Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Running to work. with the Garmin on. was thinking about getting some more miles in, but this was all I had time for in the morning.

After work met Zan and some of her other friends in Cambridge for dinner.

bike to work. Somehow I never seem to leave on time. I got caught up washing the dishes (still left from when Ed and Alex came over on Friday) and so I was 5 minutes late out the door. Luckily it really doesn't matter when I arrive.

C • dishes 2

I was worried that I would be late, so I was pushing hard to get up to Pine Banks for the CSU training tonight. I am very proud that I didn't get lost as I pedaled my way through cambridge and up to Medford.

A fun night sprint set by Ian as CSU training this week. I had brought my tiny LED light and discovered that it was not bright enough for the task. The woods were too rife with briars and saplings and the footing wasn't ideal either. I only did one of the courses and then came in from the wilds. On the plus side I found the most gorgeous view of Boston I've seen so far. There was ideal purple light pollutioned skies and a skyline of Boston that was amazing, right at control number 9 on the course. post card worthy.

After the orienteering I didn't stay long to chat, I hopped the bike and tried to get home again quickly, since I hadn't seen Sam since Friday. she was awake for a few minutes after I got home, but already in bed and curled up with a book.

don't really feel like tracking down my garmin right now to figure out how long this was or how long it really took. I biked to the orange line, and took the subway to mass Ave stop ( right at Northeastern) then I biked back along huntington and Rt 9 to home. It was a nice ride, but it probably would have been just as fast to bike straight back from Medford... I was trying to save time.

Running to work. Walked with my friend Jane to the T-stop and then ran into work from there. Jane needed to get up pretty early so I had a bit more time than normal to use for running. I decided to run loops of the reservoir until it was time to get to work by 9. 4 laps and the rest came out to 9.7 miles by my Garmin.

It felt great, now I just need to learn how to get up that early without external motivation.

biking up to Menotomy Rocks in Arlington for the NEOC meet. Didn't really know what was going on, since I had just found it on the schedule last night as I was going to bed. The weather threatened to be awful and I wanted to get an early start but had a tough time dragging myself out of bed. Ride up was very nice except for the hill on common st just north of watertown.

A nice sprint set by Tim Parson. The map is so tiny that you really need to have a map exchange to fit a useful course. So there was a sprint a, followed by sprint b. I navigated well for the most part with my biggest problems being not reading ahead very well and not operating the pin punching with a good flow. I have a lot of experience running around on that map, so it's harder for me to get lost, only made a couple little mistakes along the way.

biking home, a slightly different way. It started to lightly rain about 20 minutes into the ride, but it never got miserable. my legs were getting kind of tired and I could really tell on the hills.

C • bike home 5

Biking up to the Fells. dropped the bike along south border road at a point of easy access to the skyline trail. A really nice day!

I went up to run the skyline trail in the Fells to see what sort of special trail markings we'd need to put out for our Oct 24th Trail Race. I had never run the skyline trail and I have to say, there are scores of places along the trail where it becomes hard to discern the proper way to go. I ran clockwise and had a lot of backtracking when I realized there weren't any white blazes any longer. the area around the sheepfold is the absolute worst (spent 10 minutes or so trying to find the right way), but I think we should consider putting flour or chalk down along the entire length of the trail...I can only imagine it would be harder if you were busy watching your footing not actively seeking out blazes.

fun to run, very technical trail, and a spectacular view from Wright's tower!

C • Skyline 3

Back from the fells, this time through Sommerville. stopped a few times, to hang out with a friend, to go shopping at REI and finally at the lab to pick up my phone charger that I had left accidentally.

It's so nice to have a bike in this town.

The commute. Gloves were necessary today. Happy Birthday Hilly!

C • thanks 1

running to work with one reservoir lap. I knew I wasn't going to be running in the evening because I had organized a bowling trip with my lab members and the scientists of another lab... a sort of meet and greet kind of things. The bowling was fun, but only one person from the other lab showed up. Watching people who have no experience try bowling is quite amusing. The Italian in our lab almost bounced his ball into the neighboring lanes a few times. :)

A pleasant run to work in the morning. As always, I have a plan about what I will work on in the lab when I get there, and within 10 minutes that plan is changed and instead I'm doing something completely different for someone else. Good thing I don't have enough experience with making plans to really notice or care when they don't get followed :)

running home after work. didn't feel terribly fast but that's okay. I did two laps of the res, because I really like the trail there. Sam ran the reservoir lap tonight and said that she doesn't like it at all. Weirdo.

