Training Log Archive: PG

Let's see if I've got this right --

Kissy is laid up from knee surgery.

Boris is out of commission with an injured butt.

And Kat shows up in Laramie for some private coaching.

In the old days, another edition of the Troll Trasher Rag would already have hit the newsstands....

C • Didn't disappoint 2

Another great day.

Off with Gail to the NEOC local meet at Nobscot, one of my favorite places from the late 70s, and then after at least 20 years absence, a fond memory from 2 years ago.

Ran the Red course, longest on offer, seemed about right for what I wanted, and had a good (maybe very good) run. I wasn't sure how the legs would feel. Yesterday's very short excursion on South Sugarloaf, especially the downhills, had my legs feeling dead on the warm-up. (The second time down, dropping at 135'/minute, I could feel the jarring on the legs while I was doing it, but it's the kind of training that needs to be done, and done more often.)

But once I got going I had more energy than expected. Ran well for the first 30 minutes, then a few weak moments the rest of the way, but still running pretty well most of the time. And a little more aggressive at times too. And definitely better at reading the map on the run than I've been recently.

Got done, time was excellent, then took a very pleasant walk with Ian Smith out to check the trails on the way to #1 (yup, they're screwed up in a couple of places), plus a nice chat with him. He's getting better, also still lots of room for improvement. Plus he does a bunch of organizing stuff for CSU, which is cool.

Afterwards, just to show that you can teach an old dog the occasional new trick, I took advantage of something I've seen Barb do with great success -- before we left home I did a quick search for "vegetarian restaurant Framingham" and up popped Big Fresh. Hardly out of the way at all. We stopped there, shared a Spicy Peanut Noodle Stir Fry, really excellent. And then happily headed home.

Today's routes and a few comments.

Worst mistake was to #1, and I could blame that in part on a couple of mismapped trails (and I walked out there afterwards to be sure). But I still should have adjusted quicker. To 8 (across the marsh), just a little too far left of my intended line. And then to 14, the last control, popped out of the little marsh just east of the control, saw the flag, went to punch, but the code was wrong. Did a double-take, how could this be, I was right on line. Though this looked like it was on a boulder and I was looking for a flattish knoll. Looked around, and there was mine, at most 20 meters away. The closest I think I've ever seen 2 controls in this country.

I ran well for 31 minutes (exception was the steep climb up to 3, unrunnable for me), on the way to 9 all of a sudden I felt out of gas. Walked the first part of the hill to 10, and then the last part to 11, that part quite slowly, but then ran the rest of the way not so bad.

Overall, more improvement over the last 6 weeks, both physically and technique. Getting some efficiency back. And was moving pretty well on several legs.

12 down, 38 to go.

Just a short warm-up. As usual, should have done long, but something was better than nothing.

Red course - Splits

A short but useful outing -- two trips up the trail straight up South Sugarloaf and then back the same way, walking up, jogging down, hard on the quads both ways, 450' vertical.

Up: 7:43. Down: 3:38. Total: 11:21.
Up: 7:07. Down: 3:21. Total: 10:28

Went to see Sugar. We both really liked it.

Several things, but first a progress report since March 1 --








Down 11 pounds, and it's starting to show in my running. :-)

13 hills loop in Greenfield. Don't run it often this time of year, but it's a nice test loop, plus it drains really well so even after 3 days of rain it's not muddy.

Ran the first half at just a good steady pace, moving nicely. Then not sure if I picked it up a little or it was just the accumulation of hills, but on the way back I was definitely breathing hard. But still in control. So hard work but felt really good. And the time, 53:07, while still well off the 49+ of a few years ago (and that was a race-pace effort), was a good improvement over my best uo to now this year of 56:35. Excellent. 10 down, 40 to go.

Tomorrow will be an easy day, then maybe O' at Nobscot on Sunday?

So we're going to the Oringen and the Swiss O' Week. (Yippee!)

And anyone who complains about the online entry systems that we have for most A meets in this country ought to have their head examined.

The Swiss one wasn't so bad for signing up, perfectly OK in fact, just the paying is the pain in the rear, can't use a credit card, have to go to the bank to get a wire transfer, and hope to hell the person at the bank actually manages to get it done right, despite the fact that she is giving every indication that she doesn't know what she is doing.

