Training Log Archive: Spike

Warming up at Blue and Gray. Cool (upper 40s) and steady rain, but no wind. My hands got cold while warming up, but I figured they'd be fine if I was running harder (which turned out to be true).

The red course. I planned to run at the bottom range of an honest effort (so avg h.r. of about 160-163). But, I discovered that running a little easier worked better. Why? Because all of the mud and water made it slippery. It felt like the harder you went, the more you slipped (both pushing off and planting your foot). After a bit of experimenting on the first couple of legs, I settled on an effort that was a little easier than my plan, but felt like it didn't actually cost me any speed. All of the slipping at a slightly harder effort wasn't much fun.

I made my way around the course without too much trouble. One leg near the end got a bit strange when I struggled with some thick forest and trails that had nearly disappeared (the map must be over 10 years old and the park had a lot of ice storm damage a couple of years ago that resulted in some re-routing of the horse trails).

I got a bit cold in the last 1.5 km.

Red - Splits

A little easy cycling...followed by pigging out on Bryant's BBQ.

Easy jogging at Bonner Park. Perfect conditions - very light wind, cool temp and an empty park.

Ran my test loop in a new PR of 14:48.7

The run felt pretty good. I felt like I was holding a good, steady pace and concentrating well. I guess I'm a little disappointed I didn't go a bit faster - closer to 14:30 would have left me feeling really good.

Bonner Park - Splits

Some easy cycling.

I felt sleepy all day.

Jogging at PNS. The last 35 minutes was fairly hilly.

It was dark by the time I was done. I was stumbling on the rocky hill at the end. Soon it'll be time to get out the headlamp!

C • Soon? 2

No exercise today. But, I devoted some time to orienteering. The non-productive time was working on my Omanager team (setting up training and looking at getting some new runners). The productive time was playing around with some basemap materials for a little area at Smithville Lake that I might work on this winter. The area is small but filled with mountain bike trails. It'd probably make for a nice, little fieldchecking project.

Very easy pace on the trails at Clinton Lake. I began by putting out controls for Mary's beginner instruction course - cool and wet weather wasn't exactly ideal for beginners.

Running on the trails was fun despite a few muddy spots (some of the clay soil makes your shoes get heavy and feels like biking into a headwind).

I felt tired the last 30 minutes or so.