Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Event: NEOC: Blue Hills Traverse
 

After yesterday's fun, there was a pretty good chance I was going to get halfway through the Traverse, sit down in the woods, and not be able to go any further. But apparently training from the summer has held up, and I can go do lots of stupid things in a weekend and still walk. So that's good.

Cold day for the run. Carpooled over to the start with 7 in a minivan with Aims talking about how much he's skiing up the downhill slopes at Wachusett. Idea? It is a long drive. We ran around a bit (waiting on someone else's track, i.e. Alex) and found the start in the woods. It was quite chilly, so we stood down below a hill for a while, then were marched to a trail for the start.

1–I started running east with Giacomo and someone else, then took a hard right, avoiding the green swamp. My legs were a bit heavy from yesterday so I bid them adieu and fell in with some others. Went straight from the trail junction to the open trail, due south using the sun as my compass, then up some craggy rock instead of around after the road, losing time. Better choice would have been to stay east to the road, run the road and then hit that trail. Hit that trail and followed it around to the control rather than bashing. Probably lost more time.
2–Trail ran around the dark green and then straight up the hill to the next trail around the green. Followed the spur down to the right hill. Spike.
3–Went way low to avoid the rocks. Helped up the hill by some other folks to the control.
4–handrailed off the highway fence, which I thought was a bad idea but then I hit the road before everyone else. Spiked the control by looking at my map, again before others.
5–Running now with Ben G and someone else (maybe Jonathan-who-dropped-his-map). I was going to trail around to the right but then the trail over was steps and an easy November Projectesque run up. Then at the top the trail I wanted to take was closed and well brushed in. GAH. So I had to bash about in the thicket before regaining it. Which was fine, because when I found everyone else, they were looking around for the control, which may or may not have been behind the right rock near the "trail approx" trail. (Note to self, when setting courses, avoid "trail approx" areas.)
6–Bashed down to the road, followed other to control. Spike?
7–Back up to the road, followed now-angsty Alex around to spike. Well, thanks to Alex.
8–On-road feed. Spike.
9–Spiked ahead of Alex.
10–Spiked behind Alex.
11–Alex and someone else went left, but I went right. It was the right way to go, as I got there a minute ahead of everyone else. However, I couldn't find the control (maybe because it was mis-hung) and since Alex said I went to the right place, spike. (Apparently this was a mistake since it took time to find the gd control.)
12–So excited about my good orienteering and route choices, I did some more good O, right towards 13. It wasn't that far out of my way, though, and I hit 12 with everyone else.
13–And then we all bashed over to 13.
14–Very proud of this O. Took the trail around to the junction to the west with Jonathan-who-dropped-his-map (JWDHM) following. Went left to the end of the green and started counting spurs (out loud, to JWDHM). That helped. Counted three spurs and walked right to the control. Well, ran/bashed through a tree.
15–Saw Alex running alongside from a weird angle. "You looking for 14?" Yup. Up. Bye Alex. But then I slowly navigated through the woods th spike the next control but she did so more quickly. One joggle to avoid a greenbriar patch, though. This is where I yelled to Alex "look, Alex, I am doing the orienteery thing! yay!"
16–Ugh. The control was actually pretty easy to find. You found the slight dip in the road (slight) and went north to the rootstock. The issue is that there were about a dozen rootstocks in the woods there, and this was the only one mapped. Note to self: don't put controls in the woods if the map is not correct.
17–Trail, stone wall, spur, spike.
18–Field, bridge, spike.
19–Took the trail until I saw rocks, found the curve in the road, attacked the cliff, control. Really helped to be narrating to JWDHM.
Finish–Took a roundabout route down the road, and I think I dropped a place. Oh, well.

Then I got cold in the wind, ate soup and cookies, and went home. Fun event! The map leaves a little to be desired, but I navigated very well and made good route choices. It helps that there's a lot of trail running. I was worried this would be tons or rocks, and while a couple of times I hit my ankle a bit (and bashed up my body) it was good running. It helped that the O wasn't that hard and that most of the controls were relatively easy to find, although I think that after deliberately going around Lynn Woods yesterday it helped me today (same thing happened this spring with Fells/Rain followed by Nobscot). I certainly gave back some time, but my legs felt surprisingly not awful after yesterday. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Everyone parked in the "wrong" lot and we ran around to the start. Had to run to stay warm.

