Training Log Archive: bishop22

Thought about doing a short run, then decided a short soak would be better for my legs going into the weekend!

Hiked with Chris up Tubbs Hill in Coeur D'Alene, ID. We hiked to the summit and checked out the Point. We were out for 95 minutes, probably moving over 75 minutes.

Ran from our hotel in Post Falls, ID, west on the Centennial trail to within 1 mile of Washington and back. Like so. Several bikers were out, plus hitchhiker who was on his way back to Spokane from Virginia and was done with hitching and was just hiking the balance. Also a woman pushing a very young child in a jogging stroller, while walking the dog and talking on the cell phone.

Quite warm out there, but I had to outdo last Tuesday.

Eventually I may post my poor performances from the US Champs this weekend (perhaps right after the results are posted???), but for now I just want to whine about the meet. I don't know where to start, but I know where to end: the misplacement of a WHITE sprint control at the US Championships is inexcusable, I look at the amount of money we spent for this trip, the vacation time used up, and the Sporting Withdrawal that Zach and Luke were required to take, and I cry.

I won't even mention the long list of items that made this the most unpleasant A-Meet that I have attended.

Red Sprint - Splits

Red Long - Splits

Event: US Sprint/Middle/Long Championships
 

Red Middle - Splits

Model event at Moses Lake, ahead the US Champs weekend. Yes, I am in the camp that says the true US Champs are the Sprint, Middle, Long, not the two day classic, now. That's what the pros do, so that's what the noobs should do.

Went around the short course, walking the first leg, then jogging the rest (total 18 minutes), then did a little more exploration part walk/part jog, while the boys finished up. Ran into Chris with a map and thumb compass in her hand! Quite a pleasant surprise!

Had to deal with the disintegrating trash bags leftover from nate's party last weekend, that didn't fit into the garbage can. And all that that entailed. Ugh. So, I ended up arriving late to the hash, but it was fine, the early part of the trail was easy to follow thru the woods off Edgemere (so in the woods two days in a row, after never being in there before). And it led into a swamp, with some nice sinkholes and I caught the pack at a stop. Took some less traveled trails and ended up swimming out to a small island with a cooler stashed.

C • What, exactly, 4

Interesting to experience the earthquake from the 18th floor of the square. Glad it wasn't closer or the experience would have probably crossed from interesting to frightening.

C • What earthquake? 3

Ran with Rick W after picking up the O jerseys. Nice run thru some trails off Edgemere, then the new bike path along the Parkway and back via Dewey.

Continued the slow build towards dodeca-Tuesday. Ran out East-Clover(ever so briefly)-Highland-Monroe. When I was passing Cobbs Hill, I realized I wasn't going to be over 65 minutes, so I tacked on a small loop and the resulting route is like so.

Achilles was a little tender before I started, but felt OK during the run.

Splits:
7:05 at Good (0.86 = 8:14 pace)
7:12 to Culver (0.88 = 8:11)
7:12 to Winton (0.87 = 8:17)
8:33 to Winton (0.97 = 8:49)
14:06 to Culver (1.65 = 8:33)
16:00 to Y (2.07 = 7:44), including 9:56 for the 10 minute stretch

I knew I was slow going up the hill on Highland, but I'm surprised that I was even slower from Winton to Winton.

I fully intended to run today. I left work early enough to stop at Casey Park, but when I got there and grabbed my bag from the back seat, there was Luke's baseball glove. And he had a playoff game tonight. So, I called nate and met him by Chris's office and was out of time to run.

Opened with 3 straight pars on 8-9-1, but caught the tree on 2, attempted recovery shot caught the very top of the tall, barren pine tree, yada, yada, yada and I had a 9. Ouch. 3 bogeys and 2 pars got me to a 44. I did par 8 + 9 again on the way in. We lost, 28-12, as my partner was a no-show again, and a sub is only good for a net 40.

Event: ROC - Mendon Ponds Park
 

An estimate of the running time to set out 6 of the Sprint A controls. Zach tried to do the others, but there was nowhere to hang the flag at one location, so we had to drive down and pick up a stake while we registered. Got back up and I went to hang the last flag and there was someone there looking for it - they must have started early because I got there at 1:03. Oops.

C • 720 miles to hang out one flag??? :) 3

ROC Sprint Series #1 at Mendon Ponds Park

So, 2009 was a very disappointing year for me in the local Sprint Series. Enormous errors were common, so despite being in halfway-decent running shape, my performances were pretty poor.

Today, I was pretty sore from yesterday's volleyball, and I am not in the same shape I was last year, so the goal was to avoid errors. I did that fairly well, and was able to pull off the win. The sad thing is that nate probably could have done this course in 15 minutes, but it took me 21.

