Training Log Archive: W

Orienteering event on the Oskahtak map. Sadly, this map is going the way of so many maps around Edmonton. It need serious updating, with complete liberal use of the Green Slash symbol, since its deadfall, deadfall, deadfall, everywhere. There's real nice white forest in places, covered with deadfall. Really bad.

Unfortunately, this mean that I was doing poor planning, since I seemed preoccupied with finding my way around the dead trees to get where I was going. Some legs I was very pleased with, but when the woods got thicker and the map highly questionable, I was doing a very poor job. No focus, no compass, no looking ahead. Just deadfall.

Saturday morning Fast Trax intervals at the park just near the shop. A loop course which has a couple climbs, a long straight bit, and a touch of rolling before going back down again. 8 x 3 minutes w/ 2 minutes rest, so we effectively did 2 2/3rd loops. Really tried to drive the climbs but that made it a struggle at the top to keep driving over the top. Flats were unpleasant with a rough grassy surface. Still, I felt not bad at all!

Also, I was supposed to run the Kananskis 100 this weekend. Then this happened. I think the start would have had to be delayed a few hours.

As I started out on this run, it occurred to me that this was really my first pain-free run in quite some time. Between all my various foot pain, none of it was particularly bothersome at all.

Of course, it was at that point that I realized maybe I shouldn't be overdoing it, 9+ hours of running in the past week or so has been good, but that seems like an aggressive jump to go straight back into it. Given the proximity to major races, there's not a huge benefit to lots of volume anymore, intensity is where its going to be at.

So, with that in mind, my hour long run turned to half an hour, followed up by a barbecue and our contribution to the "longest day of play". Which... consisted of going outside, it starting to rain, and then going back inside and playing Street Fighter 2 on the super nintendo. I'm sure that's what Participaction had truly intended.

Headed out for a run before going to the office in anticipation of doing something before working at the shop. That, naturally, never happened, because all of sudden I had to mow the lawn. Don't ask how those things are all related.

Anyway, stomach felt happier, toe feels generally happy, both feet are a little grumpy, but manageable. Now that I've stopped worrying about my toe falling off, the Plantar fasciitis pain becomes more into focus.

Funny how that works.

Wednesday night orienteering at Strathcona Science Park. There was a sprint followed by a weird middle of some sort. Did a nice warm-up, and then tried to do the sprint pretty fast. But, I made a super dumb mistake on number 4, as I effectively just didn't read my map.

This happens to me a lot around the city as I presume I know where everything is, and in this case I didn't cross through a fence, since I "assumed" it was the fence related to the biathlon range, but it really wasn't. So I stopped, was confused, wasted a solid 45 seconds, before figuring out. That was very bad. Afterwhich I tried to get back to good habits of reading, making plans, seeing big features, but its tough to shake that, since it is a race ruining mistake, and those just can't happen. But that's okay, just have to keep on that mantra of planning and big features.

A very slow run because whatever I had for lunch was not agreeing with me at all. I printed off a few courses that I made using the old map of the sprint Q area of Finland, and on the satellite image map I pieced together. The courses I planned were kind of short, but its hard to be sure, because the measurement is in "best route". There's a collection of houses on the east side of the map where I feel like the start will probably be, that look like they have lots of fences. So, I suspect there will be quite a bit of distance in that section as we have to take the long routes to particular controls. Then eventually we will venture out into the seemingly open forest and the wider spaced houses which should probably make for some fast running. So, I think there will be a distinct change of speed and difficulty at some point, presumably kicked off with some long map spanning leg.

Its Monday, so.. interval time! I was unsure what to do, given a sprint on Wednesday and a race on Saturday (more on THAT later!). So, I settled on some classic punishment intervals, the one I call "Steep, Steeper, Steepest". In general, this time I felt bad for almost all of the second and third ones, my legs felt really heavy and not strong. And, despite this brutal climb, I couldn't push my heart rate past 174. 174! Seriously, that's ridiculous.

SunBunRun '013! Met up with with a crew from the shop for the extremely sporadic SunBunRun. Unfortunately there was no buns today, but there was scones, because after a relatively slow hour long run, we finished at the Duchess Bake Shop to get some pretty amazing stuff. It was super heavy and I felt a little gross after, but, it was still tasty. In the future, probably I'll just have half.

Afternoon yog with Nev from his place. Nice evening, ran into Barbara and Robin. It was a regular reunion-y day today!

