In a hotel parking lot in NY, off I-684, Peggy and I helped Max get underway with riding his bicycle, sans training wheels. The flatter ground than we have close-by at home helped a lot. Max was very soon able to ride without us having to hold him up any more--yeah!
From Northfield Rd., the Bethsda Metro Station. I haven't commuted on bike for a while since my commuter bicycle is in need of repairs and I can't tow Max's trailer with my other bikes. My commuter bike is still not fixed correctly (at least the chain doesn't skip) but I managed to get 2-3 gears worth of chain movement and get out after driving Max to school and driving back home. I felt extra inclined to ride by bike so as not to completely miss Bike-to-Work Day.
Running (Street & Trail) 42:30 [3] 4.65 mi (9:08 / mi) +171m8:12 / mi slept:4.5 weight:180.5lbs
From the Woodley Park Metro Station, I ran down into Rock Creek Park, crossed through Dumbarton Oaks to Glover Archbold Park via the Dumbarton Oaks Trail and the Wesley Heights Trail. From there, I ran up the Glover Archbold Trail out to the Tenleytown Metro Station via Van Ness St. and Wisconsin Ave. This was a hilly route, net gain route. I felt out of shape but it was enjoyable. I hadn't run this route in a while. I had stopped my watch at an intersection and didn't quite get it started again until later in the run so my time is estimated.
On this run, I experimented with using bi-focals for the first time. As feared, I did feel a little more heat around the eyes but it wasn't as much as I thought it'd be. I thought I'd ordered a sport eyeglass through Amazon but these were made by DeWalt, the power tool maker. They worked fine though I'm not sure the +2 diopter was the right number for me. I had no problem running down steep hills on the rough trail and could see out straight without noticeable distortion. I didn't get the lenses sweaty but worry that it still could happpen on a hotter day. It was about 80 F when I ran and the humidity was not high. After the run, I bought a sports strap though I had no problems keeping them on while on the trails.
Having gotten home early enough, I went out with Max to help him learn to ride his bicycle without training wheels. It was hard work and I actually broke a sweat keeping him from falling over. Having had to bend over myself, my back hurt too. I had to take breaks. We made it all the way to Bradley Hills Elementary School and back (about 0.85 miles all together), after Max had some time to play at the playground. Max did fall over once on the way out. I held him more tightly after that but some looseness is necessary for him to learn to turn with his balance. He'd get distracted by noises and other people a lot. He'd do things like turn to look back and loose focus on staying straight or up even. He wanted to move to trickier things too like riding on grass and bumpy things even though he hadn't really been able to do the basics, let alone master the basics. He was much better at keeping balance while returning which was mostly on flatter ground or climbing. Several seconds of riding at a time seemed unassisted.
From Northfield Rd., Jefferson St. to Garfield St./Oneida Ln. to Sonoma Rd. to Hempstead Ave. to Johnson Ave. to Burley Dr. to Beech Ave. to North Bethesda Middle School, to Bradmoor Dr. to Huntington Pkwy. to Moorland Ln. to Custer Rd. to Northfield Rd. My stomach had been upset before this slowish run. It had been raining the last 2 days but finally stopped. Getting home from work at a reasonable hour got me out to run.
US Team Trials: Lake Welch in Harriman State Park. Warm-up jog to the start of the Classic event. My heart rate looks to be kind of high for as easy as I was taking this jog. I hardly felt any strain.
12 PM
Orienteering race (Foot) 1:39:55 8.1 km (12:20 / km) +340m10:12 / km ahr:148 max:170
US Team Trials: Classic. Rockhouse in Harriman State Park. I had some hopes for a decent navigation day though it didn't quite materialize. I started second to last and was caught by Jeff Saeger at the first control. I had stopped at the first set of rocks and done circles there before moving on. On the way to #2, I stayed a bit more right than Jeff did though he had decided his route faster and was ahead. As we neared the hill, I knew I needed to be more to the right but Jeff was still to the left. When I saw a control, I took-off for it even though I knew it was too far left still. I recalled that Peggy had done a similar thing. I knew enough not to run all the way to #3, and instead, used it to attack #2 which as only a short way away.