After I got home we went out and got an excellent dinner. The waiter said that we had good chemistry :) perhaps he was amazed at how fast Sam was talking and that I still seemed able to understand the words coming out of her mouth.

biking to work, from work to the Pour House ( a bar in back bay) where some work friends had won a free party, and then home again. The party was the "put a business card in , win a catered things" kind and we had a good time eating their food and throwing peanut shells into each other's drinks from across the table.

bike ride to and from work. A little sleepy because the getting back from the concert took so long and bed time was thusly delayed. Stayed awake better all day than I had really expected. I had a craving for cheese at the end of the day and so Sam got ingredients for me so that I could make chili and we then had an excuse to top it with cheese :)

After lovely hospitality from the Jospe clan, dad drove me to the bus station at 2:30 in the morning so that I could grab a greyhound back to Boston. Missing the ultralong was sad, but seeing U2 in concert was so very worth the effort. Sam and our roommates picked me up from the station and we drove straight to the stadium. Then we parked, had lunch and waited in line for several hours. Snow Patrol opened ( they were excellent). We played lots and lots of contact. U2 is pretty energetic for a band that started up in 1976.

set list

The Saturday of the ROC meet was really really great! I wish I could have stayed for Sunday too. Particularly liked the effort made to have announcements during the sprint champs and the bagels on the lawn provided between meets. Nice racing, and I will post something more about this later. Good to see some of the results from juniors out there. Nate in the Middle and Hannah in her races stand out but there were good efforts all around :)

Thanks ROC.

Sprint: M/F21 - Splits

Middle: Blue - Splits

No exercise today. Tough to get out of lab early enough for Friday evening drives... a perpetual problem. Got a ride with Jeff, Lori and Ian out to Rochester for the Saturday of the A-meet. Nice company for a long drive.

Running to work. backlogging is tough work, I can't remember back this far! I will have to come through an add Norwegian words too. Today was my friend Dan's birthday so after work, I joined him for dinner and some epic games of Tetris Attack. A truly excellent video game.

commuting. I had intentions of running after work, but I went to a pretty cool lecture, and then chose to come home and eat dinner instead of doing more exercise.

The lecture was by guy who has shown that commensal bacteria (those living in your gut) may have a protective role in the development of type I diabetes. He didn't talk about that stuff this time, instead covering another type of cell involved in gut immune response M cells. It felt a bit like a bait and switch, but it was pretty good anyway.

It's getting colder now so I won't be able to be so casual about biking places much longer. I will need to wear more appropriate clothing for those trips.

pumpe frø = pumpkin seeds

biking to work, and then from work to Prospect Hill for CSU training this week.

would have gotten there on time too, except I wasn't paying great attention and so I got lost near the end and had to work my way up and over the hill to get to the north side of the park.

lumping this all together for now, not entirely sure how long each one took. I suppose Ed has the splits prepared somewhere, and I can get a better idea from there.

First off, the training was awesome. Alex set three sprints, using reflective controls and epunching :) Dean and Andy were already out on the first when I got there. I ran up to the start finish area (manned by Ed) and set out to try to catch up. tentative at first out in the woods, not wanting to hurt myself in the dark. I worked up to a faster speed as I realized that the woods were really nice and open! very pleasant.

Most of the problems that I had were due to confidence issues finding the controls in the circle. If you don't see the reflector but you're in the right spot you're pretty much stuck searching high and low :)

Course one took approx 17 mins
Course two and three were probably about the same actually, though I hunted a long time on course 2 for the first flag and also for the finish.

After all the racing, I went and picked up most of course one, and then course 3 working backwards with Alex.

A really nice day. good company, nice all around. got a ride back home which was also excellent.

lysende=shining ( reflekterende for reflective is kinda boring)

just regular biking. I remember saying that I wanted to run more.... stuff just is so much quicker with a bike :)

Jeg elske meg puten= I love my pillow ( which is, you know, true)

C • Pillow 10

Great day at Sean and Ariane's Wedding!

My photos came out very lackluster, but here is one that a friend took.



The smith family with one of the finger lakes in the background :)

oktober=octopus which makes next month international calamari month in my mind :)

Almost went running. Sam and I were pulling into Highland Forest near Syracuse when we got called to come move folding chairs instead. The closest we got to exercise was putting together a gazebo at the lake house, then playing some pirate themed mini-golf before joining the rest of the smith family for some really excellent thai food.

peanut skål = peanut sauce

why don't the Norwegians have a better word for peanut by now?

Biking to and from work. had to leave early to get to a bachelor party in Syracuse... however I was still delayed until after 4pm at work. Still got to laser tag in time :) The rest of the night was filled with debauchery.

zombie angripe = zombie attack , how Sean's brother in law / minister described laser tag. "I know that you're not the guy I want around in a zombie attack, but I think you'll be a great brother"

Really sleepy in the morning, which meant that I didn't crawl out of bed until after 8. A biking to and from work day for sure :) I stopped on the way home a couple times. Once when I saw a friend and wanted to stop and chat and the second time to pick up the ingredients for beef stroganoff, which is a staple recipe for me.

sopp= fungus because apparently the widget doesn't have a wood for mushroom.

