Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Mid-afternoon road run, with a little bit of Hojack thrown in. I rated my intensity as "3" which as I have recently learned from the "Junk miles" discussion is a totally useless level of effort. :) So even though I felt like I had a decent workout today, I guess that must just be an illusion ..

Ran from home -- to dead end of Woodland, over to Maple, Maple to Klem, to Drumm, to Vosburg, to Hojack, Hojack to Lake Rd and back to Vosburg, Vosburg to Drumm to Herman to Van Alstyne, to Klem, Maple, and home.

Late-morning dog walk with Cheryl, Homer, and the dog across the street that we're dog-sitting for. We went to Abraham Lincoln Park, starting at the abandoned brown house on Empire Blvd. We headed generally to the south from there, going through places I hadn't been to in a long time.

We were definitely outside of the park boundary as shown on the O map of the park, but there were absolutely no indications of it being private property (no "No Trespassing" signs, no signs of any type of development, not even any trash dumps except for on very small area close to a house that we came near). It might be worth looking into what the ownership situation is with some of that land; it would certainly open up some more orienteering terrain, and in a park as small as this one is, a moderate amount more would be very helpful.

It definitely needs to be mapped better, if we are somehow able to legally use it for orienteering.

Recovery run (recovering from the race yesterday, and the dinner yesterday). I didn't feel terrible, although my R hamstring was a bit sore. I just didn't have a whole lot of pep, which isn't all that surprising.

Mostly on the Hojack Trail. From Klem Rd to Vosburg, the Vosburg to Drumm to the Hojack again. Hojack to Van Alstyne, Van Alstyne to Klem, and Klem back to the car, walking that last couple of tenths of a mile.

Warmup for Webster race. (Slow run from our base at Woodhull and Stockbridge, to the race.)

Webster Thanksgiving Day race, put on by Fleet Feet.

Official time was 33:07; I took 21 seconds to get to the starting line, so I subtracted that out.

Cheryl, Anne, and I drove to our son Greg's fiance's parents' house, at the corner of Woodhull and Stockbridge. Given that this race has gotten totally out of control in terms of numbers (2700 starters this year, between the two distances, 2.5 miles and "4.4" miles; which is 700 more than last year), parking is a total zoo, so we decided to avoid it by using Greg's future in-law's house as our base. Cheryl, Anne, and I drove to the "base camp", got situated, relaxed inside with everyone for a while, then did a slow run of around 0.6 miles to where we picked up our timing chips. Greg ran the 2.5 mile race with his 10-month old son Freddie in a baby jogger. They both did fine; Greg hasn't been running a whole lot so he wasn't competitive, but he had a good time, and Freddie was either very mellow or else enjoying the race, because Greg said he didn't fuss at all, the whole time.

I thought I lined up pretty close to the starting line, but it still took 19 seconds, as mentioned above, even to get to the starting line. Then the next minute or so was essentially a walking pace, before any running was possible. The combination of a huge number of runners, a narrow 2-lane road, and many people who were totally ignorant of racing etiquette (like walkers starting at the starting line, and many 12-minute/mile people starting in front of where I was lined up) made for a pretty unpleasant first half mile or so.

I didn't see the first mile marker so I don't know my mile split, but I think I was averaging around 8:35/mile for the first mile, not counting the 18 seconds to get to the start line. And that's not a bad pace, considering that a quarter mile into the race, I was averaging about 12 min/mile due to the congestion. At the 2-mile mark, my average pace for the first 2 miles was 8:07/mile. My 3rd mile was in 7:41, and my average pace for the last 1.17 miles was 7:31/mile.

I haven't seen any results yet, so it will be interesting to see how I did in my age group, although I certainly don't have any lofty expectations.

Edit: Results now available. I was 397th out of 1424 total finishers, which is around the 28th percentile. In my class, I was 4th out of 19, which I'm reasonably satisfied with, except that the #3 guy in my age group beat me by only 2 seconds! Normally I keep an eye on who is around me, and if I see another old guy who could be in my age group, that motivates me to push a little harder (which I'm sure I could have done in this case). However, in this huge race, there were so many people finishing at the same time (probably about 4-5 per second, considering that the 2.5 milers were finishing as well as the "4.4" milers), that it was tough to focus on the specific competition.

