Training Log: PG

Event: NEOC: Nobscot
 

Just putting in some miles, this time all running. Whately - South Deerfield loop. Legs were getting tired the last couple of miles, but not bad before that.

Entertainment from a This American Life show about global warming, two-thirds interesting, the last segment not, and the fairly reliably amusing -- and certainly not requiring any serious thinking -- Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, which together got me almost all the way home.

As a follow-up to parts 1 and 2, here is part 3: life.

C • How does one open these? 10

Early run with Dave, Old Amherst Road loop. Nice to have company.

South Sugarloaf. Twice up the steep trail (9:26, 9:38) and down the road (7:57, 7:56), and then twice up the road (15:59, 15:51) and down the trail (4:21, 4:05). Walking all the ups, and a relaxed pace. Warm and humid.

And then went off to a new eye doctor to see what he might say about my complaints and concerns -- I don't see as well, I'm getting cataracts, and I've got some sort of wrinkling on my retinas. The first was obviously my own observations based primarily on trying to read road signs and spot little white balls. The latter two were pointed out a year ago, though without any recommendation to do anything, and I wanted a second opinion.

Seems like my vision is what it is and it is too soon to think about cataract surgery. But I now have an appointment to see a retina specialist in a month. Don't know what that will lead to, but best to start the process.

And then stopped at the running store -- I try to support the local store instead of going online -- and picked up a couple pair of shoes, and also a new hand-held water bottle carrier since I trashed mine yesterday on one of my falls.

And permanently retired one pair of shoes (844 miles). I still have two others in the rotation (575 and 302 miles), though I'm not sure how good my records are with them because I usually can't remember which is which.

Regardless, always want to have at least two pairs in rotation, hopefully three. So four should be even better.

C • cataract surgery 5

C • same shoes 2

More 50-miler training -- go out on tired legs, even though, honestly, the legs could have been a lot worse. No sore muscles, no chafing, no blisters, the only sore spot was a kneecap I banged on the most trivial of my falls.

Hiked up to the top of Toby, then jogged back via the S-curves. Weather was definitely warmer and more humid than yesterday, and I certainly felt it. If it is hot for the 50 I will be toast.

Event: Soapstone Mountain Trail Races
 

And then zipped over to the WCOC local meet at Stratton Brook with the idea of maybe helping pick up a few controls. Which is just what happened, a very pleasant 30-minute stroll with Charlie while we collected 8 controls and I heard about the world of international bike touring, sounds pretty cool, and collapsible bikes that fit in a suitcase, sounds actually not so cool when perfectly good rental bikes are available.

I mean, supposed they made a car that could be disassembled and would fit in a suitcase. Cool, I guess, but it seems like it would be a whole lot easier to give Mr. Hertz a little business.

And then off to Litchfield, first dealing with mom who thought she was in New York City (this is far from the first time this has happened), and then having a surprisingly pleasant time -- and I know this may be hard to believe -- giving Lina some pointers about Facebook.

And then drove home to finish off an eventful and successful day.

C • Facebook 7

Soapstone Trail Race, distance guessed at something between 14 and 14.5 miles. My 305 tuned out at least a couple of different times and came up with 12.9 miles, may be ready to be sent off to a GPS cemetery.

Last ran this race in 2008, time was 2:24:30, and my write-up complained of struggling. So this time, 4:30 slower, and after a first mile in which my legs felt quite dead, they started to feel better, and I ran up a lot of gradual hills that I wasn't expecting to. So a better run that was 5 minutes slower. It's clear what direction I'm going.

Felt good for a long stretch, but all good things come to an end, started to wobble about 2 hours in on an annoying part of the trail -- rocky, rooty, and gently uphill -- crashed I think 3 times when I wouldn't pick a foot up quite enough and clipped a rock. But no bad damage.

After that section there was the short steep climb over Soapstone, easy because there was no way I was going to run it, then freefall down the east side, and then another 8 minutes or so that included some more uphill. Had folks both in front and behind, so there was motivation to run all the uphill, and I was quite pleased to do just that.

So, another bit of training for the 50, now just 3 weeks off. Though I surely would not have wanted to cover another 36 miles today.

Fred's race report, where I am accused of being a sandbagger.... :-)

C • A convocation of sandbaggers, actually 8