Training Log Archive: BorisGr

I ran to work in the morning after slacking off yesterday and not getting a workout in after the drive home from Columbus. It was cold and drizzly, but just fine for a run, with This American Life (courtesy of Alli) for company.

Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful. It was so nice to spend time with my parents.

Event: Susquehanna Stumble XVII
 

Elliptical intervals at the gym in Columbus with Alli. I did 8x3 minutes, with 1 minute easy.

Some stretching and back exercises after the intervals.

In Columbus, OH for Thanksgiving with Alli and Barney, visiting my parents.
Alli and I went to the local fitness club in the morning. It was really nice out, so I decided to run on a walking loop around the club instead. The goal was to start slow and gradually get a little faster with each loop, which worked ok, except for taking a wrong turn on the second loop. The loop is about 1.9km long with some small undulating hills.

10:07
10:22 (wrong turn)
9:45
9:27
9:05
8:44

I overslept my alarm and was awoken by Alli who was surprised I was still in bed. Managed to get out the door and make it to intervals with Crawlers just about on time, but was definitely not pushing it on the first interval. The group was running 5x1000m with 200m rest. I planned to do just 4 of the intervals, aiming for 3:45 pace. Worked out ok, except for the first one, when my body was clearly still waking up.

3:51
3:44
3:42
3:39

Elliptical at the gym after work. Nice chat with Alli (on the machine next to me) during the middle half-hour made the time go by quicker.

Warmup on stationary bike

Event: QOC Cabin John
 

Warmup and testing out new shoes

QOC Local Event at Cabin John on the first cold day of the fall.

It was a very good blue course for this area, set by Amber. There were several times when I had to think hard about route choice and also second-guessed myself a few times.

I felt like I got stronger and more confident as the race went on, which was a nice feeling to have. I lost about 1:15 or so going to #3, when I chose a route that went through the housing development, and the map did not exactly reflect reality there. In addition, I got chased by a massive dog (I think it was a bull mastiff) as I was running on the edge of the woods and someone's backyard.

Good race overall, and I even managed to edge Jon by about two minutes, for the first time this fall.

C • Well done 7

Blue - Splits

A lunchtime time with my co-worker Dave. We ran down the mall to Lincoln Memorial and back. It still feels unreal to have such cool places on my regular lunchtime run!

Elliptical.

My first attempt at track work in a while. I joined a Cardozo Crawlers training at Cardozo track. They were doing "hammer 400's", where you run 400's at regular interval pace, but run every 4th one much faster. The group was doing 12. I decided 8 was enough for me. My plan was to gradually get faster throughout the workout, if my body cooperated. I think it worked ok, though I certainly felt very slow and out of shape, having a hard time remembering how to run fast.

88
87
87
76
86
83
81
76

C • strides 3

Lunchtime run from work. Started with Charlie, but he had to stop after five minutes due to Achilles pain. I ran the rest by myself: down the mall, around Lincoln Memorial and back to capitol hill. Definitely not used to running!

C • not used to running 6

Taking it pretty easy today on the elliptical after the biggest week of training I've had in a few months, sadly.

Abs, glutes, thighs, and PT exercises.

Event: QOC Rosaryville - Mid Atlantic Championships
 

QOC Local Event and Mid-Atlantic Champs at Rosaryville on a beautiful, sunny day.

I somehow never got into this map and made some disastrous errors along the way. This was pretty different terrain from the places we usually run, in the sense that the woods were very thick, and so a lot of the best routes strung together series of trails. I was not good enough at being flexible and adapting to this approach, and I struggled with the mapping of the trails and vegetation the entire race.

I made a huge error on the way to #2, losing over 4 minutes. That definitely took some steam out, and I ran the rest of the race in a cruisey pace, though still got plenty tired and managed to make another big mistake at #12, losing 2 more minutes.

In the end, Jon T was very impressive, dominating the race. Wyatt showed good form too, and handed me a massive clobbering. I ended up 4th, with Kevin in 3rd.

Mid-Atlantic Relay Champs!

Really, really nice to have a relay. We have so few of them in the US, and they are so much fun.

I thought the format was genius for our orienteering community: a single category, with just one champion. Teams are made up of 3 people, and can be either 3, 6, or 9 points, based on sex and age. The 9 point teams start at time 0, the 6 point teams start 7 minutes later, and the 3 point teams another 7 minutes later. First team back wins.

