Training Log Archive: cmorse

2010 Year in Review

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"sometimes you're the windshield,

.....sometimes you're the bug"

Started out feeling great in January, exercising in some form every day. Continued into February with a 50k beach run on the cape but then Lyme symptoms began creeping back in later in the month. Back on antibiotics in the spring with a fairly quick rebound, but then a long plateau which is still ongoing. Due to the struggle with Lyme I didn't have any real 'goal' events on the schedule for most of the year and that really shaped the year overall.

I put less than 12 hours on the bike this year and much of that was on the trainer - the bike saw the road only 5 times.

I did less than 12 hours of orienteering events this year and almost half of that came at the Hudson Highlander in October - I was quite pleased with that performance.

On the up side, I did get out the door for 37 long runs on the trails, totaling over 500 miles with the longest at 34.5 miles. Many thanks to my Shenipsit Strider pals for providing the motivation & opportunities to get out and do these long runs as they allowed me to push my total running over 1000 miles for the first time ever. That's not a huge amount among serious runners, but for me that's a major milestone. It also meant that my total training volume for the year was over 300 hours, again not earth-shattering, but a new lifetime high for me.

Also did a lot of hiking this year mostly with the family including Hayden's first backpacking trek, a 4-week family camping/hiking road trip to the Rocky Mountain West in August and a long weekend to Acadia in October.

In the fall, rather than waiting around for the Lyme to go away, I began running again more consistently, getting in the long trail runs, including some through runs on the Shenipsit & Metacomet trails.

For 2011, I'm looking to get back into Rogaining shape and be competitive in the CNYO Trifecta Cup - (Snowgaine, ReGaine & Rogaine) and to peak for the Henry Coe Rogaine in November, particularly if it gets the bid for US Rogaine Champs. I am looking for potential partners for one or more events if anyone is interested...

The plan at this point is to keep at the long trail runs on weekends interspersed with some snowshoe racing, and try to fill the mid-week with non-running (strength/bike/pool) training at the Y. After snowshoe season I'll begin extending the distance on the long runs and begin working in some long hiking & backpacking. Also working on a few new tactics with the Lyme, but I'm moving forward with the mindset that I'll make the best of where I'm currently at even if we never totally eliminate it, but I'm hopeful more progress will be made as we slide on in to 2011.

I'm also directing the NipMuck Trail Marathon in early October - which just got a great writeup in TrailRunner magazine as one of the 6 'must-do' trail marathons in the US. No pressure though... :-)

Preliminary Schedule

1. Base building & Snowshoe Racing
   
2. more base & race....
   
3. CNYO Snowgaine
   
4. Traprock 50k
   Sunapee-Monadnock Backpack
   
5. Soapstone
   
6. CNYO ReGaine
   
7. Vermont 100 (pacing)
   
8. CNYO Rogaine
   
9. Pawtuckaway Camping Weekend
   
10. NipMuck Marathon (directing)
    
11. US Rogaine Champs
    
12. offseason
    

December 2010 Wrapup

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Some good long trail runs early in December, but not a lot of mid-week activity. Got the family a membership at the new Y in Ellington for xmas and started using it the week before. Hopefully this will give me more regular mid-week exercise, though not necessarily running, to complement the long runs on weekends.

December was planned as a low volume month, and I'm happy with my goals - even had to curtail the urge to go out for some extra runs this last week. New month and new year starts tomorrow. More Snowshoe racing in the plans which subs for some of the trail miles, total volume target 30+ hours, Monday's & Fridays are targeted for rest days with only light strength workouts or hiking planned. Leaving the specifics pretty loose and relying on total time for my targets. Time will tell.

Oh yes, and the Lost & Found club. Goal is to lose 5kg by the Snowgaine to put myself in the middle of the healthy weight range instead of just under the overweight threshold. Starting at 176#, looking at 165# by March 1st and under 160# by Traprock. That will probably be the hardest target to hit, I haven't been under 160# in many decades....