The one saving grace is that the organizers respond quickly to e-mails, so within a couple of days I knew that it had actually worked.

The Oringen, well, I suppose in their defense I should say that it is a big operation, about 10K people entered so far, a zillion classes, all sorts of other possible fees. But still. I went to sign up. Got logged in OK. Filled out all the info, a couple of times actually because it was quite finicky, then saved it. And then noticed that the club I'd entered, WCOC, had disappeared. It hadn't been in their database, and when I tried to add it, nothing happened.

And then, since we weren't signed up as a member of a club, when I went to register for a class, the only possibilities were the recreational ones. Probably went through the process 3 or 4 times, trying to figure out what I could do differently, finally gave up and sent off an e-mail to the organizers asking for help.

Very prompt and nice reply first thing in the morning, two of them actually, one from the Oringen office, one from one of the programmers. They had had a little problem with this, thought it was fixed, maybe not, but they had hacked the system a little and inserted WCOC as a legit club, and now it should work fine for me. Which it did, though very much at a snail's pace, apparently still a lot of heavy thinking required on its part.

Or at least it worked perfectly until it came time to pay. And to be fair, this wasn't the systems problem. It looked easy. They took credit cards.

I have to make a slight detour now. I have one credit card that I use for everything, and a debit card I use almost never. A week ago I was looking at my monthly credit card bill, just checking, and there was a charge for a little over $500 from an outfit in Phoenix I had never heard of. Now, I had just been in Phoenix, but I sure didn't remember spending $500 on anything. Neither did Gail. So I called up the card company. Got someone to talk to after a while, she took the details on the questionable charge, put me on hold to get more info on it, came back after a while to tell me they had no information on the party, no phone, no address, no nothing, and while I was starting to ask how that was possible, she put me on hold again, then came back to say that she had removed the charge and closed the account. My account. Boom.

Removing the charge was fine, but closing the account was not. But it was done. A new card with a different number was supposed to have been sent out Tuesday (still not received).

So anyway, today I'm trying to pay the Oringen fee with my Bank of America debit card, and I put in all the numbers, and then I get flipped over to some sort of extra security check operation, and deal with that, and then finally get to press the "Make payment" button, and then the message comes back - rejected.

So I go through it again. Rejected again. Call of BofA, finally get a person. Of course it was rejected, outside of your normal spending pattern. Hmm, maybe because I don't have a spending pattern except to get a little cash at the ATM. So a lengthy conversation with him about how and when they are planning to make life hard for me in the future by rejecting me some more, but at least he says if I try once more this charge should go through. Which I do, and it does.

I think I am just being tested to see if can still keep from getting pissed. So far, mostly so good. But enough is enough.

C • spending pattern 6

I forgot that I had a monthly board meeting this evening that conflicts with the track group, so got myself over to the track this morning. And since i was by myself, changed the workout, the new plan was 8x400m with a 100m jog recovery. I also fantasized on the way over about adding on a 1000m at the end to make a nice 5K package, but the mental commitment to that was certainly less.

Warm up 3 laps, then (time for 400, time for 100)....
1:36.9, 34.4
1:37.8, 33.8
1:37.5, 35.7
1:38.7, 36.4
1:40.1, 36.9
1:38.7, 35.2
1:36.9, 35.6
1:36.3, 32.7, 17:43 for 4000m
At that point, no way I was doing another hard 1000.

Just about as hoped. Was shooting for 400 times of 95-97, but the legs didn't feel lively and the recoveries were both short and active. I was very tempted to take a little break after the first four, but that seemed to be just postponing the inevitable, and then the 5th one seemed headed in the wrong direction, so I buckled down a little for the last three and they were OK.

Light rain, about 50F, but the track drains really well and no puddles.

I was quite surprised to see another guy there when I arrived, putting in laps, fairly slow. There have certainly been times in the past when that would bother me, not how he was running, but just that there was someone there watching, would bring to the surface all my self-consciousness. It didn't seem an issue today. In fact, the first time I passed him there was a friendly hello back and forth, and then the second time enough of a chat to determine that he was there for an hour, 24 laps, so 10-minute-per-mile pace, good for him. He was doing his thing, I was doing mine, no problems, Nice to be able to deal with these trivial situations better than I used to.

3 laps before, one lap after, plus walked another lap after.

