Training Log Archive: Lori

I had a rehearsal during the NEOC meet, so SGB, Presto, and I headed out to do the Blue Hills Skyline trail in the afternoon. We were planning on running the full thing, but traffic conspired against us and after spending 1.5 hours getting to the Blue Hills we didn't have time, so we just ran the part of the trail west of the road with quite a few detours. It actually worked out really well because it thundered the entire time we were driving, then stopped, and then started thundering again basically as soon as we got back to the car. Lots of fun to get out!

To and from rehearsal. What a gorgeous day! (At least the morning :-).)

I couldn't get out of lab in time to get out to Cat Rock for the park-o, so I just went for a run with Presto. We had to stop back by lab in the middle for me to plate some cells. It had stopped raining and was basically perfect running weather! We saw lots of geese and flowers and just generally had a great time!

Normal stretching.

Easy, easy run with Presto to try to get the kinks out of my legs. They are feeling surprisingly good actually. My ankle is just REALLY tired, so my calf cramped up a bit, and my left hamstring down near my knee is kind of sore. I think my IT band actually feels better after the weekend, though, which is awesome. We saw lots of geese out with goslings, which was very cute, so Presto tried to chase the geese and the geese hissed at Presto. Presto was also on high rabbit alert, but we didn't see any rabbits. I spent the run smelling the flowers. Yay spring!

Normal stretching and some calf massaging.

7 Sisters Trail Race out by Amherst, MA. Wow! What a long race! I was going to take Presto, but we got there and were told that Presto wasn't allowed to race. I almost decided to just go out for a run with him instead of racing, but then a nice woman who recently had ankle reconstruction surgery offered to hold on to him for me, which was really nice of her. I'm still unclear on why Presto wasn't allowed to run with me, since there were tons of dogs out there, but I guess I know for the future.

Anyway, after this inauspicious start to the day, I headed off to run the longest race I've ever done. I was not having a great time for the first 4 miles. We started out in a long line of people trudging up a huge hill, and it took a long time before this line spread out at all. I dislike having people breathing loudly down my neck, so this entire period of time was increasingly uncomfortable. Anyway, I think the first "2" miles was significantly longer than 2, but we finally got to the first water stop to discover that while there were a gazillion gallons of water, there were no cups. After a brief debate, I drank straight from the gallon. I hope no one had any communicable diseases... The next "2" miles or so were still kind of painful, but the "4" mile water stop came pretty quickly, and I got to see SGB coming back at me vying for first place! Then things just got really fun, and I was just having an awesome time! The views were beautiful, the weather was perfect, and the neck breathers were off somewhere else :-).

I made it to the 6 mile half-way point, had some water, gatorade, and banana, and headed back out again. I was still feeling really good and was pleased with my walk the uphills, run the flats and downhill strategy. In fact, I was feeling so good that I decided the 12 mile race with 3700ft of climb just wasn't long enough, so I added an extra mile, and just to make sure that it wasn't a wimpy mile, I made sure it involved redoing one of the 7 peaks an extra time and added another couple hundred feet of climb. I really wanted to do a half-marathon anyway :-). (Basically there was a three-way intersection with no indication of which trail was correct and some hikers told me that the trail I was on was correct...which was in fact wrong.) Before my detour, I was on track to finish somewhere between 3:10 and 3:20, which would have been awesome.

I was still feeling fine and was annoyed about the detour and sort of unconsciously picked up the speed, which combined with my increasing hunger was a bad idea, and shortly after the "10" mile water stop hit the wall. Ugh! The last however long seemed to take FOREVER, but I finished and then we headed off for some food!

A vague attempt to not have ridiculously sore muscles...