Looking at the splits, I see that I was back in 4th place thru 7 controls, mostly due to my stumbling and bumbling on the way to C2. I took the lead going to C8 - part of this was the running and part was decent execution in leaving the trail at the end. Overall, the leg wasn't that fast (I did go to the flag on the saddle first, and Carl got me by 25 seconds), but it did get me into the lead. I then had the fastest split on 9 and took a safe route to 11 and finished quick enough.

ROC Score-O at Mendon Ponds - distance a total guess of orienteering length.

So, a 60-minute Score-O and between nate, zach, Luke and I, we had one watch. Not good preparation! nate was going to get all of the controls that Karl could dish out, and I figured that I probably could, so I gave my watch to zach and we had Luke fend for himself.

I was still tying my shoe when the event started, so I was slow out of the gate. And the field across the street was not mowed like on the map (only half was mowed, so I took a poor line and was behind several people at the punch, with Rob S out in front. Tried to miss the swamp heading north to 16, but failed miserably, then ran to the wrong hill before recovering, but was still second to Rob. I got ahead of him when he stopped to tie a shoe, and led to 4 & 5, but he moved back ahead by taking more trail to 14(?). I stayed behind him for the next few controls, but leaving 3, he went left and I went right. I went too far right and thought he had beaten me to 2 and moved on, so I tried to keep pushing.

I saw Dick and asked about the time, which was at 22, so it looked good for getting all 23 controls, since I was about to get the 11th. So, I start counting controls and panicked, since I could only find 9 more on the map as I ran along. Finally, I realized that there was no 6, 12 or 18, so finishing in an hour was not going to be an issue.

I caught Rob near the southeastern controls, and passed him going down the hill towards 1. Leaving 1, I frantically measured a couple of control orders to see which was shorter, and 13-11-10 won. I was surprised not to see Rob behind me when I looked back, but it turns out, he had not gone to 2. I was still concerned about getting in quickly, so I tore thru the prickers in and out of 11, which caused the prickers to tear thru my flesh. Lovely.

I hustled in, only to find out that nate had been done for 9+ minutes. Of course, he hadn't done the Sprint, so it wasn't a fair race! nate did the exact opposite order of controls, so I am not sure why I did not seem him in the middle. Perhaps my error going from 3-2 was when we would have passed, had I gone straight-ish. Zach did quite well, getting 420 of the 500 points and finishing 11th out of 51. Luke had a fantastic race on his own, scoring 390 and placing 19th. One gentleman confessed to having followed Luke into several controls!

No running today. I had stuff to do in the AM to help get ready for nate's grad/birthday/going away party at Webster Park, although Chris did 90% of the work. Then it was off to Luke baseball playoff game, but not early enough to run before the start - in fact, I got him there late enough that they weren't sure he was showing up and so he was moved from 2nd to 6th in the order. But he had a double and two walks (including one that was with the pitching machine in the first inning, with two guys on and weak hitters coming after him - almost as if it were intentional). The team's ace gave up 5 runs in the 4th and hit his max pitch count in the 5th with the bases loaded and one out. Despite a small strike zone being called, Luke walked the first guy, then struck out two. His team scored 2 in the bottom, to go up 9-7 and Luke held them off the board in the 6th, for the win.

Then it was off for a late arrival at nate's party.

5 games in a row at nate's party. Mostly Christine, Tim, Chelsea, Colleen, Zach and me against the high school athletes (nate, Afro, Christian, Eric, and someone?) plus Parth.

I was very sore by the time this was over - not having played in a while, plus the groin limitations added up.

Easy run from the Y at lunch, making this the second lunchtime run in a week for the first time since ???. I ran over to the old railroad bed and up it thru the hood to the end, just before Norton St. Back on some of Rochester finest streets - Hollenback to Avenue D to Clinton. Like this.

Easy run after dropping Luke off at his final regular season baseball game. Did the usual loop thru the Town Hall woods, then over to Thousand Acre Swamp, thru the woods to the meadow, past the pond and out to the road thru a wet spot, then back to the field just in time for the first batter.

Dirt Cheap Trail Race at Ellison Wetlands.

Zach and I went out just slightly fast and wound up just a bit farther back than we should have been, but that made most of the race pretty comfortable. I just sat behind Zach. After a bit, I noticed that Patty was just one place behind us. Zach slowly picked his way past people and we got to a couple stretches where we were running fairly hard to keep up with the next guy. With about 6 minutes left, I heard Zach puke into his mouth and so I got to zip right by him. The next few people let me pass quite easily, so I was able to move pretty well, except on the uphills, because they were enough to put me past the redline. Finally I could tell the finish clearing was approaching but I had to taste for the jugular and didn't try to pass the next two in front of me. If I am not going to find some competitive spirit, I'm going to be pathetic out west.

w/up, mostly with Zach, some with nate.

Ran river to Elmwood and back via Highland Park - Goodman - Clinton, something like this.

