Training Log Archive: Rosstopher

Newton Street O with the CSU training group. we had a blast tonight.
In attendance: Dean, Alexei, Brendan, Lori, Ian, Katia, Giovanni, me.
The course ended up being a little bit longer than I expected it to be and we found a couple of places where the map had changed ( big roads added and subtracted). I was running pretty hard beating Brendan's splits to most of the controls. But he chose a better route to #5, and Giovanni had a great split on the long leg to #3. Not sure if any one else was taking splits.

Sam served us all pasta and garlic bread when we got back, so she gets mad props for that. It's quite nice to have good friends, good fun, and good food.

I'm going to say, to myself, "good job" today because I twice overcame the urge to skip running. This morning I put running clothes in my bag when I had debated not bothering to search around the heap of detritus that I call my floor and then this evening I actually got the gumption to change into those clothes and run home. I felt quite good, and this time includes a lot of pausing behind slow people on the sidewalks, so I guess it was pretty quick.

Mondays are good days for being lazy. Well I'm content to be lazy on any day ending in -y, but this particular Monday fit the bill quite nicely.

Trail run in the ice and snow with Pia, Wendy, Sam, Hill and Jeff. running in uneven, hard pack snow/ice isn't my favorite, but it's always nice to go running with a group. Jeff and I had a hard time keeping up with the women at first, not sure what that was all about but we agreed that they were booking it. At 40 mins or so Pia and Wendy headed back and the Saeger clan and myself continued on. Sadly, Jeff was leading and really hurt his ankle quite a bit when he hit an unexpected slick icy patch and came crashing down. The sprain was bad enough that the uneven trail back to the car wasn't an option so he sent Sam and Hill back to call the/be the Cavalry as he and I walked out to the nearest road. quite a chilly while later we were rescued. Part of the rescue operation involved Hilly pushing a car out of her way, which is just cool!

Reminded me of the far side cartoon with a bunch of jungle explorers in a group and one hapless fellow is dangling upside down, the victim of some fiendish native's booby trap. A guy at the back whispers to his friend " That's why I never walk first"

C • only because I can't drive ... 3

Long run with Jenn. She very nicely agreed to ditch her normal Saturday long run with the Cambridge running club, to go running with me. Of course she still wanted to go for a long run and so we were aiming for something close to 12 miles. A gorgeous day, and lots of getting caught up with all the various happenings. Catching up with Jenn means that I'm huffing and puffing and she is talking with ease.

Then I went home to make lots of orzo salad for the NEOC party! Sam made really good cake, and I ate about 1 1/2 lbs of orzo with olives and tomatoes and feta. mmmmm.

Not sure of the distance, just an estimate really. CSU training courtesy of Brendan. He put together a really nice street-o map of cambridge/sommerville and we had a series of controls in the residential areas and then came back to Harvard Yard to do some sprint style controls on the orienteering map there.

Street-o is much more challenging when you don't know where all the streets go :) I had a few mistakes, and Brendan was consistently faster than me on the Harvard Map ( home court advantage?). Ian was doing very well at the beginning, staying in contact with the map well on #1 and choosing a better route choice over the hill on #2, but I lost sight of him after that.

A great event topped off by the best Chinese food I've had in a long time ( ever?) at Zoe's, a restaurant at the base of Brendan's hill.

Attendees were Brendan, Lori, Ian Smith, and me

1) 5:07
2) 6:55
3) 7:52
4) 8:19
5) 7:27
In the yard
6) 3:43
7) 1:41
8) 2:09
9) 1:16
10) 1:13
11) 1:18
12) 0:55
13) 2:48
14)1:32
back to Brendan's
15) 7:41

I had all this time to work a run into my schedule, but somehow the time slipped by. I knew that I wanted to go run some reps up summit ave, and had planned on 3x but after two I glanced at my watch and knew that I was going to miss the movie if I did one more.

Summit Ave hill is approx. 2 mins long ( took me 2:09, and 2:10) and there was some running to/between/and from included.

definitely sore butt after hill workout like this. Oh, and I forgot to bring a shirt to run in, so I just wore my jacket as a shell. A little chilly.

After the run I met a bunch of the CSU crowd to watch The Spirit of the Marathon at Fenway. Sara Mae Berman had a small but crucial role in the movie, and the whole thing was quite inspirational. made me want to go run the Chicago marathon in a big way :) I wonder if I could break 3 hrs..... hmmmm.

Was going to go running. But got a surprise call from a friend in town for one night only. Went to get Thai food in Inman square instead of running. Mmmm red curry = excellent use of an evening. Spice and Rice gets my approval, except for being very far away from usable public transportation. Waited for like 45 minutes in the cold for a bus that never came, after dinner.

running home. I'm about a week late posting this, so I can't remember why the time is so slow. My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that the roads and sidewalks are extremely icy and going slow is the only acceptable way to cheat death.

I was going to go running, but I had to go to work in the morning and somehow the fact that no one else was at work ( serious Longwood was practically a ghost town) made me sleepy. So I left early,came home and took a three hour nap instead. waking up just in time to go shopping while I was hungry. My favorite.

no running. Instead had a lazy morning and Sam took me shopping. I got some picture frames and we didn't ever find the extension for Settler's of Catan which makes it a 5-6 player game. Then we came home to watch football and eat orange ginger apricot hoisin sauce beef shortribs. mmm. They were really good, but you don't even want to know how much fat congealed in the pan after we took them out of the oven and left the pan on the counter.

running with Sam. she was feeling slow and trying to garner pity, but she's faster than she gives herself credit for. so ppbbth to her pity. A really nice day to go running with the gf.

