Training Log Archive: iansmith

But I am le tired.

Out and about.

I have elected to take a rest day today, to give my legs time to recover from the relative pounding over the past three days. I will resume on Tuesday with an easy run, and better alternate running stress and cross training. I will also be moving over the next two days (i.e. "strength training").

Scale this morning read 193.2. While it would be nice to weigh less, I have decided not to worry about my weight and instead focus on fitness, nutrition, and speed.

This month has been a training disappointment. The first two weeks, I was sick with a persistent respiratory infection that compelled me to abandon my plans to attend the OUSA Convention and A-meets. I have changed my activity from predominantly low intensity cross training to running and orienteering. Compared to 30 hours of mostly biking and kayaking last month, I will be fortunate to achieve 15 hours this month. I will do better in September. Do or do not; there is no try.

C • But better quality training this month 13

Out and about; to Zipcar, to apartment 3.0, to apartment 2.0.

It's official: I am an idiot. The situation is even worse than that; I am an idiot who knows he's an idiot. I had originally planned to move the first parts of my equipment to my new apartment over the weekend after seeing the BSO at Tanglewood, but the hurricane interfered with those plans.

This evening, I procured a Zipcar truck to move the larger furniture elements. As the only time a truck was available was between 11:30 PM and 2:30 AM, I was reluctant to ask for help, despite several of my friends offering their assistance. Nevertheless, I thought I was up to the task. I abhor being beholden to my possessions, and while I have accumulated more than I would like, I consider them within my capabilities to move. That pride was my great flaw in this Greek tragedy. I had a plan suited to the task, and it immediately began falling apart.

The largest components of my furniture include a bed, bookshelf, chest of drawers, a number of chairs, a filing cabinet, and a couch. Among my possessions, a several boxes of books are the heaviest items. I had planned to leave the couch behind, but my roommate had already procured another. My former apartment is on the fourth floor of a building, and the new one is on the fifth - but the new apartment has an elevator. That elevator was the choke point, the lynchpin of my entire approach.

Since the couch was the biggest challenge, I set about moving it first. Carrying it downstairs was no mean feat - I had required assistance to bring it upstairs when I purchased it. The couch is massive, and it has a substantial moment. Its size requires delicate maneuvering to traverse a stairwell. Without the cushions, I found it within my abilities, but it was nonetheless a triumph to lower it safely to the ground floor and load it in the truck at about midnight.

My new building is old - from before the Second World War, apparently, and while it is comfortable in many respects, the elevator leaves much to be desired. It moves slowly - at 100 feet/minute, only slightly faster than the vertical speed at which Ueli Steck solo climbed the north face of the Eiger. It is small, perhaps the size of an archaic phone booth, or the Chokey from Matilda, and the door is narrow. I discovered that when summoned, the door only remains open for a few seconds before it insistently tries to close, and the door's pressure sensor is highly localized.

After the non-trivial task of unloading the couch from the truck, I discovered to my dismay that the couch would not fit in the elevator. In the process of attempting it, the elevator crushed my right hand against the couch no fewer than three times, and pinned me for about fifteen seconds while I searched for the pressure sensor. I concluded the only solution was to haul the couch up four flights of stairs alone.

Perhaps someone less overcome by the bounds of idiocy would have stowed the couch somewhere and summoned assistance the next day. I was irate at the engineers who designed the sadist, cramped, underpowered, elevator, and in the absence of a viable alternative, I began my herculean task. If I may be so bold, my upper body strength is not inconsiderable, and it required all my strength to direct the couch through the awkward passage of the stairs. I carried it entirely off the ground for most of the traverse, because I had more control and risked less damage to the couch. I did my best to be silent so as to avoid disturbing anyone. My arduous duel with the fates lasted about ten minutes, but after about ten minutes, I finally prevailed. The absurdity of the position into which I put myself is matched only by the magnitude of my triumph over the couch and the constraints of my dilemma.

Ultimately, I made 10 trips up and down the stairs of my old apartment ferrying loads. Propagating the theme of this story, if I were moving an item which should have been trivial, I found ways to complicate it - typically by carrying more. One item which proved to present many of the challenges of the couch with none of the psychological rewards was my chest of drawers. I have owned it for some time, and it appears to be made of a material as dense as depleted uranium with the material strength of matzo. It was assembled into a rectangular prism with numerous moving parts, sharp edges, and a propensity to deploy the drawers at the most inconvenient times. Fortunately, the chest of drawers (along with all my other items) did fit into the elevator of death, but I was so frustrated carrying the chest down the stairs of my old apartment, that I almost discarded it out of spite. I reasoned that replacing it would require at least as much work, so I persevered despite its pathetically poor design. Appropriately, an element of the baseboard of the chest broke just as I finished transporting it down the stairs.