Geocache hike with boys. Found one, which is one more than I figured we'd find due to snow cover. A nice romp in the snow on a gorgeous afternoon though there were some cold wet feet when we were done.

went to Y in Granby to check out climbing w/ Hayden. Wall was closed so we swam instead.

C • Y 8

cleaning up the heavy glop at the end of the driveway. Was hoping the boys might do it but finally caved & did it myself.

Tried out the Trixter xDream bike - beginner level 15min + 1 lap. Only dumped it once. Good enough to advance to fitness level. Need to remember to stop pedalling and brake through corners. Shifting occasionally would probably help things too.

Fun machine -could become a regular thing.

Took Hayden to the Y this afternoon. Some lap pool - I swam 400m, not much, but a lot for me. This swimming stuff's not easy. Then I did some pool running and stretches while he was having fun in the shallower warm pool.

Event: I Love Woodford Snowshoe Race
 

Up to the Snowshoe season opener at Woodford with John Agosto & Dave Almand. Striders Ginny Patsun and Vickie Q. also in attendance.





Total guess on time since my watch failed yesterday. Went out hard on the tails of the lead group, got into the woods with them and a gap back to chasers. Caught a toe and went down about a mile in, recovered gracefully and was then in no man's land for a while. Pushing steady, but not too hard not having a good sense of how much remained, nor what I really had in the tank for snowshoeing purposes. Coming back around the reservoir had 3 runners gaining on me, but no one attempted to pass on the single track, hanging back 15m or so. Expected them all dust me once on the wide open 1/4 mile finish, but I hit the gate and gave it all I had, one passed me near the end , but held off the other two to finish in 15th position out of 77 finishers. Jim Johnson first, Tim Van Orden 2nd, Dunham in the top mix. John finished 8th, Ken Clark 12th and Dave Almand 18th.

Beat a hasty retreat with the storm moving in (signs on I-91 all the way up through MA were flashing blizzard warnings). So didn't stick around to get times etc. Will grab them online later. A fine day in the woods though the course was a bit shorter than advertised, they had very nice fast snow up at elevation and it was great to get out.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Avg Wt	176.7
rhr	48
sleep	7.2

Food: 30 net daily cal under target

Whole family out for 20th Scrooge Scramble in Rockville. Ran with Jackson & also taking lots of Strider photos on the out & back route.

Just a URL reminder for tomorrows Woodford meeting spot, nothing to see, move along.....

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4203681

Was planning on hitting the Soapstone course with the boys this AM, but too many last minute xmas preparations to take care of this AM. So maybe I'll get something in a bit later, or maybe this will be a second rest day. I need less than an hour to hit my trail running goal for December anyhow so I'm not sweating it.

Off all week next week, so I'm sure December will be in the black as far as training goes. Now to steer clear of the cookies....

nothing remotely resembling exercise going to happen today. Chock it up as a rest day I guess. Scrooge Scramble 5k tomorrow morning.

Merry Christmas to anyone passing through my log....

My G be going the wrong way... Now I've got 6kg to lose. Ah well, I'll worry about the weekly average rather than daily fluctuations. Going to track the diet for a couple weeks to ensure I stay on my 1#/wk goal, my first three days have been spot on...

Investigating the strength machines so I don't wind up on the treadmill all the time at the Y. Low weights, 2 sets of 12 on each machine just to figure them all out. Broke a light sweat, but nothing major.

15% grade, 4mph

2%, 10mph

Family membership at the new Y in Ellington. They have sauna, steamroom and hottub - all of which are supposedly beneficial for Lyme (bastards don't survive much above 30C, hence the fever as the body tries to get rid of it). So I'm logging it here to track my consistency and see how it works. Just to preclude any wiseass comments, I know its NOT training, that's why its intensity of zero.

Starting out slow, though I could have easily stayed in quite a bit longer - will probably do that while the kids are swimming.

Got up at 2am to check out the eclipse - somewhat visible through thin overcast but then clouded up more heavily as it neared totality. Never got back to sleep.

Figuring out the treadmill at the Y - some slow, some fast, some steep, some not...

Treadmill walking, 4mph, 12-15% incline. No problem with max incline (15%), will probably do this and gradually increase the speed and total time.