I was occupying (or hopefully only partially occupying) my mind during the last couple of 400s by pace counting, and it seemed to me, if I remember numbers correctly from a few years back, that my pace is about 10% shorter than it was then. Maybe that explains why I'm running slower. Lack of suppleness, flexibility, running efficiency, basic conditioning? All of them?

Separately, went to see Goodbye Solo last night. It got fine reviews, in part for being understated. We both liked it but also a little disappointed. Seemed like it needed a little more meat on the bones. Still, way better than the average multiplex offering (although next on the list may be Startrek, which Gail wants to see, but I have no clue about other than I think people have pointy ears).

And separately again, an excellent article in The New Yorker about health care costs, should be sobering reading to anyone who thinks that a single-payer system is the answer to all our problems.

C • New Yorker article 12

C • Star Trek 37

So I hit the (small-time) jackpot last night at the XC race. Neither of the really fast 60+ local guys showed up, so I got a usual prize, a coupon good for a free entry at a future one of these races. Plus there's a predicted time prize -- I predicted 22:15, missed it by 1 second. Sometimes even just one second isn't good enough, someone hits it right on the button, but last night it was, and that was worth three more coupons for future race entries. So if anyone out this way wants to run and wants to save the $4 entry fee, let me know....

Obviously the value is pretty minimal, but the coupons themselves are great, a version of the old baseball cards, except the stars are local runners. Pictures on the front, short bio of the runner on the back. Pretty cool.







Larger versions (Sidney front and back, and Bob front and back).

C • xc race 2

Not sure why, perhaps as a result of my nice talk with "dad" last night at the race and the good spirits that put me in, but I woke up this morning and decided I had done enough psychological penance ("You are your own worst critic," a friend once told me) for my bad behavior a week and a half ago.

And the black cloud just disappeared, though hopefully the lesson learned will not be forgotten.

On Pocumtuck Ridge. Another perfect day for running (though not for much else) -- about 50F, misty/foggy. Moderate pace, just as intended. No falls, just as intended. Took a little bit of willpower to get out, but not as much as many days as the legs are doing better and many more runs are actually fun these days. Just hope it lasts.

26:06 up, 22:18 back. 8 down, 42 to go.

Back to the track tomorrow evening.

Seems like Oringen will also be in the plans.

Extract from the results of yesterday's race (written up by "dad"). :-)

C • nhappy is good. 1

Northampton 5K XC. Another perfect evening for a hard effort, about 60F, low humidity.

20 seconds better than 2 weeks ago, just what I was shooting for, though partway through I was guessing that I was going to come up short -- first mile was 5 seconds faster, second just 3 faster. But worked harder the last mile, ran it just about as fast as the first two even though it is uphill, and ended up just where I wanted.

Splits: 7:13, 7:05, 7:14, 42.

Still need to HTFU when it comes to working hard. Holding back a little bit for the first couple of miles (no lactic acid in the legs at the top of the first hill, no real heavy breathing) as if I'm scared of crossing the red line, though I'm not really that close. The third mile was closer to the edge, felt pretty close to the right amount of pain, still could have pushed a little more. Just have to relearn how to do this.

Still, very pleased. 7 down, 43 to go.

C • Another interesting option: wkly 5k, same course. 7

10 minutes before, 10 minutes after. Almost missed the start, usually they start about 10 minutes late, tonight they were just 5 minutes late.

So then the best part of the race happened after it was all over.

The race happens every Tuesday evening from the beginning of April through late September, and it's been happening since at least 1988, at least that's the first year I ran it, and always the same family putting it on, dad, mom, and daughter.

And I've known them for even longer, and they are, well, the word "weird" isn't quite right, maybe the word "different" is better. Dad was a conscientious objector back in the Vietnam days, went to jail for his beliefs. All are strong-willed, tend to be judgmental, sometimes in a good way, sometimes not.

I'd been reasonably friendly with them over the years -- it's hard to be too friendly when they are "different" and I am "different" -- until 6 or 8 years ago when there was a decided chill. The chill was coming from dad to me. Best as I could figure out, it happened after I had said that I wasn't going to play host to one of the running club's winter "fun runs" -- we had for a bunch of years, a bit of work, plus getting the local farmer to come and push the snow back to make more room for parking, and the previous couple of years the attendance had dropped off quite a lot, from maybe 25-30 to 6 or 8, and it just didn't seem worth the trouble. This happened to be the first year dad took over the job of putting together the schedule of fun run hosts, and he seemed quite taken aback when I explained we weren't going to do it any more. And I think he took it personally.