I am not yet completed with my move, though most of my heavy equipment has made the journey. Times like this sorely tempt me to pull an Erdõs and start living an itinerant life out of a suitcase, crashing at the homes of my O-colleagues. While a casual reader might hope that I have appreciated the folly of my pride (in its various forms), my obstinate desire for autonomy suggests that similar foibles will transpire. As some might say, Holy Macaroni. Perhaps this is a Pyrrhic victory, since I don't see any method for getting the couch out of the apartment except by the same route or with the aid of an acetylene torch.

I should note that composing my log entry in my head helped me cling to the last vestiges of my sanity during this ordeal.

C • oh, Ian 16

Easy run around the river. I stopped briefly to visit my new apartment. I find myself frustrated to be running so slowly - and so pushing harder than I should, so characterizing this effort as intensity 1 is optimistic. Continued Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

With Andy McIlvaine, I traveled to Rhode Island to meet Pete Lane, Don Hall, and Karl Stephens to assess the Big River North map for an A-meet. While the Rhode Island guys have made tremendous progress, the question is still unanswered as to if and when we will proceed with an A-meet there. Karl is advocating a spring 2012 date, though there are questions as to whether there is a suitable available date on the calendar and whether the map will be ready. The final decision rests with me and Andy.

After we discussed some logistics, like parking and start locations, we split up to run around on the map. I traveled the furthest afield of the group, but even then did not have enough time to check out all the areas I hoped to. It was nice to get out, and my body seemed able to handle the activity and duration. I slowed and stopped often to examine the map more closely and assess features from multiple perspectives. Ninety minutes isn't enough time to evaluate a map.

C • Big River North 2

A late night run. Between sleeplessness, poor discipline, and getting my wisdom teeth out, I did not run as my this week as I had planned. My goal for this week is 4-5 sessions with a total of 15 miles, but I may not reach it. I felt pretty good tonight. I'm going to Big River tomorrow to visit the map, so I will probably have opportunity to run in terrain.

NEOC Board meeting today at Barb's house. Apart from the usual votes of approving the Vice Presidential appointments, the minutes, etc, we formalized the votes donating $250 to each of the junior and senior teams that we had discussed via e-mail in June, and made travel grants to Alex Jospe and Ross Smith. While NEOC will gives some preference to NEOC primary members, the implication is that the metric for travel grants is club involvement.

We also talked at length about the unending queue of events tasks, publicity and the 40th anniversary year in 2012. Apart from my usual responsibilities of putting the schedule together, I will be helping make arrangements for the 40th anniversary celebration - including special races and at least one big social gathering. If you would like to help out with that (mostly brainstorming, then calling places to see if we can have our events there), please let me know! I don't really want to chair the 40th anniversary group, but it doesn't look likely anyone else will step up.

Control Count: 0/2000

Left two wisdom teeth were removed today.

This is the last week of 4 km commutes before I move to my new apartment and its 1.8 km commute. I plan to commute directly in either the morning or afternoon and lengthen the other commute leg to a 30-60 minute bike or running session. The convenience of this short commute offers much possibility for when my training has escalated to two sessions per day.

I will live 8 km from the Middlesex Fells map, which will probably take 30 minutes given traffic.

C • I've been waiting... 2

I ran four Catching Features courses, three of which were on very technical terrain. This is such a great mental exercise, though I made a number of 2- and 3- minute mistakes.

My office mates and I went out to play 4v4 soccer. We played on a small field with small, collapsible goals. I'm not sure of the distance - I didn't wear my Garmin, but there was much accelerating. My fitness is weak - I was tired less than halfway through. My team won 5-3, but I didn't score any goals. I tweaked my back, but it's too trivial to be considered an injury. By successfully playing through a session of soccer, I avoided pulling a feet (or pulling a McSmith with rollerblades).

My company regularly but infrequently organizes soccer and ultimate frisbee outings, which should make for excellent cross training.

An hour of catching features. I ran two courses and reviewed them; I noticed that I have difficulty running in a straight line based on visual cues alone.

I went on an easy run around Fresh Pond. I had intended to run on the trails through Fresh Pond, which are dirt and gentler on my joints, but in the dark, Fresh Pond was too shady even for me.