C • Tichu 1

As a side note (as suggested by Hammer), I'm trying to add more core strength into my morning routine of sit-ups and crunches. if you have any favorite core exercises let me know.

C • Obliques 10

Biking to and from work. I got stuck at work until late and I was in charge of CSU training so I was anxious to get to Hammond Pond by 7pm. Really had to pedal hard to make it.

Han er for sent! = he is too late!
(det er sikkert) = (that's for sure)

CSU training. Newton Street-o set by me. The turn-out was minimal as it turned out to be a busy night for a lot of people. Was glad that Dean made it out, as it helped make sure that I also did my own training.

I planned for people to start out with a run through hammond pond, across the tracks, to the streets over by BC. Then a run around the streets there, and back the same way.

A beautiful night and great conditions. My light wasn't really bright enough for the rocky trail on the way back to the parking lot. I had to really slow down to a creep to pick my way along that section.



I used google maps to create this map. I used print screen to get the proper section of map as a jpeg and then I resized it with OCAD to get it to be 1:15000 scale [at least I think it is] using the scale bar. I was struggling because I wanted a map without any of the road names and this method left me about halfway there. with more motivation it would be quite easy to use the google map as a template and re-draw all the roads using OCAD.

C • ocad map north of Hammond Pond 1

Running around West Rock with the crew after a sleepy morning. too much spades made getting an early start harder.

the trails were fun, and i was thinking how beautiful New Haven is and how lucky they are to have this great running. Then I thought that probably if I lived there I would get jaundiced to the glory of the woods and that the woods around Boston have equally good running.

climbing to the top of the rock was spectacular.

Jeg beundrer din rock = I admire your rock

after running we saw some of the Yale campus (sprint worthy) and ate some noodles and drank some bubble tea and then drove home. Very nice trip, and my ribs didn't have any long term damage from too much laughing.

Labor day Hi-jinks! went to the WCOC meet at Sessions woods. I heard in the parking lot that Will had run quickly and so I knew that I had to push pretty hard if I wanted to beat his time. I started out pretty well, and felt like I was getting a good flow. Also, before I pulled it off (too tight), my heart rate monitor showed me racing at 183 which I know for me is about what I want for racing effort.

That being said, it wasn't a perfect race, I had an error on 3 where I was coming up and over the hill and got pulled down the wrong reentrant which in retrospect was a mistake I was aware of as I was making it.... as I had to fight my compass when i was trying to follow the hilltop. I guess I was reading the hilltop wrong and I should have stayed on my original line.

Then next section I got moving well again, and didn't make another big error until 7. I was kinda rushed leaving control 6, and still felt a bit rushed as I left the trail at the base of the hill going over to the spur. I thought I was reading the slope of the hill well but I was too far right (downhill) and then overshot by quite a lot. Hit the trail and came back to the control from the bottom of the hill. This mistake seems to be a variant of the mistake I made at the end of the Long Quali at WOC.... let's call it "coming along a slope in a low visibility area without a good enough plan".... I think to avoid this problem I need to be able to a) recognize this kind of control when I'm racing and b) be sure to find a point feature to navigate from.

The rest of the course went well, getting tired but pleased to have been so fast even with two mistakes.

Memory Sprint- not sure about the time and distance... will have to go look that up sometime. The course was really taxing mentally. I had trouble right from the beginning as I somehow missed the really big road on the way to the first control. Naturally seeing a really big road when I wasn't expecting anything threw off my groove a little. I was going to go back to the start for another look at the map when I saw Boris searching around too. When I saw that other runners were going past the road and into the woods, I was quickly able to go to the proper hilltop and find the flag. Next couple I thought I was getting the hang of things but then I missed the flag on 4 ( Boris saw me head off in a funny direction, but I think I must have gone right past the rocks... spent a few minutes back and forth on the hillside before finding the flag). On 7 I memorized the wrong control location, thinking it was the hilltop and not the spur below the hilltop... so I had to come back to 6 for another look at the map... I was so close the first time. Marie had caught up to me by then, and I spent the rest of the race trying to get ahead of her.

very fun, but hard to know how much to memorize and how "solidly" it had to be in my mind so that I wouldn't get lost.

Afterwards hung out with fun people, ice cream, mini-golf (a good effort by me overshadowed by Sam's superior skills and a poor showing of rock-paper-scissors with Mike landing me in 3rd place), dinner, dessert, and ribald conversation. Also lost spades to the BorKat but we performed valiantly :)

vindmølle = windmill (I'm truly a sucker for mini-golf :) ) we discovered that there is a pro-tour for mini-golf and that they are crazy people

Red Course - Splits

Orienteering Training with the Saeger Clan down at the Blue Hills. Jeff planned for us to do three loops from an old relay. We ran on old reject maps which were just fine for training purposes. all these distances I have measured by FR305.