75 days to Snowgaine

Group training run at Case/Gay City. Led by John Agosto, also Art Byram, Dave Almand, Dave Sutherland, new Dave who just joined the club and his first venture out on trails with us. Out from Line St, over to the bridge on Coups Sawmill Rd, then a variety of trails winding about before getting over to Birch Mtn around mile 5.

Picked up Mark Buongiorno just before the road crossing. Across the road into Gay City, some choice single track, down across Blackledge Marsh planning on doing the red loop when came across a mountain bike trail I've never seen before - so we took it. Nice trail meandering down the terrain east of Blackledge Marsh winding up on Rt 94 - a hundred meters or so up the road to the parking area for Blackledge Falls, up past the falls then more nice singletrack back to Birch Mtn Road around 10 miles in. Art had been planning on 8-10 today (whoops) and Dave S hadn't brought water, so we opted for a more direct line back across to Line St. Great day for a run.

Dave A. let me try some Hammer Perpeteum (Vanilla-Orange) in my first bottle - mixed it weak, quite palatable, will have to try it again in multiple bottles. Second bottle was just Nuun, which I split with Dave S. Took a GU at 1 hour and again at 2 hour - legs fine, hips a bit arthritic, but that is the usual course of things if I don't take Vitamin I.

No GPS track as I put half-spent batteries in the unit and they didn't last the run.

Somehow, one of the Dave's (Almand) got isolated between the fast crew and slow crew and took a wrong turn on the way back in. So when we got back to Line St I asked 'where's Dave?'. They (fast crew) thought he was with us, we (slow crew) thought he was with them. Rather than get chilled waiting, a couple of us hiked back up the hill to have a look-see. Apparently he wound up down by Buckingham Reservoir before opting to relocate back to his last known position - something he remembered from when I took him orienteering at Sessions last year. A good warmdown to a great run.

planning a midweek training run the week between xmas and new years. Metacomet from Plainville up to Simsbury where we started last week. Looks like about a 20-22 mile affair. Just posting my rough link here so I don't forget where the URL is...

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4198758

Note to self: now that I'm picking up the training, time to start logging resting heart rates, sleep & weight on a daily basis again..

Run w/ Dave A at the forest - ccw from parking, moonlight cutoff, moonlight > soapstone course, across road, new snippet of trail to old third water stop, then in via the old half marathon route. Then waiting to see who would show for the 8:30 social run...

Light crowd, chatted with Willi & Tom, then joined Dave and Ginny for a leisurely tour of the Sampler course - skipped the sandpit and opted for the old route on Woodchuck rather than the new Shenipsit Trail section. Nice day to run, then off to work. Stopped off at Tolland Bike to pick up some GU for tomorrow's 12-15 at Case.

Another day involving significant lifting. This time moving 3 pallets of clay pottery from the loading dock in one building, through two buildings and into the greenhouse next door. About 3600 pounds worth. Just counting estimated lifting time - once onto carts, then off carts into storage locations. 18 & 20 inch clay pots aren't light. For that matter neither are 6 & 8 inch pots when they're shrink wrapped into bundles of 20.

working the weekend, so took today off. But its looking like a pretty full day anyhow, so I took the opportunity to get up at my usual time and sneak a quick road run in before getting down to 'work'. Just barely light enough to see, but not enough to be seen so ran with small microlite for alerting cars. 12F & clear, brrr....

Moved 4000 pounds of pellets from the driveway to the basement. We're good for the winter now...

Had to walk up to the hardware store this AM, so decided to make it a vigorous, purposeful walk and count it as training. Since I'm officially moving into rogaine training mode, vigorous walking has a spot in my training calendar.

Event: Ratlum Holiday International Night O
 

Long Strider run on the Metacomet. Wishing to avoid the GI issues I had a couple weeks ago, I ate a light dinner and no breakfast. 20ish with a light coating of snow on the ground at the daybreak start from the north edge of Penwood SP on the Bloomfield/Simsbury town line. Group of 8 of us headed north for Suffield - being an out and back route along the ridgeline, any number of mileage options were available. My goal for the day was 5 hours running.

