Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

I biked to work in the morning, it's so much faster than running, and that means I can leave the house later, which means I can lie around in bed longer. I then left work at about 5:40 or so to get to the Franklin Park Park-O race. did you know that they put a nice bike path all the way down the Orange line tracks? that made it really easy to get where I needed to go.

I didn't need to bike home in the rain like Sanne, because Sam drove me home. Yay for hot women who pick up stranded bikers.

The Park-O was great. Pia set a fun course, and I luckily was running fast enough to absorb errors ( I doubt that speed was solely responsible for causing the errors). Right out of the gate I was hesitant on the first control, but that was mostly getting used to the map. Park o controls are not as visible, so my second control was a bit slow too, as I could not find the depression even when I was standing next to it. I passed a group going to control 6, and feeling the flow I picked up pace going to 7... this was a bad idea because I made a parallel error for about 20 seconds just because I was pushing harder than I could think. recovered well though, and spiked the next one, good flow going to 9, and then I saw Jeff Shapiro ( I think, it was from the back) and got distracted/didn't run straight on my compass, and bobbled the next control. I was feeling a little tired going into the last loop, but I think that was mostly the climb. Once I got going downhill my legs had plenty of oxygen to go around.

I think for me, hesitation cost me a couple of minutes ( though hesitating may also have staved off really serious errors) and just poor execution cost me a couple more. I'm looking forward to next weeks

biking to and from work. A shout out here to Jeff for tuning up my bike. Apparently my attempts at adjusting the shifting weren't so damaging, but the bent link in the chain was causing havoc.

I dropped off some late library materials on the way to work, and discovered that running makes it easier to navigate traffic, because jaywalking is less offensive on foot than it is on bike. I really love the speed of biking though, and need to get into work a little earlier this week than last week. I'm sure that running is better training, but biking is super fun.

Sam's Long course at Hale reservation ( powisett peak). It was a bit chilly at the start, with my hands mildy uncomfortable at being so brutally exposed. Right out of the gate I decided that I was going to have a good race, not worry too much, and have fun. That being said, as I headed towards the first control, I got stopped early by what appeared to be a building and a clearing. I expected these features after the control, and thus stopped and tried to figure out what was amiss. It took me a couple of minutes I guess to realize that there was a new clearing and I hadn't gone far enough.

I'm fairly proud of myself for not getting too down about a bombed first leg. I made the rest of the orienteering as easy as necessary to run fast. Only a couple of times, i found myself standing in the circle trying to see either the feature or the control ( Sam and Jeff hung the bags pretty low), and I need to improve there to get good flow.

Also, I didn't run out of gas like I did at intercollegiates, must be my attempts at exercise.

C • nice work. 4

biking home from dedham after the Scout orientation. sam and jeff needed to hang controls, so they were headed back to hale at 3pm. Sam tried to guilt trip me into hanging controls with them, but I headed home and made some dinner plans.

The Scout training was pretty fun, I got to lead 2 girl scouts around a white course. they both got into it pretty well, and the parents were good at encouraging but not getting in the way. both girls should move up to yellow. Teaching orienteering is hard though. I have a great deal of respect for coaches that actually managed to get their points across.

This morning I set off listening to my book-on-iPod and was surprised to discover that during my last run I had been listening to the chapters out of order. I somehow managed to get my playlist going in a shuffle, which doesn't do great things for keeping track of the plot. I didn't want to take the time to fix it, so I just switched to listening to music instead. Music made me run faster for sure, but I wasn't feeling that great so it doesn't show so much in my time. I'm sure that if I pushed a little I could break 50 mins to work, even with a backpack.

Oh, I also dropped my ipod and kicked it today, neither on purpose. Those things are resiliant. It wasn't even playing 'I will survive' at the time of the accident, yet it still plays fine.

my daily commute today was slower than normal. it felt slow, and also traffic was impeding more than normal. I had to wait several times in order to safely cross various streets. I ran without a hat... so at this rate of clothing loss I will be running naked soon. Jeff may fix my bike today so I might bike into work tomorrow for a changeup. I think I can get to work on my bike in 25 minutes and want a chance to test that theory.

C • naked running 3

weather for my commute was wonderful. I have switched to wearing shorts and short sleeves, but I still wear my empire state games hat, which helps my headphones stay in place. I'm planning to replace these headphones with quality earbuds, but I'm a procrastinator so it hasn't happened yet.

Story is still getting started, I'm only on the 2nd disc of 10, but either the plot is more energetic or I was just running faster today,,, because I didn't feel quite as slow this time.

I did arrive at work today when I realized that my Harvard ID, my wallet, and my phone were all back at home in my pants pockets..... shucks. Luckily the security guy knows me, and he let me in anyways. Happily, I didn't forget to bring my Ramen and my Jalapeno potato chips... mmmmm.

Daily commute. This one was a slow one too, though I didn't really time it so much. It just felt slow. The book of the moment is Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Giant. I highly recommend Orson Scott Card as an author ( one of mom's student's influenced her to get me started) and this book is quite captivating. At one point I didn't recognize where I was, because I had been paying so much attention to the story that I had been making the turns without having them register. Thus i was much farther than I expected to be, and out of context the road I was running on was unfamiliar.

