Training Log: AliC

Event: SMOC - 2013 Spring Bishop Lake
 

And SMOC meet held! Whoa, there, a lot of people showed up (should have printed more maps...)! Maxed out on all courses except Red, even did some map shuffling...

This was putting out today's last controls, the ones near trails. But not efficiently, because I was in a bit of a panic.
1) Put out water control via Teahen road, fine.
2) Eep! Realize Roddy is running orange, sprint out to go put a control in the middle of her course out, but probably too late.
3) Go put out the last two controls that are needed for both Orange and Green courses to be completed, phew, think I'm a-ok.
4) Put out lots of yellow controls, because lots of them are near trails. In doing so, realize that one of the green controls isn't out, because I'm carrying it. Panic! Don't have the map that shows where it needs to go, so sprint back and find that and head back out to the woods and finally have all controls sorted for everything except white by 12.06pm.
5) Go put out white controls while Mary held the registrating fort down.

Holy moly, should have arrived an hour earlier. But Barbara was a total rockstar holding the fort down on her own for long periods and Mary gets super-bonus points for helping out when we really needed an extra hand!

C • Wow, that's some busy morni... 7

C • nice course 6

And control pick up (sans compass because really, I should be able to find all the controls with my eyes closed now). Forgot one at the end, had to go back out. Pretty toast! Thanks to Mark, Alex, Igor and Oleg who also collected. And again to Barbara for rocking logistics of packing up and sorting out while we did!

Very glad the meet went well, except at the very beginning. And next time, more maps for nice days in May!

Started to drive out of BL parking and then realized that the beach was *right* there. So took a dip. Scrumptious! Also first cantalope at home, mmmm summer...

Event: Cuyahoga Valley NP / Ledges Shelter
 

Arrived to the Toledo Zoo, and it was a zoo! Wowzer, I didn't know that this was a huge race. 976 finishers, according to the results. So warm-up consisted of lots of dodging folks while doing the normal car -> registration -> bathroom -> car -> start line shuffle.

Toledo Zoo's Dart Frog Dash 5k

Yeehaw! Not quite a PR, but I'm happy, just a few seconds off and my first solidly under 18 5k in awhile.

When I showed up, Jeff let me know that Rachel K. and Rachel M. were both there, and that K would certainly beat me and that probably I'd beat M. Rachel K. was some level of very serious runner and kicked my butt in the winter 10 miler, so I figured he was probably right.

Met M. at the start line and said hi to K., figured I'd not let myself start faster than her, because that would be too fast. So after the start line cleared out, I was side-by-side with her and my racing buddy Kevin. Perfect. Then Kevin took off, I figured I was at a good pace. About 2/3s of a mile in, I started pulling away from K. What? Am I going to fast? Doubt, but it feels ok.... First mile came in, 5.28, well, that's a bit speedy, but it was downhill. Hope I don't die!

Second mile just felt good, I caught Kevin, he said something about 'It's your day, take it!' Inched past him, and then was on my own. The course joined back with the way we came out, so some good cheers until the 2 mi mark which was 5.47. Not as fast, but not dying and had more uphill. At that point, I felt in control.

Last mile was 2/3 out in the open streets, although away from the heading-out crowd, so pretty silent, just a few police officers directing. And then, you head into the zoo and the race actually ends on it's swirly plastic boardwalky paths! Not the fastest, but great sprint-o training. =) At one point, you had to do nearly a 360 around a statue of an elephant, I nearly lost it there, trying to come out of the circle too early...

Happy to see the time as I crossed the line. Probably had a bit more juice to bring it to the PR, but I don't feel practice in 5ks yet, will have more confidence for the next one!

C • Excellent race! 5

Cool down with Kevin, said hello to the Maumee River! Also, we agreed we should definitely do track workouts together, since we both do them at UT and usually alone. Woo training buddy!

And scampered up to Bishop Lake for setting controls out with Barbara! Perfect timing on arrival, we divvied up the controls and headed on out! Had some lovely times running in the woods and little NEOC duffel served me well for carrying controls. Love that we don't have to use stakes.

Morning joggeroo, easy day, lovely out!

12 min core, haven't done this in ages, gotta keep it up!

During warmup/cooldown: Listened to TED talks on the Toltan people of British Colombia, whose lands will almost certainly be exploited, despite the speaker's plea, sad. Then Elon Musk on things Tesla, Solarcity and SpaceX. (Ok, again, it is *super* cool to re-land a rocket!) And then a biologist from the NIH about speeding up the drug discovery business. One idea is to simply tryout drugs that have been demo'ed safe in people and try to apply to other conditions. That's how we got AZT for AIDS/HIV, originally a cancer drug which didn't work so well. Also a drug against a rare condition for premature aging, similarly a failed cancer drug. Sounds like a good idea!

Normal running drills.

Saw Bambi! And 3 little ducklings too. Baby season. =)

Morning tempo workout 2 x 15 minutes at Wildwood. Felt good, but not super energetic. Nicer to workout in morning temps... Gotta get some Finnish maps printed to look at!

Some last testing of things at Bishop Lake! It is way thicker vegetation-wise than 2 weeks ago... controls will be a bit harder to spot from far away. Also, poison ivy positively identified. Blech.

C • I swear on all that is good... 6

C • poison ivy 3

I went on a rollercoaster today! Called 'The Raptor' at Cedar Point. It was pretty awesome, two loop-d-loops and lots of twisting and diving and turning. The hour long line beforehand was less cool (prolonged because some previous customer threw up, boo). People watching teenagers is only interesting for so long...

Anyways, I was there in general for Cedar Point's Math and Science week with some grad students from the dept and lots of cool physics demos. We had a van der Graaff generator, the spinny-angular momentum stool, an infrared camera, a solar telescope and a bike hooked up to a generator that could either power a light or a leaf blower. Fun times and at least some of the HS students who were field-tripping it there thought it was cool too. Not all, but hey, we had to compete against rollercoasters...

Ankle plyos

And intervals. Legs feeling a bit meh to start after the whole day on my feet, but warm up helped with that. Then 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 minute intervals, with half time rest between each. Felt pretty good, Wildwood was lovely, but a bit crowded. The boardwalk is maybe not the best place for intervals.