And I started getting the cold shoulder whenever we crossed paths. I think I made a couple mild attempts to unfreeze things, but to no avail. Perhaps it was some other reason altogether, but I never knew.

So anyway, two weeks ago at the race I chatted with daughter for a while, and I made a point of thanking dad for putting on the race for so many years, how cool that was, and the chill didn't seem quite as bad.

And tonight, I thanked him once soon after the finish, and then after the little awards ceremony I went up to him and thanked him again and started talking about how nice it had been having the race for so long, and he asked how I was doing, and I took to opportunity as I sometimes do nowadays to talk about Life (with a capital L) and my journey with PC and things I've learned, and he told me about his back surgery last fall and the three stents in his heart -- just a couple of OFs talking about their ailments -- but after 15 minutes or so there were lots of smiles on both sides. And I walked away, no need to worry about what caused the chill, just happy it was gone, the positive feelings of the race now well down into second place as far as good events of the day.

Life is full of unexpected surprises.

Over on the other side of Mt. Toby, time to see how my climbing legs were doing. Warm-up from the gate over to the start (6:29), then up the telephone line to the top, 800' climb (13:54), then the pleasant run back down the jeep trail back to the gate (21:50).

And the part that mattered, the 13:54 was excellent. For comparison, did 15:34 in mid-April, and 15:05 two weeks ago. The hope for today was under 15, maybe close to 14:30, even though you never know, the legs always feel like crap the first few minutes. But this time when I started up I could tell in the first minute or two that things were better. And it was a beautiful day too, low 70s, low humidity.

Now all this positive stuff is not all good, because it also means that there will be no excuses for not doing a real good effort. So you know it's going to hurt. But the legs hung in there well, running more of the moderate slopes and walking stronger on the steeper ones, just getting wobbly the last 30 seconds or so. And then you touch the fence at the top, look at the time, check the pulse (about 170), and then almost immediately there is this wave of intense satisfaction that rolls over you. Real progress.

For comparison, last did this seriously back in the summer of 2004, time was 13:08, plus 3 times the year before, times between 13:18 and 13:31, so this is not so far off that. Though it was a perfect day and I had good legs, so this may be the best I can do now. But it's useful to keep trying. And if you do run a good time, it feels so good....

Splits at the usual places: 3:45, 7:26 (3:41), 10:13 (2:47), and 13:54 (3:41).
Route. 6 down, 44 to go.

So I had my care package all set to mail off but the Post Office was closed for Memorial Day. I had to go up to Greenfield for a meeting so I took it along and stopped by the UPS store afterwards, but it was closed. So then I went down to the FedEx place, but it was closed too. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

In the process, my mind wandered, as it often does, settling this time for a bit on "Memorial Day" and what it means and what it should mean. Of course, what it means is a 3-day weekend and people having BBQs and the start of the "summer driving season", but not a whole lot of remembering. Maybe in small towns there's a parade, still usually more civic showing off (the fire truck, the local politicians, the high school band) than remembering. Though they have one in Sunderland that isn't bad, from the center of town down South Main to the cemetery. I miss it most years, but I remember one that was quite poignant, a brief and low-key ceremony at the cemetery, one by one through all the wars in which someone from Sunderland had died and the names of the dead, the last being Vietnam, one soldier, his mother getting a single red rose. Makes more of an impression on you than all the bands and BBQs ever will.

And I thought back to the only time I ever went to the grave of a relative. It wasn't on Memorial Day but it was the same feeling, just much stronger. 15 or 20 years ago we visited my grandfather's (my mother's father) grave at the American Cemetery in Verdun, France. He was killed in 1918, before my mother was born. As I said, it was the same emotion, just so much stronger, incredible sadness. When will we ever learn....

A chart of the G for the last few years. Just was curious.



If this had been a chart of an old friend of mine, a careful chart reader would identify three occasions in which his eye was starting to wander in the direction of another women....

In my case, the 2006 drop was to stay ahead of (i.e. below) SF and keep him from achieving one of his goals for the year, to race at less than the G. Silly (on my part) but quite satisfying, and the impact on my fitness was striking.

C • old friend 2