If we ever have a US Relay Champs again, I think we could adopt similar rules for a more exciting competition, with more teams competing in the same category. What I would envision is something like this:

- 3 legs, orange (3.5km), yellow (2.5km), green (5km)
- A team can have any number of points
- The teams with the highest number of points start first
- After that, teams start 2 minutes after the first team for every point they have (so a 12 point team would have a 24 minute head start on a 3 point team)

What do you think?

Oh, the race itself: my teammates (Kevin and Hannah) did great, and reeled in 12 of the 14 minutes that we started behind the Riley Family Juggernaut from DVOA. But I had nothing and, despite pushing very hard right from the start, never caught sight of Wyatt, and gained a whopping 2 seconds on him over the entire race. I thought we had a really fun team, and would love to team up with those guys again next year to see if we can get revenge, especially if all three of us are actually healthy.

Thanks to everyone involved in putting on this meet, and a special thanks to Anna C for taking Barney around for a whole hour before the relay. He is a happy and tired beagle right now.

C • I like it 16

Blue - Splits

Relay Leg 3 - Splits

Elliptical

Annika was named Orienteering of the Year in Sweden today: http://www.orientering.se/grenar/orientering/nyhet...

Well deserved! Congratulations!

My work schedule has me off every other Friday, so I had the rare luxury of getting out into the woods on a weekday today! It was a beautiful day, and JonT joined me for Kenny's control picking loop at GFMD: http://attackpoint.org/route.jsp/route_793

I felt very slow and struggled to keep up with Jon, especially on the uphills, but it was a really fun training, and just a pleasure to run through these woods.

Pilates for abs, thighs, glutes, etc after returning from a long walk in Rock Creek Park with Mr. Barnacle B. Beagleson.

C • Mr. Barnacle B. Beagleson 2

Some stationary biking in the morning. Was going to do some strength/pilates, but ran out of time.

Yay day off!
Elliptical intervals at the gym. I did 1'-2'-3'-4'-5'-4'-3'-2'-1'.

Mostly stretching.

A nice three-hour hike in Rock Creek on a gorgeous day. Barney was a trooper and kept pulling nearly the entire way.

Lunchtime run with Charlie from work. Down Capitol Hill, along the mall, around Washington Monument, and back up the hill.

Event: QOC Hemlock Overlook
 

I drove out to Hemlock Overlook again in the morning for the junior training I was organizing. Valerie and Greg L helped me print the maps, and they looked great! Barney and I walked around and checked the streamers, and then it was time for the training.

We had a nice big group from Fork Union (9 kids), plus Diana and Anna, so that made for a fun atmosphere. I had them do one-man relays, with 4 loops of 500-600m each, in preparation for the rare relay at next weekend's Mid-Atlantic champs. I think they had a good time, and there was some nice head-to-head racing too. And two of the top three finishers were girls, which is pretty cool.

Coaching the juniors is so much more fun when there is a big, enthusiastic group like this.

My back was feeling sore, so I did not go out on a course (the fact that I had hung some of the controls and then done the night-O on the same map didn't make it any more appealing). Instead I did an hour on the elliptical at the gym in the evening.

I need to start logging my back and core exercises again to motivate myself to do them more regularly.

Barney helped motivate me by licking my face while I did crunches.

C • helped 2

Event: QOC Hemlock Overlook Night-o
 

Hanging flags at Hemlock Overlook in the pouring rain.

I ran the advanced long course at the QOC Hemlock Overlook Night-O.

I was pretty tired from the start, and started feeling my back after a few controls. Add to that a sizable mistake on #2, and it wasn't an amazing race. I ended up 3rd (I think), nearly three minutes behind Kenny and over 6 behind Jon T, who had a very impressive performance.

I love night-O, and I was really enjoying myself out there until a weird incident/confrontation spoiled my mood.

I had just punched #10 on my course with Chris G a few steps behind me. Another runner punched the control maybe another 20 seconds behind. It was a steep climb out of 10, and I lost some time in mountain laurel while trying to break out to the trail that I planned to take for my route. Chris was with me, and the other runner took a better line (and was probably climbing faster) and got to the trail just ahead of me.