C • 4.4 miles 2

Short, easy run in preparation for the Webster Thanksgiving day race (called 4.4 miles for some reason, when it is actually no longer than 4.25 miles).

I usually view 10 miles as the requirement for calling a run "long", so this one didn't qualify, but it's the longest I've done in quite a while, so by the standards of my current level of fitness, I'm calling it long. It sure FELT long.

Ran from the 1-room school building at Creek and Plank. Took Creek to Embury, to 5ML, to Atlantic, to Jackson Ext., to Jackson, to Plank, and back to the car. Nice day; a bit cool to start with, but sunny, and when I had the east wind at my back in the home stretch along Plank, I was downright warm.

In spite of the nice weather, I didn't feel particularly energetic. I sure have a long ways to go in training to be able to run a respectable marathon time in the spring, that's for sure.

Late morning run on the Genesee river trail, from Charlotte to Lake Ave. and back. Mid 40's, slight wind, not a bad day.

Morning run in Ellison Wetlands with Homer and with the dog across the street, who we're dog-sitting for, for a couple of weeks. Many of the trails were very slick; even the dogs slid out a couple of times, and they have 4 feet instead of 2, a much lower weight, and a much lower center of gravity than I do. So I was pretty cautious. Between being cautious, and contending with the hills, I didn't set a very impressive pace, but I sure felt like I was working hard. Kind of a short run (actually, very short run), because I had run fairly hard yesterday, and am planning on doing a medium long run tomorrow.

Mid-day run on a fairly unpleasant day (moderate rain, about 45 degrees). I have a goal of running a respectable marathon time in the spring, and I figured the only way I can do that is to learn how to HTFU and run in weather than might not be the greatest.

The run started from near Winton and Empire. Ran south on Winton to East, then towards downtown, to Goodman, with a small loop to Park Ave. and back to East Ave., then back the way I came. The run included 2x1mile at very slightly faster than normal pace (around 7:50/mile each).

Morning run with Homer on a nice cool (mid 30's or so) day. But sunny and little wind, so it was fairly pleasant. Ran from home, to Maple, Rt 104 path, to 5ML Rd, north on 5ML for a bit, then headed back.

Semi-long run on the Hojack Trail, with a little extra at the beginning. Parked at North Ponds Park near Rt 104. My plan was to do at least 8 miles, hopefully more like 9 miles, and I was going to run up to Lake Rd via Hojack, and back. I decided to throw a little extra distance in at the beginning by going into the new housing area at the end of Kittelberger Park, down Kittelberger to Rt 250, to Commerical St, to Orchard, to Klem, then the Hojack to Lake Rd.

I started to develop a blister on my right foot, on the arch, where for some reason I'm very prone to blistering. I tried to ignore it as much as I could, but by 7 miles or so into the run, it was clear it was a blister. I decided to at least run to the 8 mile mark, then walk in from there.

Walking back to North Ponds Park from the Hojack Trail about a quarter mile east of Hard Road.

Went with an afternoon car ride out to Victor and then to Rush with Cheryl and Homer. In Rush, among other travels, we went to where the Lehigh Valley trail crosses I-390. I went for a run headed east, which Cheryl and Homer went for a walk headed west. Fairly short, easy run, but I wanted to at least do something running-wise today.

Afternoon run on the Hojack Trail. Mostly took it very easy, except for a 0.7 mile stretch at 7:49/mile.

Walked Homer over to Finn Park and back just before lunch.

Homer's lucky day. Due to a would-be lunch with some former co-workers that somehow I got messed up on (I was either in the wrong place, or wrong time, or wrong day, or any combination of the above), I had more free time than expected, so Homer and I did a run on the Hojack. Started at Klem Rd; ran to Hard, then did a 180 and headed NW to Lake, and back to Klem.