The first loop was the longest and I made it even longer by mistaking a printing error for a distant finish circle. I was "finishing" my course just as Sam and Hilly came cruising through. They were surprised/confused that I chose to stop and then told me that all the courses are supposed to start and end in the field. Oh well, the extra running is good training.

Not perfectly clean orienteering but actually pretty good. Running in the blue hills is a rough awakening - for me and my poor inov8s - after a summer in the open forests of Hungary!

C • FR305 3

Next loop was an old Red course, still pushing quite hard but some mistakes as well. It was quite fun to pass the same people over and over and over around the pond. I guess we looked quite ridiculous or very hard-core running so many laps in the area.

My last map had a remote start and finish area - on the other side of the pond - and again as I headed out that way I came across Sam and Hill finishing a loop. They took the same lower route below the pavilion to get to the marsh trail which was slower ( I told them so, and then tried to prove it by running at their pace and beating them by staying higher and closer to the line). I think when you are used to running a route a certain way you never think that there might be a faster way to go.

The last map was a green course and I didn't have too many problems with the orienteering. I was starting to get tired as I finished my last loop around the pond. But very pleased to get so much orienteering in.

C • Remote start and finish 2

In the evening, we drove out to Greenfield to celebrate Jeff and Judy's 34th wedding anniversary. Dinner with the family was great. Fettuccine carbonara won out over gnocchi this time which brings me to the word of the day, one that I fully expect to be plenty useful in future conversations... because what can't be improved with...

bacon = which is spelled the same in norwegian as in English... maybe not pronounced the same though. I haven't worked my way up to that yet. Though my dad sent me this link which contains some audio that is downloadable to ipod.

biking around. to work, then over to the MIT lab for blood samples and back, then over to the Harvard Track and then home. lots of little trips.

CSU was doing a mile time trial tonight, so I went over to the track to join in. Brendan was the only other one around at 7, and we didn't know if others were going to show up so we warmed up and started running. after 800 meters with some pickups thrown in every alternating 100 meters, we got down to business. Brendan started out and then I waited 30 seconds and set chase. I was kinda hoping to run 4:40 but I am happy with the 4:54 that I ran considering. my first 400 was 68 seconds, and then the rest were more like 75 seconds. Weather conditions were ideal but my legs were kind of tight, especially the quads.

Alex and Lori and Ian did arrive and after Alex got a warmup in I ran a second mile trying to rabbit for her. She wanted to run 6 minutes and we came in pretty close. I didn't have a watch to time it ( I had lent her mine) and so my pacing was kind of horrific, but it was a good cool down.

but then we played around with Presto, trying to get him tired out. Sprinting around the track and then back and forth along the infield. That dog is wicked fast.

Also of note, two college freshmen came up to our group asking if we were the track club they were hoping to meet. We said no, and then fell over ourselves trying to recruit them for orienteering :) not sure we were successful

kanin= rabbit

(two meanings, one with me trying to run a 6 minute pace and the other was what presto wanted to go chase after we got him all tired out)

C • Kanin 1

C • WCOC Sessions Woods 3

running to work. wondering if running with a backpack is good, bad, or neutral training. It certainly feels harder. Added a lap of the reservoir and was thinking that I would rather spend the day running in the sun than continue on into work :)

Running home after work, with a stop for groceries. I hope that I can keep motivated about running even when it gets dark and cold out.

Ryggsekk = backpack

Biking to work and then from work up to Alewife to go bowling with CSU at Lanes and Games. The CSU planning meeting was fun, with a lot of enthusiasm for more trainings. If anyone isn't getting the training emails and wants them, just let me know. Afterward we went bowling. My team, "Married Couples" came in second place behind team "Slovenly Dressed". I had a poor showing with the lowest score by far. But I still had more fun than Ian who had high expectations and a scowl at least for the first game :)

Alex and Ed gave me a ride home, which was very nice.

Pia didn't know how to translate gutterball into a scandinavian language so instead we'll use:

bowlingbane = bowling alley

C • Translation 4

Biking to and from work. After work I helped a friend move from Cambridge to Brookline, which was decently hard work, as her new apartment is on the 4th floor of the building. I was amazed at how tightly knit the chinese scientific community is. At one point as we were moving in, a set of 8 extra people showed up and started carrying stuff around. Many hands make light work.

also, my journal club presentation got postponed indefinitely, which makes me wish that I had spent less time working on it at home.

trapp=staircase