Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Running home from work. Today was feeling like a pretty good day, spectacular weather and an inexplicable feeling of elation helped buoy my spirits. I think the elation is the realization that team trials is almost here, and I'm super excited. Had a really really big lunch today, and running felt a bit excessive for my tummy at first. Also, as I was running past the park at cleveland circle I stopped a bit to watch an inning of my roommates' ( now happily married) softball game. really seems like summer already.

C • US Team 10

no exercise today, unless you count a picnic dinner with friends as being strenuous. I guess we did have to scurry indoors when it started raining, which is kinda like exercise.

I had hoped to go do some hill reps after work before the picnic dinner, but there really wasn't enough time. Those hills will just have to wait until after team trials.

A little short on time, thought that I'd prefer the mobility of biking in to work. The commute in was gorgeous, very pleasant day, felt good and somewhat recovered from a hard week of trying to get stuff done.

The commute back home was negated by the theft of my bike. well, I'll be more honest, the theft of Sanne's bike, since she lent it to me for safe keeping while she's in Finland. I only had a cable lock, and finally I got punished for not getting a kryptonite U-lock. Sigh. I took the shuttle home instead and i guess I'll go back to running for a bit... there is very little chance of recovering the bike. The bike rack at work is under video surveillance always but it's nigh impossible to stop this kind of opportunistic theft unless the bike commuters use stronger locks. I liked the cable lock because you can lock your bike to anything with a cable lock ( recently a lot of trees up at the fells) and you can't lock a U-lock to much except a bike rack. I guess brendan just uses a really heavy duty cable with his U-lock. I will probably go get a U lock in any case.

C • Kryptonite 7

Day 2 of the CSU a meet was today. I hope it went alright and that people liked our meet.

I hung out with Dad a little in the morning and then Sam and I headed to the post-wedding brunch at the bridal hotel on Rt 1 in Norwood. lots of good food and a chance to wish the Bride and Groom well before they take a mini-vacation.

afterwards I was all set to take a nap ( being totally exhausted) but I was roused and coaxed into going shopping with Sam and Molly ( from out of town) and we went to Wrentham for the outlets. I bought more than Sam did, and was feeling more awake by the time we finished. The evening ended with some Thai food take out and a movie. With all the good food I'm happy to call it a recovery day.

going to be a busy day. Day one of the CSU a meet. Sam has wedding related stuff all morning, but I'm free til the afternoon it turns out. So I biked up the the north side of the fells (~14.5 miles) and got there as the pre-runners were going out. I helped out a little around the event area and then started getting distracted by all the fun people. after a little while I jumped back on the Mt. Bike with 18 flags and 18 epunch units and 17 rubber bands ( because I'm apparently an idiot) and went down to the south side to set out some points for Day 2. These were the ones that Brendan set on Thursday. I biked through the park to get to the area and then was having so much fun I stayed mostly on the bike and just popped off to set the flags. running one or two flags at a time before coming back to the bike and moving down the trail. There are so many trails that it is easy to get close to the bags. when I realized that I was out of rubber bands I met up with Brendan, gave him the last one and frantically biked home again.

got back just in time to shower and dress in a tux before getting picked up to go to the wedding. we got down there at 3pm, but had lots of time to kill until we were really needed at like 5:30, so we puttered around and tried not to get in the way. Sam looked really gorgeous in the brides maid's dress, and the wedding was really lovely. got home around 1 maybe? I don't really know because I decided that a timex digital watch was not an appropriate timepiece to go with a tux and I don't have any other watches.

So, yay Em and Eric getting married, yay beautifiul day in the fells, boo rented tuxedo shoes hurt to stand in.

also as a note, a friend called me during the day to say that he was hiking in the fells and saw orienteering flags and people orienteering. That was a nice small world moment :)

don't really feel like there's time to exercise this week. haven't done my morning crunches or pushups at all this week, not waking up early enough for that. Today I did nothing in regards to the A-meet. After work I just caught the commuter rail south to Norwood where Sam picked me up and we headed to the wedding rehearsal dinner. I skipped the rehearsal but they fed me anyways. food and company was good :) back home kinda late, chatted for a bit with Janet and Denny Porter, who were camping back at our place.

bike to work, then after work up to the fells to help Brendan set stands. Got lost on the way up there, so I showed up late and tired. The stands showed up late too, so I guess it was okay that I got lost. After setting stands I biked home to Newton ( not the fastest way I think) and picked up the keys to Sam's car. Then drove in to drop stuff with the Berrmans and with Alexei for the A-meet. Epunch stuff and results stuff all distributed now.

setting day 2 control stands for the a-meet. didn't really have the juice to run, so only managed to hike though setting out 15 stands before it got much too dark to see. still had nine left for the weekend. really beautiful views out in the woods, and at dusk Clem would have enjoyed the crepuscular symphony of frogs as I picked my way out of the swamps and back to my bike.

to work and back on my bike, after work I borrowed Sam's car and drove in to MIT to meet Catherine and Ian for some last minute results crew panic...er preparation. I met them in the MIT student center and we worked out some of the kinks and talked about what kinks still remained. we were making great progress by the time I had to leave and go pick up Molly at the airport. She flew in from Minnesota for the weekend wedding. The Logan Cell Phone lot is a great advancement... I like it a lot.