Easy run along the canal. It seems wasteful of time and gas to drive to the canal for such a measly run, but it was such a nice day, it seemed like it would be great to do a canal run, and it was in fact quite nice.

Started in the village of Fairport, on the parking lot just east of Rt. 250. Ran to Ayrault Road and back (although I walked about the last 0.4 miles).

Sped up a bit on the way back; 9:01/mile going out, and 8:27/mile coming back.

(Time is a bit of an estimate, as I neglected to stop my Forerunner when I finished.)

Night-O at Mendon. I had intended to do "Green" which was: The first 4 controls, the last 4 controls, and then any 12 of the remaining 22 controls, in score-O fashion. I had a nice loop picked out. But as is typical with these things, I deviated from the plan. I did 59, 61, 66, 67, and 68 according to plan. After 68, #70 seemed so close that why not get that. Then at 70, #71, 72, and 73 seemed like logical choices. Then I went for 75, 75, and 76, which gave me the 12 that I was after, but kind of right on the way to #5 (the first of the mandatory last four controls), my route took me very close to 77, 78, and 79, so I thus decided to do 15 controls, not 12, which put me in "Red".

Overall I felt OK. Probably a 2-3 min error going to #71 when I came in too high on the spur initially. Then I lost some time going to 73 (shallow spur) when I left the road too soon to hunt for it, and got stuck in some light green.

My big goof was from 78 to 79 -- I couldn't find the small trail that headed down from the ridge to very close to 79. I've had trouble finding that trail in the daytime, I recall. Anyway, no big deal, I thought, I'll just head down the steep hill through open woods with no trail. That worked OK although going down the steep hill, slick with leaves, was slow.

When I got to the bottom, I stepped out onto what looked like some nice level ground, only to find that it was a swamp covered with leaves. It is mapped as a crossable swamp, but it was anything but! I sank in up to above my knees, and was a bit worried that I might wind up trapped there. Fortunately, Victor wasn't too far away (although he had found the trail), and he seemed aware of my plight, so at least I had some assistance if I needed it. I did manage to extract myself from the swamp, losing at least a few minutes, but the worst thing is that it was a very unsettling experience, and although I did get to control 79 OK, I badly mangled the trail navigation from 79 to #5, my excuse being that I was still feeling a bit discombobulated from the swamp encounter. Once I finally found the trail to #5, everything was OK after that.

All in all, a very enjoyable event, with a nice creative format.

I ran one loop of the Mendon Trail Run. I had considered running in the race tomorrow, but decided it would be fairly hectic to be registrar and do the race, and also, I wanted to do the night-O, and might not have a lot of energy to get myself back out to Mendon for orienteering after doing the race in the morning.

This is a tough, tough course -- I really can't believe I did 50K on this course last year (even taking into account that I did it very slowly in the 50K).

I checked back on my log for the 50K at Mendon last year. I averaged around 12:30/mile, far slower than I did in the one loop today. Still, I can't imagine how I did it ....

One thing I did notice is that my weight was 170 last year. I had been grumbling that the scale seemed to be stuck on 177.5 the last few weeks. Today changed that -- I weighed in at 178.5, and that was after the Mendon run, and before eating or drinking anything significant! Looks like I really need to work on cutting down on some calories, unfortunately ...

Urban run, on a cool but windless day. Started near Park and Berkeley. Into downtown, to Andrews, back across river, out Andrews to University to Main to Goodman, worked my way back to Park Ave.

Scale seems stuck on 177.5 lately. Would really like it to be reading more like 170-173, but it doesn't.

Late afternoon run on the Hojack trail and nearby areas. With Homer.

Rough route: Parked on Klem. Hojack to Holt, then to bird trail to Rt 250, S on 250 to Orchard, E on Orchard to the small street that has a junkyard and some car repair shops on it, back to 250, to Rt 104 path, to N Ponds Park, most of the way around the loop, bailed out through the hotel parking lot to Holt, Holt to Hojack and back to Klem.