Training Log Archive: Sandy

Event: Flying Pig X (OCIN)
 

Middle Distance course at the Flying Pig. Fun course - really enjoyed it. Wasn't pushing hard - saving myself for the all important relay! Some silly route choices (seem to be having a problem with that lately) going around when I could have gone straight. Made two errors: got down close to the buildings on #5 and took a while to sort out what I had done and went by my control #7, looked at the number and said nope not mine, hmm somehow must be at this other reentrant only to realize halfway to the next reentrant that it was in fact mine and had to backtrack. I'm not a good judge of time when I'm in a race but I'm guessing 1-2 minutes each at least. I'll attribute it to having to get up really early to catch my flight only to have my flight cancelled and having to scramble to make it all work. (It ended up working very well: got to fly to Cincinnati instead of Dayton and got a great car rental for the economy price.)

Course setting at Fair Hill for local event. Great day to play hookey from school!

TNT - Excellent workout tonight. Normal 5 miles on the drive with Anne and Dasha. Forgot to take a split after the jog down but that's usually 8 1/2 to 9 minutes and we finished the 5 miles at 55 minutes. So not too much over 9 minutes for the 5 miles. Set a good pace early and managed to keep it up. Jogged the second half of the hill home. Gourmet food again afterwards thanks to Anne.

Green course at QOC local event at PWF. Back for more in the morning before heading home. Nice course but could feel the night-o in my legs (or was it the bottle of wine we finished off around 2am?). Pretty clean run just not much pep. Beautiful woods; great weather.

Totally, totally bummed. I was saving the Atlantic Monthly puzzle to do during the OCIN trip only to discover there is no longer a puzzle in the Atlantic Monthly. Will have to find a new source for these.

Night-O brown course at QOC local event at PWF after taking Scott back to UMd at the end of his spring break and helping out with epunching. Went out with Valerie and we just had fun. A couple scary descents down steep slopes and cold stream crossings. Small bobbles at 2, 3 and 6; all the result of going off line to get down steep stuff or across water. Nailed others though which is always cool at night. Not that many people in the woods so glad for the company.

TNT - Media. Trail run in Tyler. Got completely turned around and had no clue where I was. I was "sure" we had to turn right to get back to where we started but it was in fact left. Good thing I was just following along behind. Good food and company afterwards.

TNT - the usual crowd of 8. Decided to do about 50 minute run on the drive. Unusual for our group, we couldn't find a rythmn that suited everyone tonight. Ended up doing a couple hard bits, some steady tempo bits, and some slow bits - 5 miles in 49:33. Must have had some fast miles in there since the last mile was pretty slow and we even walked a short bit. Felt pretty strong through 4.

Sprint course at Hibernia. Worked epunch for a while then Nancy took over and I went out on the sprint first, figuring I'd never do it after a course. Very fun. I prefer the really short ones like this. A little sloppy on a couple of controls because the woods were a little green and the footing rocky so I went around and got off-line in a few places. Never so much that I didn't know where I was, just enough that it cost me 10 seconds here, 15 seconds there sort of thing. But really, really fun.

Green course at Hibernia. A very well set course. Some route choice legs, then several short legs, then a route choice, then some short legs, etc. Just lots of fun. One small error - overran a control by 20 meters - but clean other than that though I doubt I took optimal routes in several cases.

C • Thanks for the compliments 1

After sitting in my car working epunch for a bit, when I got out and tried to run I had the same weird feeling in my leg that I had Thursday night like it just didn't want to work properly. But after a couple of minutes of jogging around it felt fine. I felt pretty good today running - the lingering congestion from whatever cold or virus I had didn't affect me. Probably helped that it was a really flat course. I didn't push really hard, but felt pretty srong throughout both courses, able to run whenever I felt I could in the rocks and the green. I never ran hard, but felt pretty smooth at times - pretty neat feeling.

C • Yeah Sandy! 1

C • Yeah Sandy! 1

Was good about stretching after running yesterday and knees feel okay this morning. My abs are sore though -from coughing! Dennis thinks I should market this approach - cough your way to abs of steel, or coughing for couch potatoes.

Still don't have much a voice. One student said it was really creepy that I lectured in a whisper.

TNT or TNTNT as in Thursday night training or Tuesday 'n Thursday night training. Anyway, TNT at Clem and Dasha's. Very easy jog over to Tyler Arboreteum (adjacent to Ridley), short loop on the trails, back to high school, a couple of laps on the track and back to Clem and Dasha's. After stumbling for the first half mile - legs just felt awkward - got in a rythmn and felt good, but it was a really easy pace. Unfortunately, the pavement running started to bother my knees by the end.

Took the bus home and walked through the Wissahickon a slightly longer way than normal. Tried to walk at a brisk pace to loosen up my hips and hamstrings. Followed this with a hot bath and then a good long stretching session. Not sure if all the achey feelings are from being sick or from having eased off on my stretching regimen. Either way, feel better now.

TNT - Clem, Dasha, Anne and Jim. 5 miles on the drive at 10 min pace plus the jog down and the walk home.

Not sure whether to count today as a sick day. I felt pretty bad yesterday but okay this morning (although I completely lost my voice - teaching class sure was interesting today!). But I was definitely not feeling up to par during the run with achey hips and pretty dead legs. Anne and Dasha were kind and stayed with me and kept me distracted enough to get me through the run.

Event Director at Tyler. No running but on my feet pretty much the whole day from 7:30am when I met a few people who helped hang the last few controls until 3:30 when the last controls were picked up.

Control hanging for tomorrow's local DVOA event. Hope the thunderstorms in the forecast don't materialize. Will be astonished if anyone gets all the controls tomorrow (it's a 90 minute score-O).

Got home early and headed out in shorts - and for me to be in shorts you know it has to be warm. Unfortunately, what I was hoping was just a mild sore throat seems to be much more than that and after slogging through a half mile at 11 min. pace I wisely decided the best course of action was to head home. Felt and still feel pretty awful.

TNT - intervals with Sandy, Karl, Jim, Bob, Clem and Dasha. Easy jog down and a mile on the drive to warm up; 1 min hard to find and mark a turn around spot, 1 min hard back to the start, 1 min rest, then 7 x 2min hard (out and back), 1 min rest. Easy jog home the long way through the woods. Followed by lasagna.

C • Lasagne!!!! 2

Valley Goat 2. Good solid effort; hit most controls dead on. Did the first 3/4 with Dasha. My left quad was burning on every downhill; guess I got more of a workout the last two days than I realized. Was pleased when two young adventure racer types came up behind me on the walk back to the parking and said they had been seeing me and trying to catch me for the last 3km of the course but just couldn't do it.

C • Good Job & Tyler Question... 5

Hard to know how to log this. Spent 3 1/2 hours wandering around Fair Hill trying to see which pockets of woods would have interesting orienteering in them for a local event I'm course setting. I found lots of beautiful open, runnable hillsides - most of which were featureless unfortunately. But there were nice point features in other places so the trick will be to figure out a way to place controls so that people get to run the nice woods and can use trails around the not so nice stuff.

A good effort on a hill loop - managed to not walk at all which I haven't done for a while. Can't say I was moving particularly well, but I was able to keep up a jog the whole way - about 4 1/2 miles total, going down to the creek level and back up to the top of the ridge on the other side twice and then the hill home. Really missed the Florida terrain - not the flatness but the lack of rocks. Downhill on the trails was really difficult.

Some wimpy intervals down on the drive; better than the alternative though, which was nothing.