Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Rec center.

HJ trail, with trailsnail.

Mid-day run, with Hanna, mainly on the Rt 104 path. Hanna did OK for around 2 miles, then she seemed to lose interest, judging by her frequent needs to sniff the ground, which she didn't seem to need to do in the first part of the run. But then she did perk up after she had a water stop around the 3 mile mark (a low area next to the 104 path between Bay and Maple, which is usually a small pond except for dry periods). Possibly it was outside of her comfort zone, temperature wise (51 degrees), so I'll keep trying to make her a running dog, but in cooler weather.

Webster Rec.

Medved Feast of Burden 5 mile race, from the War Memorial to U of R and back. With trailsnail, to the halfway point anyway, at which point either I picked up the pace a bit or she backed off a bit ...

Course was definitely short. Her GPS agreed exactly with mine (4.94 miles). We talked to a couple we know, and their GPS's agreed with each other although not with ours (4.97 miles). I think 4.94 was more like it though -- the first mile was 0.97, as was the last mile, which makes sense in an out and back race. It looked to us like the starting line was misplaced (by 0.03 miles).

Fairly cold, low 30's, but I was overdressed so I had my hat, gloves, and jacket all removed by the last half mile or so.

My official time was 45:51. I thought it was going to be chip start as well as finish because everyone made an effort to run across the timing mat at the start, but apparently not. I finished 157th out of 291 overall; 4th out of 7 in my age group. A slight claim to fame is that no one older than me beat me. But that's not real impressive because there were only 2 people older than me in the race, plus 2 people my age, one of whom beat me.

HJ trail, with trailsnail. Our last run before the Thanksgiving Day Medved 5 mile.

Rec Center. Played pretty sloppily.

Bayview Y.

HJ trail, with Hanna. Cool (35 degrees).

Short run around Greg's neighborhood, before picking up our grandson from school. With trailsnail.

Webster Rec.

Event: ROC - Camp Eastman - Night-O
 

Bayview YMCA. 12 people, 3 courts, therefore no sitting out. A couple of decent, competitive, games.

Night-O at Camp Eastman / Durand Eastman, with trailsnail.

We knew we couldn't get them all since neither of us is in serious running shape. We decided to get the two controls north of the start, then head down Lakeshore to the other side of the sewage treatment plant. Then get 16, 25, 20, 19, and 8.

Had a pleasant surprise once we turned off of Lakeshore just past the fence for the treatment plant, in that there is a large, unmapped trail that goes along the fence. Then there was an unpleasant surprise when we got to where 16 should be, but no control in site. Pete Dady was also looking around, puzzled as we were. We were all right in the depression, at the SW part, where the control should be. We all went this way and that, but no control. Finally trailsnail found it, but not in the depression. It was on the edge of the open land, within the control circle, but certainly not where it was supposed to be. We called out to the others looking for it that we had located it.

No issues with 25, 20, 19, or 8. Then 23, 12, 28, and 17, all relatively uneventful. Things unraveled badly heading from 17 to 7. We tried following the small path down the hill towards 7, but it was fairly indistinct, and we got off the trail about 2/3 of the way down, and wound up (I think) SW of 7, in some thick vegetation for a while. We finally worked our way out, but lost 8-10 minutes I bet.

Then 5 and 30. It was getting late, in fact we knew we were going to be late, but with only 1 pt per minute penalty, it was worth our time to hit some high point value controls on the way back. We did 11, 29, and 2. Then my least favorite part of this whole map is getting from Durant Eastman to Camp Eastman, where there is basically a single-point spot just south of the sewage treatment plant fence and just north of private land. The vegetation is medium to dark green, and it is a steep downhill. We finally found a way down -- may have been on private land, I'll look at the trace to see. We didn't know quite where we were but eventually found 22, w/o too much lost time. Then we hit 15 and 6 on the way in. Unfortunately, we neglected 21 and 14, which would have put us a few minutes more overtime, but would have been well worth it because that would have been 10 points total.

As it was, we were 11 minutes overtime, and finished 19th out of 35 teams.

Having such a trivial penalty for being overtime was curious given it was a night-O and therefore there should be a high desire to have everyone out of the woods on time, but it did create some interesting strategies of how much late it's worth being in order to get some extra controls.

Indoor track at the Eastside Y.

Gosnell Field and Woods, with trailsnail. First real trail running in ages. Between being out of shape for the hills, and very cautious with all of the roots, many partly hidden by leaves, my pace was very slow. Trailsnail was, shall I say, very supportive of my slow pace.

Very lame treadmill "workout" in the fitness room at the hotel we were at, outside of Cleveland. I don't handle treadmill works very well in any event, and in this case, the tiny fitness room was dark (lights didn't seem to go on), and the only thing for visual distraction was a small TV screen with a limited selection of channels and no sound (since I didn't have earphones with me).

Carmel, IN, on the Monot rail-trail. Started at a community center (at 111th street and the trail), very nice one, quite new, gorgeous pool area, nice gym, saw some pickleball nets off to the side. The trail is right out the back door of the community center.

Mid day run, with trailsnail and Hanna.