Training Log Archive: hkleaf

Event: Cuyahoga Valley Billygoat
 

MVOC Harvest-O - Englewood

MVOC Harvest O - Englewood Metropark, Dayton, Ohio.
Red Course: 5.8k, 102m, 12c. (1:12,500, 6m)
Course Setter: Matt Bond
67F, sunny, and clear.

Legs are pretty achy from yesterday's effort, so doing the Cuyahoga Goat is out of the question. Besides, Dayton is a much shorter drive than Cleveland. This makes 3 days in a roll I've made the trek to Dayton though (waaay too much driving). The plan was to take it easy and just get in some map training. Take it easy I did, other than that the outing was mostly a disaster.

Having never been to Englewood before, I was expecting to see the more typical SW Ohio spur & gully terrain. As it turned out this was rather flat (less than 2% climb!). There were probably enough features on the map, but I wasn't spotting them nor using them smartly. The forest was a bit thick (even in the white areas), causing me to run by controls many times throughout. In addition, I was badly distracted by stinging nettles (or some other similar plant) while running. The itching/stinging sensation got to me and zapped my concentration completely.

I overhsot #1, wandered around #2 for eternity and yet never found the control, messed up my route to #3, ran right by #5, and managed to go pass #11 thrice before actually seeing the flag! It's as if I've never even orienteered before. Physically I wasn't able to run fast, but mentally I should've been more prepared. This doesn't bode well for the Sprint Finals coming up.

Edit: As a side note, I'm not sure what to think about this 1:12500 map scale. It's just weird. I never got a feel for it, and repeatedly messing up with my distance judgement during the run.

C • Don't worry too much. 6

Helped with control pickup afterwards. Did it in a slow jog until the last one, where I stepped awkwardly into a pit and twisted my L-ankle slightly. Fast walk back to the car from there.

A bit of half-hearted stretching. Hamstrings and legs in general are a bit tight and sore today.

Red - Splits

50s, clear, wind - 7:30a, warm up run near the AF Museum at WPAFB, after watching the fly-over and marathon start.

USAF Half Marathon - Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio.
A very chilly day (compared to recent standards) with temps in the low 50s at the start. My body was a little shocked by this at first, but after a brief warm up, it was fine. Aside from the constant light wind, the conditions are absolutely perfect for the race.

The course takes you through different parts of WPAFB. It's relatively flat, with some gently rolling hills, plus a couple of longer/steeper climbs. The marathoners get to run around the larger airfield, while the halfers turn around before reaching the airfield for an out-n-back route. I started near the front (top 25), running with the lead group of women through the first mile. Then came a mile-long hill, where I stayed with the first female until about mile 4. The plan was to go out at ~6:30/mi for 3mi, then reevaluate, pick up pace if possible to average 6:20/mi. I was pretty close to target, still feeling good, I used the downhill at 4 to pick up the pace.

By now, I had past the lead woman, and focused my attention on the next target - guy (cadet?) in grey shirt 200m ahead. He would become my battle all the way till the end of the race. Every time there's a downhill, he'd run away from me, but then I'd close the gap on the uphills. Lucky for me I gained more on the ups than I lost on the downs. So by mile 11, I was maybe 10s behind. Next up was the mile-long hill, only this time we're going down. I tried to pick up my pace and get the legs turn over as quickly as possible. GPS tells me I'm running sub 5:40/mi pace, and yet guy in grey shirt is still running away from me! Knowing the last mile+ to the finish is all flat, I began to sense the battle was lost. That's when I caught a huge break - a stiff headwind picked up! This essentially turned the last flat mile into more of an uphill run. :) Being shorter and smaller myself, I generally don't feel the effects of a strong headwind as much as others. So I inched my way closer, until finally overtaking him with about 3/4 mile to go. That boosted my morale, and I quickly turned my attention to the next target, who was probably <50m up ahead. Maybe he was slowing down, or I found some rocket-booster to put on my feet, I ran by him with under 1/2 mi to go. Coming down the final straight away, I kicked it in hard, but with a smile on my smile because I knew I had run well. It was a very cool finish, running down the airstrip with vintage aircrafts lined up on both sides, along with a nice cheering crowd greeting you. It truly was a picture perfect day!

Splits: (1) 6:26, (2) 6:33, (3)? - I hit stop instead of lap on my watch!, 6:09 (4) 5:57, (5) 6:05, (6) 6:12, (7) 6:01, (8) 5:51, (9) 6:15, (10) 6:12, (11) 5:57, (12) 5:42, (13) 6:23, (F) 1:02

Some of the mile markers were off, esp. the last couple - (13) was 1.12mi, and (F) was 0.2mi. Anyhow, since I messed up my watch, I had no clue as to what my official time and placement was. On the posted prelim results, my name/time was nowhere to be found. Later, Don somehow found out for me it was 1:20:46, which means 11th overall and 5th in my age group (using the prelim results)!!! Since 2 of the overall top 3 were also in my age group, I got excited about possibly receiving the 3rd place age-group award. So we stood and waited, and waited, for nothing! The announced 3rd place winner had a time of 1:20:06, so I was just outside. Looking at the official results now, nobody ran a time of 1:20:06! There's a 1:21:06, but he's not even in my age group. Not that this is a big deal, as it's not the first time I've finished just outside of awards. Regardless, it's a great day. I performed well beyond my expectations, as did many of my friends who also made the trip to Dayton. All the flyovers (C-5, C-17, ......) were really awesome to watch as well.

A real brief stretch just before the starting gun. I did a lot of walking around afterwards to try to stay loose, but never did get in a stretch.

After suffering thru traffic to pick up my race packet at the Nutter Center, I drove all the way back for a late game. First of the new session, and after a 9-mo personal hiatus, I felt a bit awkward on the pitch. While I was moving well, my touch was bad. The rest of the team played well though, to the tune of a 5-0 victory. I got lucky and scored on a redirected shot.

87F, clear, sunny - Track workout at Withrow. It's really nice now that they've got it resurfaced, though it feels harder than Norwood's. Nothing too strenuous. Just trying to dial-in to my race pace.

8:06 - 1 mi.warm up
9:07 - 1 mi. cool down

2-mi tempo run @6:20 pace. Felt a little fast at times. Not confident I'll be able to keep it up for 13 miles. 6:30 may be more realistic.

10x100m strides w/ 20m recovery.

Had a VO2Max test done at the Spot, on a spinning bike. Breathing through the mask wasn't comfortable.

Results: AB=124, AT=163, VO2max=3900 ml/min, or 69ml/kg/min, HRmax=188. Apparently, during my aeboric zone, about half of the energy consumed comes from fat buring (5.0 of 9.9 KCal/min). Neat!

The tester said that since this was done on a bike, I can expect to add ~4 beats to my HR data for running activities.

*distance estimate.

Some stretching before the VO2max test.

A bit of everything.

80F, clear, pleasant (first signs of Fall maybe?) - Out-N-Back, negative split run from Crossroads (Madison-Observatory-Delta). Same workout as July 17, except this time I made it around Delta onto Erie before turning around. Legs still a little tired, but they churned out a pretty good pace anyhow. 759c.
30:00 out, 28:16 back.

Afterwards.

Low 70s, humid - Late night jaunt in the neighbourhood, after dinner at Aunt's and watching a bit of MNF. Testing out the new toy! Did 4x the small loop. 463c.
8:41, 8:32, 8:29, 8:32

C • New Toy? 5

Post-run stretch.