Training Log Archive: Sandy

Enjoyable loop on the upper half of my side of the valley. Did it in the opposite direction that I usually go and much prefer it this way - a steep downhill early, then lots of gentle ups and a few downs with a mostly flat finish through the meadows.

Did 11 miles out and back (for 22) along the AT starting at Little Gap (Blue Mountain Ski area) and heading north. It's probably the flatest 11 miles in PA but lots of rocks. It was actually a 9 hour round trip plus half an hour rest at the turn around but the way out didn't feel like work. The weather finally broke last night and I barely worked up a sweat all day. I'll count the 4 1/2 hours back though as my legs were tired and my feet sore and we kept the pace up. The last half hour was downhill over boulders - tough going and my knee is a bit sore.

C • 3

A little longer route down on Forbidden Drive.

Down the hill, on the bike path along the Schuylkill River towards Valley Forge for a while, turned around and then took the long way home - hill is twice as long but half as steep.

Event: DVOA Valley Forge Mt. Misery
 

Red course at DVOA local event. New map: Mt. Misery. New piece of Valley Forge with some very open woods on the hill, not too many fields and some Fatlands type terrain lower down. Pretty clean run with only a couple 10-15 second too high/low type errors and then a total botch up of the run in from the GO control to finish for almost an extra minute!

Red - Splits

About 30 minutes of jogging on the lower trails on the far side of the creek, followed by some walking. Just trying to keep things fun. First time in a while jogging has felt ok - maybe the walking has helped or maybe the humidity (which was lower today) was affecting me more than I realized.

Same as Monday but only jogged in one place so was keeping a prety good walking pace.

About the same distance as yesterday, maybe a little less since I didn't jog much today and yesterday was mostly flat. Today I went up and down as many hills as I could keeping to the trails on my side of the creek, finally coming down to Forbidden Drive and doing two miles along the creek back to one of the trails that leads up to my street.

Mostly walked trying to see how much under a 15 min mile pace I could do and how hard that would be to sustain. Jogged 100 meters or so several times just to loosen up my legs. I'm not sure how to compare a workout like this to jogging 11 minute miles; but at least with this I could sustain it for more than 15 minutes and although tired and sore it was fun so easy to want to do again.

Helped crew for Charlie Leonard for the Vermont 100. It was a brutally humid weekend and over 50% of the field DNFed. Charlie finished in about 28 hours - a very impressive result for his first 100 miler! A very fun weekend - the athletes (and pacers) were awesome.

Tried to run on the trails and had to walk it home after about 15 minutes. Not sure what's going on.

Rode the Valley Forge bike path to Conshohocken and back. It's about 2 miles downhill to the Schuylkill River, 4 miles to Conshohocken on totally flat, 4 miles back and then 2 miles uphill to finish.

Did about 15 minutes of stretching, crunches and push ups after I got home.

C • Uphill 1

Only managed two miles on the Drive plus the walk down and home. Pretty hot and I don't think I drank enough fluids today. (I've cut diet coke from my diet and that was 80% of my hydration!) Did some "speed" work the last half mile with three sets of 50 paces at a much faster speed followed by 50 paces at a very slow speed, aka walk.

Local DVOA event, FCN, epunching

FCN; Red course at local DVOA event. Spent more than 17 minutes looking for #7 which was on the south side of a charcoal terrace. It never occured to me to look *off* the platform and I kept coming back to the same place wondering what the heck was going on. On the 4th attack, I came from a different angle, up a line of rocky ground and only just barely noticed the flag in a bunch of green. Frustrating. Only one other slight miss but recovered quickly. A physical course with lots of green in places but the last handful of controls were very nice and went through some sections of FCN I've never seen before (which is hard to believe as I've spent a lot of time on that map!).

Many hours of yard worrk today - should log it as weight training but won't.

walk down (1249), two miles pathetically slow (527, 524, 525, 516), walk up (629), jog the hill (313), walk around the corner and home (205).

Decided to go as slowly as I needed to so that I was still enjoying myself. Rained all morning; felt good to get out.

Did my normal 3 miles on Forbidden Drive. Felt awful; had to walk some of the third mile. Haven't had to do that in a while.

Medium loop with medium hills - stayed on this side of the creek but went down all the way to Forbidden Drive and back up.

I have a new knee brace; I guess they decided the old one was beat up enough that they were better off just replacing it! It comes with a lifetime warranty and I've now worn out the hinge twice; each time it lasted about 4 years. Cool if that means I get a new brace every 4 years on them!

Event: Indenpendence O' Day - Sprints
 

Resutls from today's sprint races at Ridley and Willows are here .

Sprint #1 at Ridley. Lost a minute or more at #6; sloppy but not too bad in a few other places.

Error on #6 - maybe a minute. Not too bad everywhere else.

Did not mess up #6 again! Got confused out of 7 when I couldn't see the stream drawn along the edge of the green on the map and got momentarily flumoxed by the second (large) stream I could see. Stood there for a bit and then ignored the stream and went to where the trail I wanted had to be and only halfway down the trail figuring out there really was a stream on the map. But other than that, a pretty clean effort.

Raced all three without my knee brace as UPS goofed and left it overnight in a facility in CA so it didn't make it Philadelphia by Friday. Knee felt fine during the first two, was a bit sore during the third and is now very sore but feeling better as I ice it.