After punching #2 and #3, I took off ahead of Jeff. I wanted to stay in the open woods as much as possible so I ran through a valley rather than head for a trail to go over a hill. This meant that I'd have to get through some green which kept pushing me right. I got through most of the way on a deer trail which really helped with all of the blueberry and mountain laurel. I was able to correct by coming left and once I got over a ridge and saw some rocks, I felt I had a pretty good idea of where I was. Just ahead 100m, I saw Jeff with Phil Bricker in chase. They were just leaving the trail. I quickly assessed the flatish terrain and thought I was reading my way in to the control pretty well. Phil went left and Jeff went right at some point. With a nice reentrant and cliffs, I thought I was reading my way into #4 pretty well and got to a control just behind Jeff. I commented how I'd taken a different route here and felt it was neat getting there at about the same time again. He answered back about having not wanted to go through the green like I did and while listening I suppose, I didn't take a good look at the control code--this must have been the only one that I didn't read carefully all weekend and it appears to have been my downfall--I probably was never at #4. I took off heading for what I thought was #5 but (I'm still not 100% sure). I stayed high while Jeff fell back and as staying lower. The contours weren't that distinct and I wasn't too worried about it not matching up until I passed what I thought was a knoll and got to a clearing. I wandered back low to a reentrant where I saw Phil Bricker and found #6. I was perplexed at how I'd gotten so far past #6 and #5. I kept hugging the cliff tops and worked my way back to #5, the ran back to #6. As I was descending the reentrant to #7, Phil was still hunting around. I went to a spur to the left but right over to the control after that.
Going to #8, Phil got ahead a bit. We started hitting thick mountain laurel so I ran right more, and around it. Eventually I crossed a small intermittant trail and a marshy stream before hitting the main trail that I was looking for. We'd run through the woods more than we should have. On the trail, I moved out well. Leaving it near the lake, I ran right past #11 and a bit above #12 w/o seeing it. I felt good about my line but started second guessing myself when I didn't see it. I also got drawn off to the left by a Blue coures control. I ran higher, then u-turned at a reentrant. Doubting myself, I also thought I should come back to the Blue control to re-check the code. Eventually I found #8 lower than the Blue control and just past it. I ran the butterfly loop pretty smoothly. I was only off a little on #10, going to the lower spur to my left first. Back at #9 and #13, I spiked #14 and wondered a bunch about what to do with #15. I ran to the left a bit hugging the steeper hillside and cliffs after the saddle. I was running well despite the blueberry bushes. I crossed the intermittant trail and dismissed using it as it would have taken me down unecessarily. I crossed the streams at a bend where they were splitting an popped out on the trail just at a tiny kink, right where I wanted to be. I attacked from there and spiked the control.
I made a bad choice about leg #16. I started to go up the steep hill and past the radio tower. Once there, I chickened out about crashing down through the green on the hillside, even though I'd laid out a route with a lot of white woods on it. Wishy-washy, I noticed that the trail leading just under #16 came out near the long road down the mountain so I ran for it. I moved well but this little maneuver was unecessary had I seen the route earlier--I would have saved about 4 contours and some distance. After coming down the road and up the trail, I spiked #16. With #17 near a gate that I went past on the way to the start, I wasn't worried about hitting it, but I hit it efficiently too. In the process, I'd closed distance on a junior. Going to the finish, I tried to chase him down but only managed to get to his heels. We'd both left the pavement. My spikes were bothering my feet but the sand slowed us too. I'd seen Sergei Zheik several times on the course as he picked-up controls and saw him on this run-in with a bag full of controls in tow and I was barely going faster than him while working hard myself.
After downloading, I didn't immediately realize that I had no split time for #4. My other splits were wierd and I show punching #5 twice so I probably did mistake #5 for #4--sad but true. I can at least take away from the weekend that I was able to run better than expected, given my poor training. I rubbed my calfs before the race this morning and can definately feel soreness in my right calf and achilles tendon that is not present in my left leg. I'll just need to keep being careful while trying to get in some running and bicycling training.