Traverse - Splits

Event: CSU Lynn Woods Iltarastit #5
 

My first Iltaratsit! Because after a 4 hour rollerski, what should you do? Go orienteering. Especially when there's a long O race the next day. I gave myself three degrees of difficulty on this run:

1. I neglected to grab a clue sheet (not a big deal, really)
2. I offered to pick up some controls since I was going out so late (kind of a pain bashing with controls).
3. I skied 4 hours this morning and then an hour later started running!

So that happened.

Actually, while I ran slowly, I managed to keep contact with the map the whole time, and only had a few errors, none major. Controls:

1–Trails and then attacked from the south.
2–Contoured slowly, but pretty much spiked it.
3–Followed my compass well, but to the wrong outcrop.
4–Should have compassed, but took the trail instead. Attacked a little south through lots of green. Saw Brendan!
5–Followed compass well, then didn't realize it was a beginner trail jct control until I was bashing down through the woods.
6–Followed the trail well, and then bashed down to the dry marsh, and then made a big mistake. I was north of where I thought and crossed the marsh and climbed the hill on the other side for a while before realizing I was way off and finding the control. Whoops!
7–Spike!
8–Ran trail to a beginner control and picked it up. From there I made a parallel error one reentrant north, but caught the two big-ass rocks and attacked well from there.
9–Dropped the controls I'd picked up (beginner and 8) at the big-ass rocks since I'd be back through and made another error. Too far right and hit the trail (hard with the nubbly terrain) Then found the control from that, but quite a ways off.
10–Wound up a little north but caught myself, then found the control.
11–Contoured around to find the reentrant with the big-ass rocks, and then climbed out of it to spike the control off the marsh.
12–Lagging by now, with a big pile of controls and wound up in a field of greenbriar out of the control, but slowly spiked this one.
13–Dropped the controls for Alex. Took the trail down to the junction, bashed through to the next trail, then attacked off the trail curve. Spike!
14–Legs feeling heavy, but navigation was good. Spike!
15–I was in the right place, but feel like control was near a rock pile and not a big rock. But the flagging on a tree sure helped; I should have gone there in the first place.
16–Went to the trail, ran to the finish. Actually ran!

So, pretty much good times. Never got completely lost like at Bear Brook, no injuries (like at Bear Brook) and good visibility was nice. This is fun; hopefully I'll be around for a few more next time it goes on. Thanks Alex/Larry/Sara Mae for organization! Now, 5:30 logged today and Blue Hills Traverse tomorrow. I'm going to die.

C • O after ski 3

Left at 7:03 for a quick ski over to Back Bay. No traffic, and made the train with plenty of time to spare. Kind of a weird crowd on the early outbound to Worcester. Wondering if anyone is making an early morning, long distance walk of shame. Of course, everyone was probably wondering "what are those things?!"

Wahoo finally did the Boston Marathon rollerski! So much fun. Pretty much good pavement the whole way, not really sketch hills, and not too much traffic on a Saturday morning (but if I did it again, I'd probably try on a Sunday AM). Shoulder felt good, little blisters on my hands were tolerable, and weather was great, with a nice tailwind at time.

First 3 miles are mostly uphill from the train station to Hopkinton. Train was right on time, but the ADA ramp down to the road was serpentine, and the first bit of road was under construction for a bridge construction. Then a nice roll up to Hopkinton.

I stopped and took a picture and then wheee downhill. There was a utility trench in the roadway that was annoying, but downhill with not too much traffic. Passed a letter carrier in Ashland who asked if I was going all the way to Boston. Yup! Sure am! Framingham had some traffic—one guy pulled out of a Dunks and almost hit me and I got to do the old thwap thwap with the ski basket on his hood—but the angled railroad crossings are actually easier on skis than a bike because you can kind of ski across them. Then in to Natick as the clock struck 10 (literally), with a nice shoulder, some brick crosswalks in Natick, then a good shoulder and good and then great pavement in to Wellesley. Half way!

Traffic through Wellesley but nothing scary and then whee down the big hill to the Charles. Nice to have only a single lane to the 128 interchange, which was probably the sketchiest part of the trip. Highway interchanges are bad for pedestrians, cyclists and rollerskiers. Then another sketchy mile on Route 16 in to Newton with two lanes and no shoulder; apparently there's a plan to narrow it to one lane and add bike lanes. That would be nice.

Past the house I grew up in and right by The Firehouse. Snack time! Ah, my bike ride to school. Up that hill, nice tailwind across Lowell Street, then up Heartbreak, then a nice tailwind across Centre Street, then a nice climb up new pavement to the top of the hills. Roll down to BC was not bad at all, just have to trust in your slowing abilities down by Lake Street.