I've read the story before, which may be a good thing, because I'm not sitting on the edge of my proverbial seat. Which allows me to be able to devote more of my awareness to avoiding collisions with the various roadside dangers ( i.e. parking meters, really slow pedestrians, dive-bombing vultures, attack badgers....).

commuting to work. Today I tried an experiment. I took a book on CD from the library, and imported it to my iTunes. then I took those mp3 files and put them on my iPods playlist. then I listened to David Sedaris on the way to work today. Listening to the book was a nice change, but I think it made me run a little slower. I think I was coasting more while listening to the words, than I do when it's just music. My legs still felt a little tired too.

Tomorrow I'm going to run in short sleeves. A sure harbringer of summer!

commuting to work. I felt pretty tired this morning. I wonder if perhaps I would do better with some sort of rest day during the week. I felt awake later in the morning, but during the run itself I was dragging a bit. The weather is still good, and it feels very good to be exercising daily.

hoofing it to work. Much warmer day today, and the iPod was co-operating, so uninterrupted tunes for the whole run. Not really sore from the NEOC meet, which is a surprise, but a little all around tired ( which isn't surprising).

Day 2 was a runners course for sure. The woods beautifully open, and the navigation fairly routine. I had a good start again, but then made a little mistake on the first loop, enough so that I had the Platt (starting 6 mins back) on my tail going into the map exchange. Stuck with him for a couple controls, but on 13 tried to be clever and take a different route choice.

Navigation was very straightforward, but my legs were so unhappy to run past the finish in order to do the final loop. I was very slow around the last loop ( no splits to prove it, but trust me) and that is a sign of poor staying power. I should be better ready to handle the rigors of a long race in a couple of weeks.

Blue 2 - Splits

Having read Clem's description of the race, I felt the same. Coming into the finish, I assumed that I was well off the lead. I actually had quite a good race, considering the condition that I think I'm in. I too was congratulating myself on several spiked controls when i made my first mistake.... fairly quickly recovered, and then after that it was just slower woods I guess.

It was nice to beat Ken, since that's pretty rare for me :)

Sprint 3 C-loop. I got a great position from excellent races by Sam and Zan. As soon as I headed out into the woods my legs felt really tired. And there was quite a lot of climb!! I did okay on the orienteering part of things, but as I headed into the second to last control, Andy Strat (started a few seconds behind me, but on a different leg) punched just in front of me. Yikes, I sprinted after him as fast as I could, but the guy has wheels. I made up a lot of time by punching the go control faster than him, but it wasn't enough. Thanks to Wyatt for the control punching races out west this summer though.

Andy Strat had better compete well at JWOC this summer, or I'm going to be embarassed about getting out-raced by a young 'un

Blue 1 - Splits

Commute to work. It's getting warm out there in the morning. I had to push my sleeves back, and probably could have gone without the hat too. I still am not a fan of the backpack, this morning I had something digging into my lower back a little, which was a constant pain in the .... well you know.

Commuting to work, no snow, which was a nice change, I also found a few short cuts to avoid some of the worst running areas. My shoulders don't like running with a pack on.... maybe I can convince some one to have pity on them and give me a back rub :)

C • Back Rub 1

Commuting to work. Running is not as fun with a backpack, though I guess it would be great Rogaine Training. It started snowing partway to work, which was a problem for my glasses. I'm going to need to start wearing contacts again before the orienteering season and sweat season intersect.

Running to work is almost as fast as taking the T and costs approximately 3 dollars less.

I probably would have biked but I seem to have broken my bike.

commuting to and from work. My chain started hopping gears on the way home, chain popping the whole time, very frustrating. I think this problem stems from my attempts at aligning the derailleur over the weekend. I have neither the tools nor the expertise to actually attempt such a repair :) I plan to sit down with the world wide interweb at somepoint and research the issue, before making another attempt. Meanwhile I can run to work and take the T home.

Tonight I stopped at Shaws to pick up materials to make Rote Grutze. I don't know if I'll get around to making it tonight, but just thinking about it is making me salivate.

http://www.recipezaar.com/301

commuting, to and from work. Biking to work ensures that I am completely awake by the time I need to work with dangerous chemicals. Daylight savings time means that I don't even really need my head and tail lights. Stopped at Whole Foods to pick up wonton wrappers too. mmm.

I don't have a watch with splits at the moment, so I'll just add the Needham sprints as training.

I struggled a bit on Sprint 1, which was 2.9 k and 10 controls. I mostly need to work on pacing, because I was tired running on the trails at the end of the course, which is really just a result of running too fast at the start. my time was just over 25 mins, about a minute slower than Jon Cambell.

Sprint 2 was less on trails, 2.6 k and 17 controls. I paced better mostly because I was more tired at the beginning to start with. I also had a better sense of scale and was spiking almost everything near the beginning. Had some trouble in the last loop. I was running with Grant, and not paying enough attention to my own compass. Still much happier with this one than the first.

not sure how long it took for me to bike home, but was about 4 miles back from the sprints. great day to be biking though.