Training Log Archive: Charlie

Event: Western States + Intercollegiate Championships
 

Green Day 1 at Tucson A meet. Killer cold that showed up again on Thursday. Felt very tired, but knee held up. Race was very nice, with only two mistakes, one not finding #2 because of not visualizing control circle right, and one missing a reentrant and running up the wrong spur for a while before correcting. Encountered Lyn W at #8 (she was on Brown), but courses pretty similar and back and forth with her the rest of the way.

After the race repaired to the car and sat there moaning - too tired to take the ibuprofen in my bag in the back seat. Many infusions of OJ.

I was pretty worried about the knee, and it felt ouchy for the first few controls, but ultimately ok.

Tucson A meet sprint. Pretty good run, and felt better than the morning, but still really dragging, and dragging more so as the race went on. Knee ok. Two fine scalps (or perhaps one and a half).

Thanks to Bob and Jeanne Walsh for the accommodations, and to Lex and Pete for a great dinner - a fine and relaxing dinner with Lex, Pete, J-J, George n Lyn, Valerie, Sandy. And some fine lemonade, with very local lemons.

Sprint - Splits

Green 1 - Splits

Fun party at Cristina's! Thanks!

On the spinning bike, with Rhonda and her sister Chris.

Brian's leg exercises (or at least most of them) out in the gym.

AOWN: nice healthy looking red fox with a big brush crossing Ratlum Mt Rd this morning.

Bunker Hill to Hanson route. Stopped at the driveway on the way back because: a) enough is enough and b) a convenient time to roll the trash barrel back up the hill. Knee tender, but not overtly painful. Presumably last tune up before Tucson.

AOWN: Lovely lunar eclipse. Got clued in by PG and watched it on and off between about 9:15 and 10:15. Beautiful clear night.

stationary bike at Brian's to warm up

All the leg exercises, with their arcane names: quad builders, kangaroo squats, rockets, waist trimmers, sideways skipping, jumping on trampoline, lunges against resistance, jogging on trampoline against resistance, medicine ball catch on one leg on the trampoline, balancing on half foam roller with squats and leg adduction. Went pretty well.

Down Doyle Road and back with the ailing Rhonda. She is trying to fight a cold, and this was just to get her moving a bit. Hazel made a friend down the road and we had to repatriate this dog before she followed us home. The owner thanked us for taking her back to him, and told us she had been "in jail" a few times for wandering away. In fact, she had showed up at our house one time a couple of months ago. Glad Hazel is a homebody. She loves to go places, but only if we take her.

Morning class with the girls. The intensity of the exercise experience is diminished by how absorbing the conversation is with the latest updates on Kathleen's in-laws and their social entanglements.

Also, my body is unusually grouchy this morning, with pain in the shoulder, low back and knee. Is it the weather? Raining pretty vigorously at 5:45 when we went out.

From Pleasant Valley with Rhonda. Plan was to go out 20 minutes at a gentle pace and then turn back. Out 10:49; 9:21. Missed the split on the way back, but the total was 19:02. Interesting temperature experience, as it was alternating cold and very warm as patches of fog drifted across the road.

As is often the case, Rhonda kept about 3 meters ahead. Perhaps she was protecting her rather vulnerable husband from any attack badgers that might be lying in wait. Or perhaps she was (rightly) assuming that her husband would protect her from any cougars that might attack from behind. Hard to say. She never explains. I do think I was supposed to appear grateful that it was 3 meters and not 200. And so I did.

Knee was tender on the way out, less so on the way back.

Woods excursion with Hazel and Rhonda. Conditions too slick without the snowshoes. Through the post-wrangling laurel thicket path, across the Big Down marsh, all icy and perhaps ready after the next rain for some really fine skating. Then up the hill east picking through laurel patches, past Art Sweeton's jeep road and down the other side to Lavander. Lost a snowshoe there and slid down the hill a ways. When I had re-attached it I noticed that Hazel seemed to be bleeding a bit from one of her feet, so instead of heading on down through Rick and Amy's and around through Joan Kenney's and back that way, we just re-traced our route (mostly) and returned.

AOWN: some fresh deer poop, and plenty of tracks
AOWM(achinery): a fellow batting around Big Down Marsh on a yellow and black snowmobile. Had to hold on to Hazel when he went by. A friendly wave, but the odor of gasoline fumes hung in the air for quite a while after he was gone.