Biking to and from work. Also while at work, I biked over to the landsdowne street complex to check up on the mice at our collaborator's facility. The mice were fine but the roads were really wet. So I got quite soaking and gritty from all the stuff kicked up from the roads ( biking is faster than the shuttle though, and I was in a hurry). After work, borrowed Sam's car and went over to the Berman's for packet stuffing and general meet work. It was fun to see everyone and I just sat there programming and labeling controls. we look to be in better shape than I expected. Almost have maps ready, almost have controls programmed, almost have packets completed....

Running this morning with Sam. Very nice to have the day off. No work is a good thing, and allows for morning runs. We went out around the reservoir, cutting through hammond pond park on the way there and back. A bit windy. feel bad for all those marathoners out there. watched on TV this year, I really like to go out to Heartbreak hill and help them up. But trying to get some Epunch programming and related software stuff done for this coming weekend :)

run was a very smooth relaxed outing. plenty left in the legs for the CSU park-o later today.

C • puppy pic 3

CSU park-o at Pine Banks. not much time to log, but trying to set a good example. Park-o was fun, lost some time in a couple of places (#3, #7, #12) but mostly a clean race. I'm guessing at the time a little because I didn't start or stop my watch properly and there was some confusion as to when I actually went out. Fun course, definitely not too hard, as Ian had worried about. Weather was much better this week than when the Park o was originally planned.

C • Good job! 4

Classic: Blue - Splits

Sprint: Red Blue - Splits

Middle: Blue - Splits

picking up the night-o flags from CSU training awhile back now. I was later than I wanted, but feeling like it was going to be a great day. I know Hammond Pond well enough that I did this pickup without a map or compass, and just used memory to remember where I had put out flags. didn't run the course in order, just picked them up in a natural feeling order. Nice way to start the day.

Next I headed up to the Fells again for some more course vetting on the North Side of the map. I ran one more advanced course, and even though I'd been to most of these controls several times still got lost in a few places. Tricky tricky. still, I enjoyed myself immensely. Would have run another, but had places to be and locations to vet.

Finally I headed down to the Day 2 location to meet up with Brendan and do a little more control location vetting and streamering. The South end has more green and it makes pleasant course setting more of a challenge. Brendan and I spent almost 3 hours out in the woods tweaking things, and just in general convincing ourselves that the courses were solid. I'm embarrassed to admit that even after living in Boston for the past 3 years I've never been to the otherside of South Border road.... the wood over there are really cool. It will be interesting to see what others think of the woods here. Pine Hills has a reputation for being really nasty with lots of green briar. This is a well justified reputation, but is mostly true in the summer and Brendan is setting courses to maximize the terrain.... so I'm waiting to hear what our visitors think about the new map and the area.

Vetting courses for Day 1 of the CSU a-meet. Got an early-ish start which meant that after 2 hours or so it hadn't really started raining. I ran 4 of the advanced courses to check control locations, and get a sense of expected winning times. Woods are really fun on the north end of the map. No, they aren't wide-open and I was wearing long pants certainly but, for comparison, the woods are much nicer than Hale reservation and similar to parts of the blue hills.

I'm really sad that I'll miss this quali and finals setup that Alexei has planned. It's going to be fun for spectators.

After 2 hours it started to really rain and I was getting tired and hungry, so I stopped and went to help Clem and Dasha move their apartment.

I had this plan, right. I was going to bike to work, and then after work head to a bike shop and get some much needed biking supplies ( like a patch kit). I pumped up my tire enough to get to work no sweat, on a gorgeous day. But then after work I decided to come straight home and that was the issue. I was unable to keep any pressure in the tire for more than 5 minutes.... after stopping to inflate my poor tire 4 or 5 times the valve stem snapped clean off as I was tightening the thing for the last time. I got home, but that's the last ride from that thing. I will try to get it repaired soon... I'm going to need the increased mobility these next couple of weeks.... lots to do to get ready for the A-meet.

I was hoping to go over to hammond pond tonight and pick up old night o flags, but I have a weird throat thing going on, and it makes running or, in fact, any exercise incredibly annoying. I have spent like 4 hours trying to clear my throat but it still feels constricted. I hope that it just goes away overnight.

C • Hammond Pond 1

serious miscalculation about driving to the Fells today. Thought it would be okay to have Sam pick me up at Alewife and drive up to the North end of the map.... it took over an hour to make it those 6 miles. Sigh. so instead of running two courses like I had been hoping to do, I got to do most of one. Sam did most of a course too. being stuck in traffic and trying to beat the darkness left our good mood pretty strained, so we ditched the plan of going out to eat at a restaurant and went home and had french toast with strawberries for dinner instead ( well Sam had french toast, strawberries and an entire basically unripe honeydew melon - a craving's a craving).

Woods were nice, a bit dark, and someone had made off with one of the streamers... that was the point that made me decide to just run back to the car. Got really lost at the beginning.... just running pell mell at a control isn't a valid orienteering strategy turns out :)

biking to work, from work up to the Fells, and from the Fells home. My plans had changed a bunch... I was going to go to the CSU park-o, but that got rained out, and then I was going to use Sam's car but that wouldn't get me up to the Fells in time to meet Brendan so dragged my bike out of the closet and attempted to revive it. I was out of patches and all my inner tubes seem to have pin-hole leaks of some kind. So I pumped up the best one as best I could and just rode on a pretty flat tire most of the way. This was exhausting after awhile. I hope to make time to resolve this tire issue soon.

later than we'd really intended, Brendan and I split up and headed out to flag some locations and to just in general do some vetting. Things look pretty good, all the water features are super wet still... wonder if they'll dry up in time for the meet. I guess it is called the spring run-off.

got too dark to do any more.