Training Log Archive: TomN

Event: UNO meet - Pawtuckaway SP
 

Red course at Pawtuckaway. Slow going, with some errors but also some good navigation. Off to a shaky start right out of the gate, getting off the road too early and spending some time trying to get things to match up before doing it again and getting it right. Good to 2 and 3, then a miss on 4, not clear to me even now what went wrong, but I backtracked, relocated, and came in on a better approach past a 2m boulder. The 5 to 6 leg was good course setting, through some bland woods until all of a sudden you hit the complex contour stuff again. Again I missed the target and relocated from the little cove to the north.

Then a good segment 7-8-9-10, concentrating well, good terrain awareness, but I had to sacrifice a lot of speed in order to do that. Messed up the short leg to 11, must have been too far right, went down to the road and came back past the enormous boulder.

A nice course in varied terrain, a lovely day with a good breeze in places, which, aiong with some 100% deet, kept the mosquito annoyance to a minimum. Should have put some on my back.

Ha, hotter in NH than MD these last few days. It was 90 yesterday, and near that today. I took a day off yesterday and went for a walk at Great Bay. Today, ran around the Red Trail in the other direction. I want to like this trail. It's a nice route along a bend in the river, and it's much better in-terrain training than the big flat trails. The eastern end has been rerouted, with 2 new wooden bridges. But there's still one bridge out, and a big area of sticky mud where there was a lake a few weeks ago. Still, the trail gets a fair amount of traffic, using various workarounds at the obstacles.

I can't believe the new bridges are going to survive very long. They're low -- only inches above the water, and even though the water looks unthreatening now, it evidently rises up periodically and rips stuff out, like it does in Texas. On the other hand, there's a plan to remove the dam just downstream, which should lower the water all around. That dam has been there in one form or another since the 1600s.

Intervals at PEA track. 4x800 with 1-lap slow jog in between. Target was 3:20. Times:
3:20
3:19
3:19
3:20
Splits were all 1:39-1:40 with one at 1:41. I had a little trouble convincing myself to go out and do this this morning, but I'm glad I did. I feel like progress is being made. Perfect day, cloudy, 65 deg, very light breeze, a little humidity. It had rained some overnight.

Red Trail. The trail was in better condition than last attempt -- most of the wet spots have dried up, and the trail was more visible (probably because the forest floor has greened up along the margins). But there was some standing water and a bridge out, which could be worked around off-trail. The next bridge was brand-new, so maybe it's scheduled for replacement. There may be some trail relocation going on too. I'll run it in the other direction next time.

Roads, plus some exploring on the trails and across the playing fields.