We all ran the trail together for about 250 meters - the other runner in front, then me, then Chris. The other runner was pretty quick, and I was too tired to pass him, but was certainly able to keep up while reading the map. At one point the trail drops down a slope and then hits a T-junction. My plan was to leave the trail there, cross the stream, and climb towards the next, parallel, trail.

At the T-junction the other runner pauses, and I get ahead of him and continue with my plan. As I pass him, he turns towards me and says, aggressively, "I don't like to be followed." I was taken completely and totally aback by this. I certainly wasn't following him, in fact I was currently passing him and going on with my route, and anyway, it seems to me very out of line to just confront someone like that in the middle of the woods after having been together for a maximum of 2 minutes.

I asked "Are you being serious?" in probably not the most conciliatory tone I could have chosen - and that's definitely my fault. He continued to accuse me of following and saying that I left the trail at the same spot as he did. This was true, of course, and completely consistent with the route I had already chosen as I was leaving #10. When the runner stopped, I kept going, which is not something a follower would do. He told me that I had been running too closely behind him and again accused me of following, presenting the evidence that I left the trail at the same time he did.

At this point i overreacted and started talking back. I regret doing this - I should not have escalated. I am sure I said something dumb, like "What the fuck are you talking about?" In the end, we exchanged names, and Chris nudged me along to keep going.

There were just a couple of controls left. I finished the course and wait for the other runner to finish. When he came in, I immediately came over to shake his hand and make peace - I had no interest of leaving this lingering bad taste in my mouth.

He shook my hand, and then again proceeded to tell me that I had been following him and that he was justified in confronting me in the woods. Again, I should have let it go, and again I didn't because I am stubborn and terrible at walking away when I feel I'd been wronged. He told me that my response was disproportionate, which I completely agree with. However, he refused to acknowledge that his accusation was totally baseless and unnecessarily aggressive. He told me that I should have just said "I am not following you" instead of "Are you kidding me?", but I am not convinced that would have made a difference, since he was clearly already angry when he started talking to me.

At the finish he accused me of screwing up his race because he was distracted by our encounter, and I am sorry for that, but I don't think I did anything to initiate the confrontation.

Anyway, he reported the incident to the meet officials at the finish, and so poor Kathleen had to give us each a talking-to.

I thought that this was over and done with, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I feel like writing about it. The bottom line is that both of us were wrong. He was absolutely wrong to confront me and accuse me of following. And I was wrong to engage and escalate, instead of either ignoring or de-escalating. I am 35 years old, and still I haven't learned that lesson.

C • Actually... 14

Long Advanced - Splits

Lunchtime soccer. It was a gorgeous day today, just a pleasure to be outside. We were joined by Robbie Russell, who played in the Norwegian premier league for a few years, and then in the MLS, finishing his career with DC United two years ago. Now he lives around the corner from where we play. It was mesmerizing to watch him dribble past, create space, pass the ball - really fun!

C • Soccer 2

Elliptical in the morning

A strength/interval training video with Alli at home. Barney refused to participate.

C • Freeletics 14

Event: QOC Great Falls
 

QOC Local Event at Great Falls.

I did the Long Advanced course, which is the equivalent of Blue at this event, where we only get to offer four courses due to weird constraints from the park. Peggy set a really nice course, with a good mix of shorter and longer legs, and making excellent use of the terrain despite the limitations. I felt surprisingly good despite coming off a cold and continuous, never-ending back issues, and had a pretty clean run to finish a minute behind Jon T and another minute and a half ahead of Kenny.

I feel like my results this fall are no worse than a year ago, even though this has been a really bad training year. I think I will attribute this to changing my approach to orienteering in QOC-land. When I first got here, I noticed that I was much more tentative in the woods than I needed to be, more used to the low-visibility, high-detail Scandinavian terrain. Here in the Mid-Atlantic, you have to be more aggressive and keep your head up, spotting features far away and pushing hard to get to them. I saw this in action several times when running with Kenny and Jon last year, and I think I have gotten better at it. But the trick is to be able to adjust to harder terrain when venturing out of the QOC terrain bubble.

My last few QOC races have also gone pretty well technically (<1 minute in mistakes according to AP for the three races combine). The hope now is to manage to stay healthy for a while and start building some speed and endurance for next year while maintaining the technique... That part has been difficult and frustrating this year.

C • Yay orienteering! 2

Adv - Long - Splits