Training Log Archive: jtorranc

Event: QOC Patapsco McKeldin
 

QOC McKeldin Blue - sadly, an uninspired blue course to close out the year. Setting aside the seriously (given my direction of attack) mishung control #5, which I spent ~5 minutes searching for among the other mapped rock features on a very steep slope before I found it on an unmapped rock out of sight upslope, and rehung it and the differently mishung streamer beside the correct boulder, and two other controls that were/may have been slightly off, there were two massively long doglegs and a general lack of legs that called for very much O technique beyond the ability to follow trails and other obvious handrails and keep track of your progress along them. Not quite literally a long orange course but little more interesting than that, in one of the handful of QOC parks that actually has a fair bit of interesting rock detail. Ted Good is apparently in the habit of giving today's course setter a critical appraisal of their courses after each event they work on so I guess I won't pile on. At least they didn't manage to misplace anything by quite as much as Sid did with his furthest off the mark control last weekend (fixed by the time I got there).

Didn't feel so great physically but apparently a lot of that was the often steep climbs - managed to claw back the time lost to Boris, who started not long after me, on #5 and a little bit more by the end of the course. Shirtsleeves and no head covering or gloves, summer weight O pants, and I still felt overly hot at times - not a usual problem on QOC turf in December. No white Chirstmas here unless the weather takes a major dive over the next not quite two weeks. Not that anyone expects a white Christmas in DC. I wonder if the bad guys using snowmobiles in Northern Virginia back when Die Hard II was made was even halfway plausible then. There certainly can't be many skidoos in VA these days.

C • Nice run 5

Blue - Splits

A little late for Saturday morning yoga at my local library. Very full room. Need to try harder to be a little early for these.

A little bit of locomotive exercise because. believe it or not, the machine in the buliding laundry room for adding value to the cards the washers and dryers accept was non-functional and the front desk's best suggestion if I really needed to do so before Monday was to visit another building managed by the same company a short, by biking standards, ways north of us.

Late afternoon run in Rock Creek Park. Headed north mostly on the Valley Trail turned around and bailed out to 16th St on the Whittier Trail as dusk was falling - didn't want to hang around too much longer what with the deer cull possibly going on whenever the park is closed until sometime in March. Return south along 16th St took about 1/3 the time required to get there.

Cycling to the aquatic center and grocery shopping afterwards.

About 2/3 breast stroke, 1/3 front crawl, trace amount of butterfly.

Finally joined Boris and Cardozo Crawlers for their indecently early weekly track intervals workout. Random length (determined by drawing cards) intervals with ~2-3 minutes rest between them until we hit a total distance somewhere between 3 and 3.5 miles. Turned out to be 5km as follows- 600 - 1600 - 200 - 200 - 1000 - 800 - 600. Tried to take laps times but have concluded that among my Suunto's failings are poor ergonomics for hitting the lap button while wearing gloves - maybe I won't bother next time. Duration of intense portion of workout estimated based on Boris' lap times. Tried not to kill myself on the early ones since I haven't done anything like this volume of interval work in a workout in over a year, at least. Made it to the end of the workout, stressed but without collapsing or enormously outperforming on any particular interval so I guess that was reasonable pacing. Fun to be doing this sort of thing in a group - haven't done that on a track since high school, though some university nordic ski team workouts had a similar atmosphere. Will try to make it again next week for sure.

C • Yay! 1

Early part of trail run I'll call warming up and jogging home from Carter Barron along 16th St.

Main part of trail run. In Rock Creek Park, north to the police station then back south to Carter Barron.

Warmups/cooldowns and slow running between harder bits.

Silly walks and short uphill sprints.

2x1180 meter intervals today's logging being the sum of a morning session and an afternoon session, each of which included one such. Didn't actually time these so just a guess based on how long they've taken me in the past.