From there on in it's good skiing, wide roads and not much traffic, except for the downgrades and lights. If you can slow yourself down, it's fine. Took it easy down Chestnut Hill Avenue and stepped in to the middle of the streetcar tracks before hanging a left on an all-way ped signal. Then had to watch all the tracks through Cleveland Circle. Two iffy hills from there on out, at Washington Square and after Coolidge Corner down to Saint Paul Street. Just need to not get going fast and scrub speed, that's it.

Then in through Kenmore, which wasn't bad, and across in to the left-side bike lane under the tunnel under Mass Ave. Whee! Then a right two blocks the wrong way on Hereford but damnit I'm rollerskiing the whole thing (in a bike lane, no less!) and a left on to Boylston for a pretty nice ski down to Copley! Got a picture at the finish line, then skied in to the wind home to go to Iltaratsit!

Felt really great for a ±60k ski. This marathon ski is something that we should all do next spring or summer, some Sunday morning. It's just loads of fun, totally safe if you pay attention and know how to go down hills (and a bike escort in back with lots of lights would be great) and it feels really awesome rolling down Beacon, through Kenmore and in to Copley. I mean, it's probably awesomer to run the gosh darned thing, but that's not as ski-specific.

advanced - Splits

5 hills. Old school.

With added burpees in between. I'm all for NP, and all, but the adding of "spice" is beginning to get a bit out of hand. I'm perfectly happy to show up for hills and do hills, and to show up for strength and do strength, but it really doesn't do any good to do a little strength intermixed with the hills. Just let me run my hills damnit.

</rant>

(Apparently AP eats HTML tags and you have to create them with HTML.)

Felt pretty slow given the activities of the last two days. Certainly didn't go all out. I did try to bound the first block at the bottom of the hill before the grade really sets in, which made it harder. Okay, serious snow speculation time. And trying to figure out why a feature on http://skitrailreport.com doesn't work (but most of the site does! post!).

Stupid burpees. <rant> Going to stop doing these one of these days. It's too close to crossfit bullshit, which is a made up thing to injure yourself and become better at crossfit. Apparently burpees started off as a rudimentary fitness measurement tool, which doesn't mean it's a good training tool. </rant>

So apparently this week I've been doing intensity (charging up stairs yesterday, 3k TT today) but not volume. I am planning to change that! Saturday I think I can swing the 50k Marathon rollerski followed by the Iltarastit at Lynn Woods, and then the Blue Hill Traverse with jelly legs on Sunday. That would be awesome. On a scale of 1 to driving to Ontario, this is closer to Ontario. But it's on this side of driving to Craftsbury for 600m of frozen slush. I am not doing that. Yet.

C • yet 4

Run over to Harvard and a few go-rounds around the track.

TT run around the Harvard Track. Apparently I thought 7:00 meant gun time, not warm-up time. Whatever. My legs hurt from yesterday's stairs, and every time I looked up I saw the stadium and remembered why my legs hurt. Started out a few seconds behind getting @strava started but then picked up some speed. Somehow Strava thinks it was 2.1 miles, but 3k is 1.86 miles, so there. Splits:

1:25 1:27 1:29 1:34 1:34 1:34 1:23

So I could have gone harder through the second half before pouring it on for the last lap. But not bad for wicked sore calves and hamstrings. Fun thing to do, thanks Alex for organizing. Now, 10 hours to November Project which everyone should come to!

Run to Life Alive for mmm mmm dinner and then home.

Some leg swings and plyo stuff staying warm before the TT.

Felt mediocre on the way to November Project, but once I got running I felt great. 30˚ and halfway through I had my shirt off and was pounding up the stairs and going down fast enough that a) I didn't recover and b) didn't get cold. Felt at the end like I'd just skied a 10k hard, which is good, I think. Not sure if it as L3 or L4 but I almost ralphed, so L4 it is! Then I put on lots and lots of clothes. Ran the stairs at a climb rate of 1134 m/hr, which is pretty good considering I descended 1134m as well.

Busy day of running around from one thing to the next to the next. Some Hubway trips mixed in, and a community meeting where people yelled "DON'T TAKE OUR PARKING FOR HUBWAY SPACES, THIS IS A TRAVESTY" and then told me that I am lucky that I haven't been mugged yet walking around Cambridge. Yeah, that's a thing. Crazies.

C • Travesty 4

Run to "deck"

Another not-deck NP. Turns out this might be good, since it was 7 minutes of burpees. The problem? My shoulder is still a bit broken from last week's adventure (Hammer). So I favored my right arm on the push-up part. Then my right elbow started screaming. So I felt extra weak. Oh well.