Training Log Archive: iansmith

Brief warmup; mostly jogging with Peyton.

The City Sports "Back in the Day" 10k - to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their founding. About 1000 people were registered for the event, and surprisingly, the route was drastically different than what was advertised on their webpage.

I had a very rough week, with much less sleep than I would have liked. Physically, my hip flexors were tired from sprinting during softball on Thursday. Still, I was hopeful that I would have enough residual fitness to post a good time. I expected a hilly course, but I thought sub 40 was attainable. I have never run a 10k before; I posted a 41 minute 10k split during my half marathon at the beginning of June, and while I went out a bit too fast during that race, I hoped I could best that despite the hills.

I lined up in the second row and went out a bit too quickly - a glance at my watch about a minute in showed a 3:30/km pace. I backed off, and settled with about 20 people ahead of me. I passed the first mile marker at 5:41, though it seemed likely that it was a little early. I felt ok and tried to settle into a comfortable pace. The hills started rolling by - a steady hill at Broadway followed by a trip through my neighborhood. We ran very nearly past my apartment, with a trip up and down the hill I descend to go to work. The climb was very draining, and my cadence was sluggish - probably no higher than 170. A few people dropped out ahead of me around 6 km, and I just fought to sustain the pace. A glance at my watch revealed that breaking 40 was unlikely.

The last three kilometers were a blur; I was just concentrating on pushing hard the entire time. I went into the last turn in a pack of three, and turned on the afterburners with about a kilometer left to go, easily shedding the other two. I'm disappointed to have fallen short of 40, but I have had weak training in the past two months. I think the hills must have added at least a minute or two. I finished in a comfortable 17th place, with two women about a minute ahead of me.

This was Peyton's first running race of any kind; she rowed crew in college, and runs recreationally. She posted an excellent time and is eager to run more.

After picking up my bib for the CitySports "Back in the Day 10k," I biked the course to familiarize myself with its details. The organizers have chosen one of the hilliest locations - around Tufts - though not the hilliest route. Still, it should be a worthy challenge.

Softball.

C • bats 10

Event: Presto's person's post PhD presentation party & picnic
 

Trying to understand the price trends in airline tickets would be a fascinating project if I could get my hands on enough data. It seems inexplicable that the cheapest plane ticket for a given itinerary would oscillate by 20-30% over the course of a week.

C • Prices 2

Event: NEOC: 29th Annual New England Canoe-O Championships
 

Jeff Schapiro and I raced the New England canoe-O champs together at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, MA. The day was magnificent - sunny skies, temperature of about 28 C, but the lake was windy and densely perturbed with wakes from numerous boats. Aims graciously loaned us his blue boat and very nice paddles; while the boat was somewhat robust to the perturbations, it was much slower than the competition, e.g. Keith's Wenonah. I paddled bow for easy entry/exit, though I wonder if switching would have made more sense.

Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into the race, as we approached control 8, we were hit by a very large wake that came upon us unawares and hit us broadside. We should have been more aggressive turning take it quarter-on, and we were instantly capsized. We spent about five minutes swimming to shore and righting ourselves, though two or three boats inquired if we were ok and offered to tow us.

The course only had one land control, so I wasn't able to make much use of my presumed landspeed advantage. The rest of the course was largely uneventful; we took a very meandering route to 13, which I should have rectified with my compass, probably costing 2-3 minutes. The course was constrained by the ring of private property around the lake, so it ultimately was a paddler's course. Jeff and I do particularly well when strategy and bold route choice can be applied; since the course only had one route that made sense and wasn't technically challenging, we were at a disadvantage.

It was nonetheless a very pleasant outing, and it was good to catch up with Jeff a bit. I retired my Mizuno Waveriders after this race; they had over 550 miles in 94 sessions with 84 total hours. They can't quite measure up to my Asics 2150s, which have easily been my favorite road running shoes.

C • canoe 1

+ canoe

A few of my friends spent most of the day working on a kaggle problem: a computational problem posed to the broad community with cash prizes to the winning teams. We're much more motivated by the challenge than the money, especially since a very small number of teams get the prize. It's a great context for learning something new and thinking about a challenge.

