Training Log Archive: Ari-o

In Wash. (state) for a bat mitzvah. Went with parents to a trailhead. They went for a walk to a viewpoint. I went for a run to a lake, and then further up a hill, and then to the viewpoint, and then caught up with them right at the bottom, perfect timing!

I don't think uncle Garmin ever got a good read, but the distance matches decently with the map (although less-so the signage) as does the elevation.

It's very pretty here!

Off to NP this morning pre-meetings and pre-flight. Felt pretty good, put the bike at the bottom of the hill and ran up. Then we ran hills with stairs, and I focused on fast on the downs, because my legs need to get stronger. Sometimes even remembered to stay on my toes and lean in to the hill. Nearly 500m of climb by 7:20.

Going to sister to retrieve things she'd borrowed. Was she going for a run? Yes, leaving work, going 8-10. So I ran to her work, and we ran from there. Ran along the river, by the Statie yelling at pedestrians at Leverett Circle to make a light, then got to North Station. With Causeway as messy as it is, I said hey let's just run through, so we did. Then under the Zakim and along the harbor. City Point would have been way too far, so we turned up through the city and out Comm Ave to JP.

Hey, 50 mile week without really trying!

Ran before the storm that wasn't, straight in to the wind, so I did my pick ups leaning in to the wind, which was … fun? Not really.

I was going to run yesterday evening and then the whole half marathon and not enough sleep caught up with me. After sleeping 9+ hours I was refreshed, and went out for a run this morning to test the legs. Mostly easy, but Jess Robertson passed biking to work and I ran after her to give her a push on her Bucaboot.

I was good this weekend. I ran. I did homework. I didn't drive to go skiing.

This week I have more time. My legs need to recover. And I had word that the skiing at Dublin was really, really good.

Original plan was to leave at 1. Then I had a meeting scheduled, so didn't leave until closer to 3. Which is rush hour. Traffic wasn't too bad, and hit the trail around 5. Still light, of course.

Skied around the race trails and other trails up to. These trails are everything I'd heard. Challenging, fun, beautiful. And the snow was absolutely mid-winter.

Headed across the road. Quite the downhill, skied over to the school and back. Quite obviously not the race trails: conditions were sparser with some thin and dirty spots. I tried the perimeter trail, which petered out in to a snowmachine track at the bottom of a hill. Lots of climb back.

Then put on the new Salomons which were fast with the hard conditions for some more fun on the race trails.

Since I'd brought classic boots, and there was a track, I figured I'd try kicking. Finally getting dark, did a loop. March 20, and the kick on the combination of hard wax and klister was good, plus the snow was abrasive enough that it took off a lot of whatever wax was left. March 20. Stick wax. The only issue were the soft pole plants on the right side.

Warm up jog in New Bedford. Cold, not too windy where I was running, ready to head out on the course. Lots of other stuff going on.

NB! If I hadn't preregistered I probably wouldn't have run and driven to ski somewhere. But I did, and sunk costs, so here I go. Not tapered, not trained, but that hasn't stopped me from running well here before. Goal: 1:22:59 as a NYC qualifier.

Everyone packed in at the start, cold, but not frigid. Not in shorts, long sleeve t-shirt under the singlet. This race: fast field, always windy. Lucky race directors chose this weekend 40 years ago and since it's four weeks before Boston, they're always guaranteed a crowd. Really well-organized race, too. Plenty of room at the Y, well marked and patrolled, good water and cheer stations.

Gun went off and I went out pretty hard but not uncontrolled. The first mile is always fast, slightly downhill, and I hit it in … 5:46. Good? Well, fast. But to fast? HR was in the high 150s, so I should be able to hold that. Legs felt okay. And this was in to the wind. So I felt good.

Then we went uphill. In to the wind. My motor was okay, I think, but my legs weren't. I was able to coax my legs up the hills reasonably well, but when I hit the downhill I just couldn't put enough energy in to my legs to really push the downhill. Even with the wind at my back. I was in struggles, heart rate going down towards 150, and legs just unwilling to go faster. It turned in to a bit more of a tempo run. Once we turned back in to the wind I was able to push a little harder and salvage a decent time, and the positive view is that I ran a 1:25 half on a hard course with minimal training, was able to hold under my marathon time the whole way, and had some push at the end.

More realistically: I need to do some speed and distance in the next couple of weeks.

A mile of 30-30 pickups along the river felt really good, ran the mile in 6:28 including the rests.

River jog. Busy week.

Back to ski track, to ski around in big circles, because it snowed. No traffic going out, took longer to dig the car free than to actually drive out the Pike. Weston somehow managed to find some dirt in two feet of snow (some from wind, some from going around corners too fast and tilling down, some from who the eff knows) but it was mostly pretty good. Soft, but firming up real fast as the sun went down.

Race was a single lap around as much of the flats as we could ski. Getting dark, but easy enough to see the snow. Not clear how hard people were going, but no one pushed up Mount Weston, which was fine, since the snow was kind of sketchy.

Out on the flats, I had a strategy. Get towards the front of the pack for the first leg back in to the wind. Draft down that stretch and then, near the end, attack, and attempt to gap. This went swimmingly, with about 100m to go I was in second behind a junior, attacked, and pulled him and myself about 30m up on the field going with the wind again. We maintained the gap back through the wind and in to the lights. The course was not well marked, so we went left for moar skiing, down the hill beside Mount Foljms. Skating to maintain speed I caught an edge in a groomer track—good job, Weston, putting a nice divot between the lanes—and went down hard. Nothing broken, but hard enough to turtle and then the pack came by, about six seconds behind.

So a good tactical race, but I went from being 6 seconds up on the pack to 6 seconds down. Oh well.

Cool down. Getting dark and icy. Then waiting forever for food, and such a bizarre combination of food. But food, which I like.

C • Bizarre combo 3