn't going to beat the one Gates girl, and coasted. Meanwhile, Nate was in a tactical race with 2 Gates kids (after his only teammate faded at the mile mark). With 2 laps to go, the top Gates kid went, and a half lap later Nate took off on the other Gates kid and finished 2nd.

They both had to return for the 4x800 relay, with just the 4x100 and 4x400 to recover. Nate ran third and stayed about 5 seconds behind the Gates kid, which gave Nico a shot at catching the anchor, but he couldn't get by.. Chelsea led off and took care of Gates top girl, by over 10 seconds on the second lap and the girls went on to almost lap Gates.

I didn't leave my cube all day (from 8:05am to 8:40pm): no meetings, no lunch, no exercise, not even a bathroom visit. And I still didn't quite catchup from missing Friday. I think I got out of my chair a couple of times, but I'm not sure.

Red - Ultra Long - Splits

US Sprint Champs, Part I at Miami University (of Ohio) - part of the Flying Pig. Not a bad run, but it showed me just how out of shape I've gotten, as Nate beat me by 2:22. Of course, that was probably Nate's finest run ever as he was just 29 seconds behind feet and even closer to Jon T and Eric B, and even beat Wil Smith and The Power. Zach had a mp, which was too bad, since it took away some of the meaning for the afternoon. He got confused briefly, relocated, then forgot he was on his way to C14 and went to C15 instead.

I had some minor hesitations, especially on the first couple of legs, but then got into a decent rhythm, until I went down the wrong set of stairs at C8 (the control circle mostly obscured the stairs that I took, the others were just a few meters away). I also lost some time going to C12. I was taking a corner on a sidewalk and lost an edge when stepping on a pile of mud that was obscured by some brush at the corner. Took a few seconds to collect myself and make sure the blood on the map was from minor wounds.

Early on I was hurdling most of the chain fences, but later I had to step over a couple and chose to run around a couple of others. Definitely reminiscent of the steeplechase days, where it took a couple of seasons to be able to hurdle all off the barriers (well, except the water barrier of course).

US Sprint Champs, Part II, starting from some student apartment complex. Interesting mix of terrain for this sprint: open fields, woods that were sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and the apartment complex.

Everyone had run down a trail from the start, so I did the same, finding the control on the map shortly before punching 23 seconds into the race. I overran C2 slightly in the field, but C3 was the spectator control that I had already seen, so that went well. But then I cut in behind the apartments from a light post at too weak an angle and missed the correct trail and had to cut thru brush and cross a reentrant to get back on the trail towards C4.

I also lost time leaving C5, thinking I was going to go slightly left thru a rough field, but I saw the woods were not friendly enough and, more importantly, the reentrants were much more harsh than they looked on the map, so I went up and around to the right, taking advantage of open fields. I also lost time going to C8 too far right. I was slow climbing to C9 (I think it was 9), then couldn't stay ahead of Eugene on the way to C13 - I need to dig deeper when it's time to run hard.

In the end, I was 6 seconds behind cmorse in the PM, which meant that we tied for 2nd in total time for the day. My second US Champs medal! And on a day when neither Nate nor Z picked one up. Z due to his mp in the AM; Nate due to his nearly 6 minute error on a 30 second leg that put him 47 seconds off the podium, and, sadly, may have cost him a JWOC spot. We're holding our breath for the rankings to be posted, but I'm guessing he'll be about 0.2 points out of 6th, with the afternoon race costing him about 0.8 points.

C • Woo Hoo!-) 1

After I finished the PM race, I followed Luke around as he did the Rec-White course (same course as Zach). It was a lot of fun; I hadn't seen him orienteer before (well, except in our yard). He had a good system going: use the compass to point the map north, look around, then sprint in the direction he thought he should go. He stopped at most trail junctions to look at his map, then sprint again. I think his only real trouble was leaving C4: he had his map and compass not level and didn't get a good reading and took the trail E instead of S. He stopped after a while and I asked if he knew where he was and he pointed to the precise location! He then went back and headed S, but there was a slightly hidden continuation, while the main trail bent around to the west. He went a ways on this trail, to another junction and couldn't figure out where he was, so he went back towards C4 and found the S trail continuation. I really enjoyed seeing the wheels turn the rest of the way - it was the same pattern: compass, look closely, start sprinting, pause en route, then sprint again.

He needs some serious punch improvement. There was no punch card, so he had to punch the map and it took him an average of 25 seconds to punch when the punch was hanging down and 15 seconds when it was mounted to the control stand. But his next race will be e-punching at the US Middle Champs.

Total w/up and w/dn before and after the sprints. Most of it before the first sprint.

Red/Blue Sprint 1 - Splits

Red/Blue Sprint 2 - Splits

Event: Flying Pig XII
 

Spike count is an estimate for now. I had one really bad control that was in a labyrinth of clearings after a run thru indiscreet light/medium green. More later...

w/up and w/dn. The jog to the start was 2km, and I did some before that to check out the finish. I also managed some very light jogging afterwards, hoping that I can recover a bit for tomorrow.

Did the model course after dropping Nate, Zach and Chelsea and Luke off at the gravel road to cut their 2km walk to the start to under 1km.

Unfortunately I forgot to give Luke a compass, so he had to do the Rec-White without a compass. Zach pointed north for him before he started, and he managed to make it around fairly cleanly, with Chelsea just watching him. I wish I had his sense of direction.

Blue - Short Pig/WRE - Splits

We scrimmaged Thomas and I got roped into timing lane 2 for all of the lame events (100, HH, 200, 400), so I just squeezed in one short jog to loosen up. Not really log-worthy, but I did it, so...

Since I was a little busy at work, a day off seemed like a great idea.

Various jogging around Wayne HS during the scrimmage. The wind was fierce. I had planned to do some tempo running, but the conditions were too ridiculous.