My least-favorite favorite day of the year, the Fast Trax Ultra. First it requires getting up at 5:15 to drive to goldbar and set stuff up. This year it also then involved wading into the lake to get the tent that had blown in there. I think had the privilege of being the lead runner for the race, where I wear a safety vest and run in front of whoever is leading. Its like a lead bike, but, on foot. I also had zero warm-up due to still setting up the race. Being an ultra, you'd think this would be pretty easy, but, nope. Just one legit 30k runner, and now I'm cruising. Though in reality, it was a very comfortable cruise. The hills were breath-y, but I recovered well and comfortable stayed ahead of him to run a kind of short trail 10k in just under 40 minutes.

My toe has sort of morphed from being smashed toe to just feeling like an ingrown toenail. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is really no better or worse.

Well, I'm kind of dumb. Well, for many reasons. But in this case, its because all summer I'd forgotten there's a gravel track actually fairly close to my house that's almost always deserted.

So, with that in mind, I went there. And did track intervals. Another round of 8 x 400 w/ 400 rest. Aimed for the same times as the two weeks before, which I think was probably more difficult because it was actually fairly windy. Still quite pleased with the times despite the painful headwind home stretch, 84, 83, 77, 73, 71, 69, 69, 69. HR topped out at a hilariously pathetic 174.

Followed it up with some 3 x 100m at Usain Bolt pace. I swear.

This has been a busy week, in many ways. That's never good. Anyway, my initially planned 90 minute run got cut massively short by lawyers who do everything at the last minute. Man that frustrates me. What frustrates me more is I don't have the will power to get out for morning runs early. Anyway, managed to get in a 45 minuter before working again, and only get mildly rained on. No lightning though!

I made a point of taking two full days off to see if the swelling and pain in my toe would go down some more. It did, a little, and generally with my most built-up, in flexible shoes, it doesn't feel so bad. But, then I slipped on my old 212s for the Sprint at the university, and things didn't feel so good.

In general, it felt okay, and the sprint at the university was pretty good, I'm pleased that someone decided to do something different, so mad props to them. But by the end of sprint part there just seemed to be a bit of soreness and it was a bit bothersome. Its really not unlike if you jam your thumbnail, but obviously there's so much weight being supported.

That night before bed I also noticed it was still leaking, so that wasn't such a good sigh either. Ordinarily I'd switch to the bike, but given the shape of my bike shoes, that might actually be worse. I think the only solution here is to man up and tough it out. Or, alternatively, wimp out and see a doctor? Nah.

I'm going to try to catch up on logging by sometimes going back in time, and sometimes starting at the back and going forward.

Barebones Farsta! I was actually a little nervous. Not for the race, but I really wanted to have a good clip but keep it together navigationally with other people around. I'm targeting lead at the relay this year.

After a solid 4 minute warm-up, and pain in my right foot (in the form of a smashed toe) and my left foot (a surprisingly large hole on the bottom of my foot), we headed out with Toni using an impressive burst of top speed to lead us all out in generally the wrong direction. (*Oh Toni.....*)

Once I got myself together, I was able to quickly make a plan to number 1. When I think about it, though, I had that pretty dialed, and failed to start planning to number 2. So when I got to number 1, it was a bit hasty and I was running nervously, erratically, and without a strong direction. I knew what I was looking for, (a big hill with a clearing), but I wasn't looking up into the terrain, and I was very nervous about my bearing, since I hadn't checked it very well after leaving number 1.

However, it worked out okay, I spotted the hill, and from there I immediately settled down and nailed it. From number 2 on I never saw another competitive soul, and ran the entire thing solo. Some strong plans, some less strong plans, which made for some slow legs with nervy relocation, but they worked out in the end. I read ahead, kept my head up, saw big features, observed the terrain, used my Kom-pass, though maybe not as effectively as I could have. Toni would have been *mostly* proud.

I think when I get a chance I'll post some snippets of the map and we can do some community evaluation of my plans. That could be interesting.

Ultimately ran away with it for a 3 minute victory.

C • Toni leads out the mass start 3

Farsta Long - Splits

Chase 5 - Splits

Setup 5 - Splits

Hiked up Ha-Ling! Not quite a land speed record, and pretty dumb to do with my toe the way it is, but it was still fun. Sometimes I get complacent about the view, so its good to go with people who haven't been up it many, many times to re-appreciate the view.

And the climb, of course.