Training Log Archive: TomN

Speed work at Sligo International track. 4x800 with 1.5 lap jog, then 6x200 with 0.5 lap jog. Times were 3:27 - 3:29 (except that I forgot what I was doing and ran one of them as 1000m at 4:21). The 200s were all 46-47.

I also clocked my max HR at 204. I'm just glad it's not 220-(my age).

Strange how much the perception of effort changes from day to day. Yesterday it was an effort to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and today it was like having wings on my feet. Through the National Seminary down to Beach Drive and up Old Spring Road.

Easy pace, legs feeling kind of heavy. The weather radar looked like widespread light rain, but it wasn't raining and the road surfaces were dry. Must be in the low cloud layer. The GPS got off again in the last half-mile.

GSFC perimeter road and antenna range. I forgot to bring my watch.

Track workout. I went to Sligo International school, because the Einstein HS track is still under construction. They're putting artificial turf on the infield, and I don't know if they're going to resurface the track too. I drove a couple of miles and parked in the little parking area on Sligo Creek Parkway just after Colesville Road. The school is about a half-mile away at the corner of Wayne Ave. I used to run here in the 1980s when I lived in Takoma Park, and the school was then Montgomery Blair HS.

In a desperate attempt to train for the Goddard 2-mile a week from tomorrow, I did a repetition workout. 10x400 with 2-lap jog between, then 6x200 with 1-lap jog between. Goal was 1:42 for the 400s and 0:50 for the 200s. I made the goal on all but one, the third of the 400s. I had a hard time finding the pace. My first two were fast, 1:38, and on the 3rd I slowed down too much, 1:45. All the rest were between 1:38 and 1:42. The 200s were all fast at 0:48.

It rained off and on, but not too hard and not for too long. This is essentially a community track, and nearly everyone walks in the inside lane, stops to chat, crosses without looking, whatever. About 20 6-year-old girls showed up with a couple of grown-ups, did some stretches and then ran a lap. That was fun. I got overtaken by a whole wave of them when I was jogging between intervals. Then I had to warn them as I came through on the next lap. They were cool. The whole thing was around 11 miles. It looks like the GPS got thrown off at some point, maybe by rain.

QOC Lake Accotink. This was a THOMASS-style course with a handicap based on age and gender. For the "Brown" variation I was supposed to skip 9 controls, which meant I had to punch 13 controls. I was able to count as far as 5, but then repeatedly lost count while I was counting paces. Then when I thought I had done 8, I was pretty sure one of them I'd been to twice, so it was probably 7. I did one more, then crossed into the well-demarcated section just short of the top, which held 6 controls, to make exactly 13. When I got the last one, I counted again and came up one short, so I went out of my way to pick up one more. There were 3 mandatory legs on the way back, the first 2 of which were long and tricky.

So it turned out I hadn't been to any controls twice (except on the mandatory legs) so the total was 16, meaning I only skipped 6. That was three more than necessary for Brown, but one short for Red. So I guess I finished Green, with one extra control.

Anyway, aside from counting issues, it was nicer being in the woods than in the open, because the rain was mostly not reaching the ground. The dim light made it hard to read the map, and the leafy undergrowth made it hard to see the terrain. Plus I always have trouble navigating in this place, for reasons I don't understand.

Actually, I remember one of the early club events I attended, probably more than 20 years ago, at Lake Accotink, in which I failed to find one of the controls and gave up after a half-hour, absolutely certain that it wasn't there, and I was shocked to discover on returning that everyone else had punched it. I asked someone about it, probably Peggy, and she said, oh yeah, it was in the wrong reentrant, but I just went into the next one over and saw it right away. The mysteries of orienteering just got deeper.

C • ah, for the days of punch c... 2

THOMASS - Splits