I went out on a run before sunset and felt pretty good. Left foot was abnormal, but mildly so - I felt no pain or discomfort, with perhaps only a little stiffness and irregularity. Physically, my condition suggests the detriment of a few off-weeks, but I'm still happy with this outing. A few more of these each week for the next few months should build up adequately.

I'm running a hilly 10k on Sunday near Tufts University; the only 10k I have run before was the very steep Bridge of Flowers, which I ran in a miserable 45:30. My training had faltered in the months leading up to the BoF, largely due to illness, but I'm not sure my preparation is that much better for this race. Still, it will be fun, and setting a PR should be trivial.

A couple minor injuries:
- I bruised my left hand during fielding practice for softball; I caught a couple hard throws directly against the index joint on my palm. My hand is bruised and slightly swollen, but I have full range of motion. Clapping hurts.

- I have a strange pain in my left foot, just behind the ball. My foot was swollen there after my half, and I originally feared it was a Lyme tick bite. The pain is between my second and third metatarsal; it's very manageable, and takes deliberate prodding to cause discomfort. I may take some time off running to rest it, as I suppose it could be as severe as a stress fracture.

C • oh man... 6

Run to work. Sinister GimpyFoot felt a little weird, but not painful.

I renewed my effort to establish a running routine, a practice which I had largely abandoned over the past two weeks to recover from whatever ailment I had. My left foot feels odd - sore in places, perhaps a little swollen. The evening run suited me well, as I had much to contemplate.

Event: US Team training weekend
 

Middle Brown X - Splits

Event: CSU Park-O Finale: Pine Banks
 

Finale - Splits

Two links worthy of sharing:
Believe in the magic of the burrito
Extreme happiness.

Credit to AliC for finding these guys.

C • Gamme 5

Softball: throwing and fielding training with John, Marlow, Larson, and Kansas (briefly).

Softball throwing and fielding practice with Larson and Rajiv.

Commute. Tired and residually sick.

Event: NEOC: Wells Foot and MTB-O and AGM
 

Hanging controls for the foot courses at Wells. Brian Jurkowsky, the ranger at Wells, and his staff were incredibly helpful and accommodating for our event. Wells is available year round for activity, and Brian recommended Brimfield State Forest, which he also supervises, for orienteering.

One note about the MTB-O: We used the heart healthy trail for part of the course, which is apparently handicap accessible and off limits for mountain bikers. Otherwise, the staff thought our event was great. Kudos to Sam Levitin for modifying the map to MTB-O specification and making the first NEOC MTB-O in 16 years happen. I think an annual event at Wells would be a great addition, and with Sam's map work and a rotating course setter, the logistics would not be onerous. Double dipping foot and Mtb-O is probably unnecessary, and it seemed more people were excited about the MTB component this weekend.

Control pickup. Thanks a bunch to PBricker and elavallee, who each grabbed a third of the controls and made my life much easier.

I finally felt well enough to putter around, so I went out to Wells to check some control locations. I designed WYOG courses, and the Green was loosely based on the red course from the 2006 A-meet. Wells would probably be a nice area to orienteering in the early spring or late fall; the vegetation was unpleasantly thick in many areas, and the map is only passable. Wells is a large state park - you could easily hold a Billygoat scale course, but the map is probably inadequate. The vegetation was either incorrect or seasonally accurate for the area we used, and my understanding is that the point features are not correct for much of the rest of the map.

Vetting. Somehow managed to pick the wrong feature for Green #13, though it seemed to have the correct proximity to the big cliff and trail, and was the right boulder cluster + cliff feature. Per PBricker's analysis, I was about 30-40m off on feature on the same slope. The correct feature was definitely in visual range, so I don't think this was terribly egregious. Still, not a good way to course set. Oops.

A neat TED talk by epidemiologist Ben Goldacre: Battling Bad Science.

I had a 102 F fever on Monday night, so I rested today. Possible strep throat, though I seem to have bursitis on my left foot. It could be lyme, though I think I would have seen a tick there.