Bruce, Mark & Dave turned around at the 7 mile mark where I had cached 4 gallons of water near Rt 20 in East Granby. That was about 90 minutes in. I felt good, with no signs of GI distress. I figured I'd shoot for about 2:15 and see how I felt, assuming the return half would be somewhat slower than the outbound leg. The five of us continued on and around 2:20 John announced at we had hit 10 miles (I didn't replace my GPS batteries so it died early on - no track). I decided that 10m seemed like a plausible turnaround for me and John opted to join me on the return trip. Art, Dan & Tony continued on to the official turnaround at Mountain Rd. in Suffield.

Walked quite a few more uphills on the way back, but still felt good and made decent time until around mile 16 when my feet just weren't doing what I asked of them, so I slowed down to a walk in many of the rocky sections to avoid any unpleasantness. As we headed down the hill to Tariffville to cross the river, I got a bit lightheaded. I had been drinking and taking on electrolytes (Nuun) but had elected to skip any calories to see how the GI thing worked out. So this was an old fashioned bonk - my legs felt great - just no more juice in the tank. John had an extra GU, so I downed that and headed down the road to the next trail segment. Dizzyness cleared within about 4 minutes and within 10 my legs regained some sense of control. Not exactly 'perky', but they went where I expected them to. Finished up the final section and rolled in to the cars in 4:56, just 4 minutes shy of my 5 hour goal. Sweet....

Ran into Simsbury to grab some DD treats and a cocoa, then back up to wait for Tony who was going the full 24. Dave Sutherland was there (he missed the AM start and was hoping to tack on in the afternoon, but 24 was enough for all the early starters so Dave ran 12-15 solo.

Also ran into George heading into the woods for some GC work. I've played with a copy of GC on my iPod and it seemed very promising, but seeing this later version on a full iPad with a bona-fide basemap underneath was very nice. I think its time to trade in my plexi map boards and mylar for a shiny new iPad.... (Santa, are you monitoring AP?)

Short night-o w/ Hayden. I read the map and called out directions, features etc, he executed and punched. Good time and running not much slower than I did in daylight. Hayden took a couple faceplants not watching his feet in the dark. Also went through a couple icy spots into water in some places. Only real mistake was on #11 - we left #10 too far to the R and up the wrong hill, hit a trail where we expected, but it wasn't the correct trail and my failure to look at compass I didn't note the error until we were looking at the deer fence in front of us and had to figure out where we were - quick correction, but lost some time - though I hear we weren't the only ones to make this particular mistake.

3rd out of 9 on the short course.

Followed of course by good food & friends at the Villa Deweese.

Short - Splits

More trail exploring at Soapstone. Started with a ccw circuit of the base, then off exploring trails. Tried to keep the pace up the first part, then slowed down a bit as there was a lot of dead-ends/back-tracking going on. Then picked the pace up at the end again to get back to the car and home before bus time.

C • Friday 3

Nice early AM training run with Turco, Buongiorno & the Goat.





Brisk pace, but felt pretty good all the way around - probably the best I've felt on the push back up the Shenipsit Trail on Case coming back than I've felt in a long time.

Took my furlough day today (boys were off from school for parent/teacher conferences) and had a nice AM trail run at Shenipsit. Cold, but sun just starting to come into the woods. Opted to follow a couple trails I had never ventured on before. I had previously assumed they just cut back toward Gulf Rd and dumped out, but in fact form an additional network of 4+km of bike trails. A number of intersections with additional trails for me to explore another day. Had to get home to shower and go to conferences. Both boys doing very well academically this year, but both are lacking in the class participation department - lots of day dreaming going on...

Herding cats, er, geocaching with the boys, at Bigelow Hollow. Jackson, Hayden and one of Jacksons school friends since they were off today.





Cold, mid 30's and low sun made for dark, chilly woods. I dressed for a hike, but the intermittent and pokey nature of our walk meant I was getting pretty cold, though the boys claimed they were fine. Found 4, missed one. Last one we found was first of an unknown number in a multi-cache. So we left it for another day...