Easy run, since a) I am still sore from banging my legs into stuff on Sunday; and b) Dirt Cheap trail race is tomorrow at Ellison Wetlands. But I did want to continue my march towards dodeca-Tuesday.

Now I have run at lunchtime once a week for a third week in a row! Next I try for twice in one week.

Saw Tom C just after I started. They are relocating to CT for a couple of years.

Very painful round, both emotionally, because of the big fat 48 and physically, because of a sore back. That's not my only excuse for the score. I got there late and I hadn't played in 3 weeks are s a couple of good additional excuses. And since we had a sub, I didn't get much help and we lost, 33-7, dropping us all the way to 10th place (we had been in 2nd before the last two matches).

Just to wake up the legs after the 109 minute car ride.

BFLO Meet at Sprague Brook - Red Course

Splits (perhaps comments when I have the map with me...):
5:47
11:14
20:20
26:24
30:05
38:34
48:17
59:07
66:06
67:35

Helped BFLO test their new e-punch toys by running their String-O course. I got destroyed, but the slide was not designed for tall folks to climb and fit thru to the slide part. Especially tall, inflexible folks. I could have cheated and punched from outside the slide, but I am a stickler for rules, and I'm guessing that "competitive" String-O rules say you have to follow the String. Although I have seen competitors jump over picnic tables when the string clearly went under the table...

So, nate and I drove down to check out Day 2 of the State Meet in Vestal. What a day it was! Jared Rousell (from Webster Thomas) opened things up by stunning everyone and beating Alex Deir in the second heat of the Steeplechase. His time was quick enough that only 1 kid from the "fast" heat beat him and he finished 2nd in the state!

Brycen did enough to win the Federation Championship in the 400, running "just" 47.9. There was a lightning delay that gave him some extra recovery before the 4 x 800 relay. Before the delay, Kevin Enck ran a PR in the 1500, and wound up 7th overall in the Pentathlon. As the delay was ending, I snuck out for a run, mostly on the Vestal rail trail.

The 4 x 8 was excellent. We were seeded 12th, which put us in the fast heat (the top 18 were included). Nico started out in last, coming thru the 400 in 60.27, before going to work and passing guys, moving all the way up to 4th by the end, in 1:57.53. Ben took over and held 4th most of the way, going out in 57.81. He hung on to just break 2 minutes and kept us in about 8th. AJ, who has been sick, moved steadily up, going out in 55.87. He came back in 61.35, to hang on pretty well, but Alex Deir passed him in the home stretch, and we were in 6th or 7th. Brycen took the baton and immediately blew by Steve Mangan and into 5th place. He came thru the 400 in 54.49. The next 200, he faded a bit and Mangan and Burnt Hills caught him, but he took off like a shot with 200 to go, and almost caught 4th place from 5? seconds down, before finishing in an incredible 1:52.55! 5th place for the good guys! And 7:47.76 was the official time - close to the Section V record of 7:45.5, which still stands from 1975.

Brycen wins states! And in a Section V record time: 46.81.

Results are here.

Full State meet results are here.

AJ had a rough outing, but Kevin is 6th in the Pent after Day 1.

C • Awesome!! 1

Ran from home to pick up nate's car from the pre-ball party location, since they are taking the bus from there. This is roughly the route.

I was just going to run straight there, but Dick hit the Glen Edith hill the other day, and I hadn't done much in two days, so I decided to try a couple of hills. I'm not sure what the official "hill" is, so I went to the bay and looped around and decided the hill started at the telephone pole just below where the stream crosses, so I ran from there to the stop line. I was "scared" of the length the first time, so I was 11 seconds faster on the second one.

Random splits:
12:31 at Empire (1.53 = 8:11 pace)
9:23 to Glen Edith (1.19 = 7:53)
5:56 down and around (0.70 = 8:29)
3:14 up the hill (0.38 = 8:31)
3:16 down (8:36)
3:03 up (8:02)
10:07 to the end (1.29 = 7:51)

Excuses, excuses...

Luke's b-day dinner at the Olive Garden last night made it so that there was no way I was going to make it to GTA this AM. Left work a bit early for the Spring XC meeting - almost 60 kids there for next season (I think the missing kids could put us above 60!!!).

It was right from there to the Senior awards night, where nate picked up two: Scholar-Athlete (need > 90 avg and varsity letters in at least 2 sports for at least 2 years), and the Jim May scholarship for a Webster senior that plans on running in college.

Probably not worthy of logging. I went to the final track practice of the year. Had the guys that don't race until Saturday do 4x600m Cruise Intervals (Brycen races Friday, so just did the first two), so I ran back and forth on the diagonal to make sure they went easy enough. Before that I jogged 8 minutes during their w/up, but couldn't get myself to head back out when there was a slice of pizza to be had, and then it was time to head home to celebrate Luke's 9th birthday.