C • get tested 8

Event: NEOC: Breakheart Navigation Race
 

Event: Old Sandwich Road Race Half Marathon
 

Old Sandwich Road Race Half Marathon. My only previous half was the 2010 New Bedford, in which Sam and I ran together and finished in 1:31:27. I estimated that I am sufficiently fit to run a 1:25 based on recent time trials, and that was the approximate goal - 4:00/km. However, my legs felt a bit trashed from sprinting for softball practice; I decided I would be ok with beating my PR.

I had perused the course map, and I expected it to be a bit slow because of the rolling hills in the second half and the dirt road running for the first third. I arrived at the race site at 8:55 - leaving 25 minutes to prep and 40 to take the bus to the start - and registered, put in my contacts, grabbed two Gus, put on sunscreen, and visited the bathroom. I had drunk about 120 mg of caffeine on the drive over, and I was hydrated. Breakfast consisted of cereal and a muffin.

I started out running very well, in the neighborhood of 4:05 - 4:10/km. My breathing was unimpeded (props to cetirizine), I had adequate energy, and while my legs felt tight, they seemed to be moving acceptably. There were a few speedy people - including a chap with a banana-suit shirt, and I judiciously made no effort to keep up with the lead pack, settling into the third pack of four by mile 1. My pack dissolved by mile 2, and I passed them to find myself alone. I was told that I was in ninth at the 4-mile mark out of maybe 200-300. I ran entirely alone - with no runners in sight - in miles 3-8 and 10-13.

The first 4-5 miles of the course were on a dirt and gravel road, which had some soft muddy bits. It was flat, but I expected it to be a little slower than pavement. I felt confident about my pacing over the first half, though I lost a little time to some small hills at mile 6. I came through the 10k mark in a comfortable 41 minutes, and figured that 1:26 or 1:27 was attainable. Unfortunately, I then got absolutely hammered by the rolling hills starting in the out-and-back at mile 8. One of the guys that I had passed at the start caught up and gradually pulled away from me. I was struggling; my muscles weren't responding well, and each step took effort. I tried to zone out for a few miles, but the hills felt relentless. I suppose they're not actually that trivial - the hill at mile 8 was 31m of climb in 750m horizontal, or about the same as Heartbreak. The long ascent from miles 8-11 is a net 60m climb over 4 km with a few wiggles. Daniel's Running Formula back of the envelope for climb is a change in pace of 12-15s per mile for each percent grade; with the wiggles, this yields a delta of about 20s per km. Since my pace fell off much more, I guess I started too fast given the onslaught that was to come.

Miles 8-11 were all about survival; I could see the pitiful pace on my watch, but found I was unable to do anything about it. For the last two miles, I attacked with everything I had left, which was not much. I sprinted the last 200m to squeak in under 91 minutes.

Three factors hurt my performance today:
1. Inadequate recovery from training earlier this week and the resulting muscle soreness.
2. Weather conditions: 27 C and a stiff wind of maybe 20-25 kph, which unfortunately was worst in the exposed areas right around miles 8-11.
3. Soul-sucking hills.

Lessons:
- Don't try new or unusual trainings the week before a race (duh).
- Don't wear a shirt if the temperature is above 21 C; don't wear pants of any kind if the temperature is above 35 C. I ran in shorts and a sleeveless shirt; the latter was completely drenched by the end.
- Train for hills more. My distance training has in general been inadequate.

I'm pleased with the effort, if not the result. I think that in my current conditioning on a good day with a flat course, I could run 1:25. I hope to do that before the end of the year, with an eye towards breaking through 1:20. I think I can safely conclude that running a sub-40 10k would not be difficult - maybe even 38. I'm a long way behind runners like Ross, but there is tremendous opportunity to get faster.

Splits from mile markers:
1: 6:41 (maybe 5s late on button push)
2: 6:24
3: 6:44
4: 6:17
5: 6:44
6: 7:11 (hill)
7: 6:28
8: 7:20 (oh god it burns)
9: 7:09
10: 7:38
11: 7:52
12: 7:29
13.1: 7:05

C • good 3