No run. Waited to pick up my friend from the airport. then he got on an earlier flight. then he realized that his bag didn't. Then his bag's flight got delayed for over an hour. so he took the T out to Newton instead.

No running. not feeling very motivated this week apparently.

Wow, this was a long time ago. I gotta keep current with my posting. Night-o training with CSU courtesy of Alexei. He hung up a set of controls at Prospect Hill, and we trekked through the snow to try and find them. My headlamp is beautiful, but it was still hard to get into the swing of orienteering. It was nice to go running, even if it was snowy.

After night-o I caught up with the roommates at pub trivia. Without the crucial member of team steph infection ( i.e. Steph) we went with the name Enlarged to Show Texture.... which was lucky because we disgraced ourselves with a poor showing and a poor score and next time we can come back with a clean slate.

no running, still can use snow as an excuse, but it's kind of a lamer excuse on the second day.

huge snow storm!! no running. because running in this crap would be tough.

Orienteering map exercise with CSU crowd. Alexei marked a trail run route and our exercise was to work very diligently to anticipate what we would next encounter along the trail. In areas without many features to anticipate we tried to visualize ourselves as a moving point on the map, and think of ourselves in relation to the next junction or big feature that we would come across. So think "okay I'm this far away, now I'm only this far away, now I'm... wait, there's the junction" and to practice knowing where you are on the map this way.

I found it hard to stay focused for the entire time, I got mentally tired and since there was no worry about getting lost there was really no direct punishment for losing concentration. Also I was catching myself reacting to as opposed to anticipating features. I'd see a cliff and find it on the map, instead of the other way around. So I was constantly reminding myself to look forward.

C • That sounds like a great ex... 2

Super gorgeous day. I went out in shorts and my CSU vest with hat and gloves... shed the hat and gloves along the way.

hips are still feeling a little strange when I run, which isn't ideal but is a pretty small nuisance all told.

Can't describe how much nicer it is to run without a backpack :) and I'm really looking forward to my first orienteering of the new year at tomorrow's Orienteering training, courtesy of Alexei.

TGIF and all. A run home in the rain has a very cleansing symbolism. Mother nature washes all my professional cares away as I exit stage right. Of course the rain was cold.... I suppose it's still an apt metaphor for life.

I didn't feel all that enthused about my run until nearly home, and then I got into the swing of things. I pushed hard from newton highlands home which felt very good. Sadly I also gave myself a sharp twinge of pain as I rolled my ankle on one of the dark streets a few minutes before that.... it hurt enough to elicit obscenities but not enough to stop my run. Even more of a pain, these past few days, has been an obstructed feeling in my upper airways ( feels to be just below the level of my adam's apple) and it's a nuisance. I'm chalking it up to recovering from a cold that I got while traveling... but it's been getting more noticeable since Wednesday, and since it only affects me when I'm running I'm trying to avoid the thoughts of exercise induced asthma or something similar. When I clear my throat, the feeling leaves..... for about 3 seconds until I next swallow. Oh well. Rest and fluids I suppose.

Yawn. man sometimes all I can think of after work is how much I'd appreciate a nap. being sleepy and weary meant that I didn't have a lot of gumption on the run home.

soreness is fading, and I'm enjoying the routine of running every day. I think I'd like to bump it up to the point where I'm running both ways on some days. Not tomorrow or Monday though, most like.

Today my boss told me that I needed to have more than one breeding pair of mice in one of my colonies "in case the female doesn't get pregnant". So, since she's the boss, I trekked down to the animal facility, and set up another pair. As I placed the cage on the rack I was pleased to note that my original female was quite pregnant. My mice love me.

C • Let's face it, the mice loo... 3

quite deliciously warm tonight on the run home. I really like the feeling of running in shorts, and that helped me maintain the energy needed after a day of working. I'm seriously spoiled if I get wiped out after a grueling 3 days of desk work :)

I pushed a little bit harder at the beginning of the run tonight and was enjoying myself so I sprinted the homestretch down Erie street.

now I must go make myself pretty for Trivia night.

Heat Wave! the blazing warmth that spread over our fair city did much to alleviate the ice mounds.... but not enough to make my running commute home tonight ice-free. My hips were still sore most of the day, but the ache had much attenuated by the evening when I ran home. This evening I stopped off at Trader Joe's and picked up some mascarpone. I was unable to resist getting some dried mango as well, but I kept the impulse buying to just this.

C • dried mango 3

Wow, I feel a bit overwhelmed by the idea of trying to get back into the swing of training and also logging that training. That being said 10 days of relative inactivity in the Galapagos islands left me craving some good old running.

Today I ran to work. The sidewalks are still icy, and I kinda resent the homeowners that decided not to clear their walks.

After getting to work the muscles along my hips started to feel quite sore. and they remained sore all day and into the night. I'm not sure if this is a reaction to merely running after such a long break or if there is some contribution of running on ice. Either way, I'm going to have to remind my body not to freak out every time that I put on sneakers :)

By the by, the Galapagos were amazing.

C • Any Galapagos Pictures...? 8