OK, so now it's 2 weeks in a row that I was able to run 1 day at lunch time! And it is only Tuesday.

Ran this route from the Y.

Splits:
6:52 at Goodman
6:50 to Culver
6:36 to Winton
5:35 to the Cobbs Hill entrance (7:51/mi avg to this point)
8:59 to loop around the woods and head thru the park to Culver & Monroe
15:49 back to Y (= 7:37/mi), including 9:57 for the 10 minute stretch

A little running during track practice. The guys did 4 x 200, 1 x 400. Their recovery was me doing a 400 jog (600 after the last 200). I had to run hard along the diagonal to get their times (probably averaged about 27 on the 200s). Jogged a couple of laps with AJ and Nico.

Then it was off to grab Luke and take him to his ball game. I went for a short run after dropping him off for his pre-game. I went 4 x (3 easy / 3 tempo) around the trails by the ball fields, then over for a short loop at the Swamp and back.

Event: US Team Official 5K time trial (the first of two trials in 2010)
 

OK, not really training, but this was quite taxing on my groin. I thought I was going to have to stop, but I toughed it out for the team. The first game I tied nate at 68, but Chris beat us by one. nate stepped up to a 69 the second game, I responded with a late mark to score 75, but the birthday girl was over 80, I think, FTW.

Event: ROC - Oatka Creek Park
 

Went for a short run, while everyone else ate. I always present Rochester as a minor league version of Boston. For example:
Bruins vs Amerks
Red Sox vs Red Wings
MIT / Harvard vs RIT / UR
Boston Pops vs RPO

Now we can add running along the:
Charles vs Genesee

The Genesee has some nice stretches of trails, but there is no sight here like the Boston skyline, just after sunset. It was a great view as I headed along the river between the Science Museum and the Longfellow. (Although I suppose that if one were to count Letchworth as "Rochester", the gap is not so wide).

The lack of sleep was thanks to driving to Philly after the track meet last night, arriving just before 3:30, and getting up at 6:20 to head over for Chelsea's race at IRA Nationals in New Jersey. One could be a pessimist and point out that her 4 was last, but I prefer the optimistic view that they were 8th in the country!

Then we had to drive from NJ to Boston, foolishly taking the GW Bridge route choice on a day that had a bus broken down in the EZ Pass lane, throttling traffic big time.

There was no time that it felt right to go for a run during the State Qualifier meet at Victor, so I let it go and focused on the meet. The meet lived up to expectations, with our guys putting up some very good performances. Geoff went out too quickly in the Steeple, but ran OK (some of the Division 2 guys would have been well advised to not have been ahead of Geoff early). Brycen had an easy win in the 400, but spent too much energy sprinting by Twombly on the backstretch to run a great time. Nate ran a 2:01 in the open 800 to grab 4th, while AJ sat back, confident that two guys would not make the state time (one almost did, but the second was about 1.5 seconds off). Nico just missed qualifying in the hurdles.

And the 4x8 almost lived up to its hype. The guys pulled a fast one on me and Ben lead off instead of Nico. He got chewed up and spit out off the starting line and was last for most of the leg, but had another nice kick to wind up 5th in 2:01. Nico was out fast (56 high?) but didn't really close the gap on the leaders. He caught all but HF-L on the second lap, splitting 1:57, so Deir had about a two second lead on AJ. AJ caught him the first lap, then waited until the final straight to try to go by, but Deir is a beast and they were a dead heat, despite AJ running 1:54. Brycen went out easy (30, 61), but Mangan refused to go by him until right after the 400 when he made a strong move and Brycen let him go. This allowed R-H to catch Brycen, but he hit the 200 mark and took off, leaving Watson in the dust, but it was too late to catch Mangan.

Still, a 7:54 is a very good time, breaking the school record by 15 seconds, and was well under the state standard of 7:58 for a second team to go, so there will be a chance to lower that next weekend (and we'll have another shot at HF-L).

GTA with Erik, Frank, LC, DV, JV, VL.

They went easy on me, since Erik and Lawrence had done the trail marathon at Letchworth last weekend. Seeing my golden opportunity, I ran hard up Stone hill, FTW!

C • They would 1

Wow - a lunchtime run! I'll have to look back to see exactly how long it has been, but it has certainly been over a month. I have blocked out calendar time to do some more of this in the upcoming weeks.

Did the UR Ped Bridge loop, clockwise.

5:03 at river entrance
8:37 to start of mile
8:18 for mile
3:08 to trail sign near light post
8:10 to street by tower
9:11 to Court St
4:51 to Y

Was going to get a short run done after track practice, but remembered the ROC BOD meeting, so no time.

Nate and Steve ran 2:03 for an 800 today, in less than ideal conditions (warm and windy), in an attempt to procure the 4th spot on the 4x8. Close...