Training Log Archive: AliC

To bed after a good night (telescope was behaving better!) at 7.30, up at noon to squish in a quick final last altitude training!

Jumpity jump, knee fine

Finally trust the ankle to do a bit more on trail, uphill intervals from dormitorio to telescope road x 6, pretty good, get steepest at end and with stairs, lactic much!

2.22
2.29 (space out?)
2.21
2.20
2.18
2.20

A good observing run, all but one of our target galaxies with sufficient data now! We'll just have to leave that one be, they're taking the instrument we're using off this telescope in 2 weeks and moving it to Arizona. So Southern galaxies will not be observable in Brackett gamma, at least for the next 2 years...

C • No near-IR at Tololo? 6

Event: Hudson Highlander XVI
 

Woo, a good night! Clear, dark skies, good seeing (how much the pesky atmosphere fuzzes up the image), but the telescope wouldn't point worth crap. Luckily the FOV is huge, so still have our galaxies. Still, not much confidence if the telescope can't point within an arcmin!!

Last few standard star obs, then sleepy times!

C • Atmosphere 3

Long run in honor of Highlander- wish I was there! Woke up, slapped on the sunscreen and headed out. A bit down Neil's road and back and just on all available roads/paths at the observatory. Some are pseudo-paths that are really just raised dirt mounds covering water pipes (I think). There's even a mini-ascensor from a building slightly lower up to the telescopes, not sure if I noticed that before!

Ate a granola bar before, stopped 1h20 in for water and some durazno néctar, trying to be more conscious of eating/drinking for long things... stomach was fine with both options, but of course, wasn't going near race pace. Requested a bunch of food for night lunch tonight, will eat lots at dinner, but still have the rest of the night to weather!

3 x 12 push ups
3 x 15, 12 hammies
3 x 20 dips

To bed at 7.30, up at 2pm, and out the door to run! Legs feeling better today.

Intervals around the ~1 mi paved loop at the observatory. It's pretty hilly, and started in the middle of one of the climbs, so counter-clockwise got: up-down-upand clockwise got: down-killer continuous up-down. I thought I'd be slower on the ones with continuous up (2,4) but not the case...
7.08
7.08
7.25 (what?)
7.06
Apparently zoned out on the 3rd... that was way slower!
~3min recoveries

C • Heart rate fluctuations 3

Gosh, so unsure exactly what is doing this, but my outer hammies are *killing* me, super sore. Best guess is that it's the shoes I brought to run in- they are kinda light trail runners that I don't run in that often, maybe are just enough different somehow that they are aggravating...

Loosened up in the warm up, at least, although still mild constant pain throughout workout.

Yay! Right knee didn't freak out when I did drills today. It's the grapevine it seems to not like, did that a little more cautiously...

Hill sesh, 5 x 2 min with increasing recovery from 1 min + 15s each time, just running back down hill. The increasing recovery was more a function of the hill running out than wanting more recovery, started at the bottom of the 1 mi paved loop, and up to the telescopes.

3 x 12 push ups
3 x 12 of 2 of the hammie exercises (one is impos without exercise ball)
3 x 20 dips

And observing! Clear skies, relatively cool, still a high near-IR background, not quite sure why, had to change exposure times to not overexpose chips... and still have drift issues like last year, why won't the telescope just look where we tell it? But those problems are now worked-around, so Brackett gamma photon are being counted!!

C • observing 14

Off the overnight bus in La Serena, but was still dark out, so just stuck tight in the bus station until it got light. Then went for a stroll down to the beach by the lighthouse. Big, big ocean. Then back to town and up to the observatory headquarters before being driven up to the mountain! Secretary was a bit confused I didn't show up in a cab from the airport, but whatever, I'm totally a fan of the Chilean overnight bus. Way more comfy than an airplane, I slept just fine, although not super-long. Shortly up to mountain top!

Gorgeous desert mountain scenery, nice thin altitude-training air, and I go and twist my ankle, while just on the dirt road in first 8 min. Grr. Expect it to be less bad than my Billygoat ankle twist, because I didn't go over on it multiple times while out running, but it's sore now. So back to the ankle brace for o when I get back, sad, it's been so nice to feel confident running without it for past few weeks!! Will make myself stay on roads for at least tomorrow, maybe next day, but at some point it's just soooo boring...

Tried to do drills, weird inner right-knee pain. Bah, not my exercise day...

10 min abs, 2 min back, 2 min side planck.

C • that's quite a mile time! :) 3

Bus in to Santiago, then right back out to Valparaiso. Very cool city! It's a port town, with a little flat bit right at the bottom, then sprawls up steep hills on all sides. Lots of little stairways and super-steep roads and many ascensores (=funiculars) to take folks up, although seems like some of those are closing now. As I understand, they are all run privately, so I guess when one stops making money, it just stops operating.

Spent lots of the day walking, sometimes I turned GPS on, but no track seems to exist... First stop was to head up up up to the house, or one of the houses, of Chile's most famous and much beloved poet, Pablo Neruda. He had a good mentality of keeping the fun and play in life, even when an important grown-up (he was also an ambassador, regional representative). That spirit is very evident in his house, both in structure and decoration. He had these portraits of a queen and king arranged so that they were looking at each other from across the room and maybe my favorite was a stuffed-as-in-flight bright pink bird from Venezuela hanging in the dining room.

Other than that, wandered! Up and down and all around. Saw the big fancy city buildings, the hill-perched houses, the port, a few ascensores. Stopped when I was hungry for lunch, which turned out was the super-awkward time of 3.30 (no one else eating...). Restaurant was truly amazing, advertised being a 'cocina de mercado', which sounded good to me. Fancier than I was expecting, but the food was so utterly scrumptious (Rockfish with garbanzo bean puree and kiwi-physallis sauce) that I totally don't mind it wasn't somehow traditionally Porteño. Chatted with the waiter, who just lived in Oslo for past 7 years, but nope, wasn't into orienteering or skiing.

When I got bored/tired of wandering, was about 7 and unfortunately all museums/other things were closing. Oops! Went back towards the bus station and watched the sun set from the only pier that people are allowed on (all others are a working port still). Then supermarket to buy some snacks and a short excursion up a nearby hill to get a view of the city at night, then just hung out in the bus station, was less keen on exploring the city alone at night and pretty darn exhausted! (Finished the da Vinci Code, had started on the train to JFK, talk about an addicting read...)

Photos

C • other attractions of Valparaiso 5

Morningski with Alex, specific strength version, first time at least for me of the season... oooh, single-stick. Well, arms won't get stronger on their own... but really, things go much better as soon as I can involve my core at least for dp.

We also added awkward ski-o skate as one of the exercises, just one time up on each side, but it hurt and is good for ski-o, so should be a keeper, replace boring V2, I vote!

Very drafty version of paper handed off to boss, now off to Chile!