My speed was quite slow, but I was untroubled by that - speed is not my objective right now. My legs felt somewhat heavy and sluggish. I forgot my audiobook at home, so I mused about orienteering competition.

Stand back, I'm going to try Science.

After starting my laundry, I set out on an easy run. This vaguely maps to the long run for the week, though the distance is actually what my shortest runs were in Spring 2010. I finished up with some stretching, and contemplated a 2000 control goal before June 2012. Weight after the run was 191.2 lbs.

I watched the relay with Brendan and Minda, a Lithuanian physics grad student at MIT. We were struck by the number of errors in the women's relay that changed the ordering among the leaders. Thierry was unassailable in the men's relay, but Minda kept cheering for people who were not the Lithuanian team to mess up. The end of the third leg had an exciting set of events where Estonia, Russia, and Italy made errors at the difficult third to last control. Lithuania passed Estonia (to Minda's glee), but Russia and Italy were too far ahead. It turned out that Italy had missed the tenth control, so Lithuania very respectably finished in 6th.

While I had planned to go for a run last this evening, an incident changed my plans. After work, I biked to Union Square to have dinner with Fran and Tommy, two of Jess' old friends who were in town. I returned to work to pick up my laptop and go on a run around Fresh Pond, but as I descended the ramp into the parking lot, my front tire hit a construction wire obliquely and I crashed at about 15-20 kph. I stayed with my bike when I skidded across the parking lot to a stop. Surprisingly, there was little damage - I scraped up my left palm and forearm somewhat, the left leg of my jeans was shredded, I had a small cut on the left knee, and one of the brackets on my front brake was deformed, rendering the brake nonfunctional. I was a bit shaken up, so I decided to scrub my run.

C • Dude... 2

Easy run around Fresh Pond. I wore my Lunarlite speedy shoes to give my feet a rest from breaking in the new Asics and to avoid using a single pair of running shoes for any length. I listened to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Apart from the typical work commute, I biked to the Museum of Science and rode on the Esplanade to Harvard Square with Jess and her friend Jeff. Jeff and Jess wanted to go on a leisurely bike ride, so the entire expedition was slow. While it was longer than 20 minutes, logging its entirety would exaggerate its training value. Dinner at Casablanca in Harvard Square followed, in an unintended use of time.

I set out on an evening run on the usual short route. I have run more today and yesterday than I planned, but an easy thirty minute run is a nice atomic unit. I will back off for the rest of the week. I am still feeling sick - I have had bad coughing fits for the past two days.

I wore a new pair of shoes I acquired yesterday, the Asics GT-2150. I estimated that a 30 minute run would be short enough to avoid discomfort while breaking them in, but the inner edge of my arches nearly blistered. I listened to 170 bpm techno during the run, which incidentally escalated my pace. Since I'm building up essentially from scratch, I will try to work on good running form and a higher cadence than my more typical 160 bpm.

As always, I did the usual stretches after my run - calf stretch, quad stretch, and hamstrings. I irregularly add an adductors stretch.

Morning run along a shortened version of the usual 30-minute loop. I traveled to Richmond for a wedding on Friday, and returned Saturday. The stress of travel didn't help my stamina, and my cold symptoms have appeared again. Breathing was labored during the run, but I was so frustrated by my infirmity that I decided to go out anyway.

http://omaps.worldofo.com/index.php?id=44801

No training over past two days due to poor priorities and work busyness. This morning, my scale read '189.8'.

I had a few minutes before my departure for coffee and a day at the Boston Museum of Art, so I set out on a run. One of the advantages of a cap on the amount of time I am allowed to run is that even while I feel silly training for such a short period, given the overhead costs of changing and showering, I can fit my daily workout into very narrow windows of time.

The legs felt good, though a bit stiff compared to yesterday. Running feels unfamiliar. I should probably bring constant tempo music so I can maintain a particular cadence (e.g. 170 bpm).

C • Pace vs Cadence 2

After over a week of illness and inactivity, I went out on a late night run - an actual run, outside. I decided to run gingerly for about fifteen minutes thinking about my form and trying to stay loose. Remarkably, I felt no discomfort in either leg. An incidental benefit of my illness is that my legs had a week of essentially no activity to rest. The temperature was 24 C and skies were clear. Since my run was trivially short, I didn't bother bringing an audiobook.

Two cycles of:
- 25 tuckups
- 10 squats, bodyweight
- 25 elbow-to-knee crunches, each side
- 10 calf raises, bodyweight
- 10 pushups
- 10 split squats (baby lunges)

I will put more emphasis on leg strength once my body has had time to adjust to the stress of regular running.