Training Log Archive: DWildfogel

Stayed overnight with the Minariks and went out early in the morning with Louise so that she could run in the Coastal Trail Runs 5 miler at Redwood Regional in Oakland.

Paso Nogal. A-meet Middle course by Get Lost! (Vlad G). Sunny, a little warm. Start at 10:48. Ran well (had to walk some hills), navigated well. Two significant mistakes (1 min on #7 and :30 on #11) plus a half dozen small ones (5 - 15 secs). Overall, quite a good run, good for first on Brown by a wide margin. Really enjoyed it; in fact, towards the end, was wishing it wasn't going to be over so soon! Got more aggressive as the race wore on and my confidence grew; that led to a few bobbles, but since I was going hard and with little hesitation, splits for those legs were good anyway.

Hadn't been here before (there had been two prior events); very good venue for the Bay Area, more technical than usual, and though somewhat steep, no massive hills.

Surprised that the scale was 1:7500 as I knew that last year it was 1:5000. (Later I saw that the meet notes did in fact specify the correct scale, but I hadn't noted that.) As a consequence, I wasn't exactly sure of my pace count, which definitely hurt me a couple of times.

Warm up: jog to start, plus a couple of minutes once there. 6 mins, 0.5 miles

Cool down: 6 minutes, 0.4 miles

Day Two: Brown - Splits

Event: Run Black Diamond
 

The usual weekly accumulation of morning stretching.

Diablo Valley College. A-meet Sprint conducted by Get Lost! Cool but pleasant evening. Starts delayed by 15 minutes (I started at 8:20). Distance is straight line (point to point); actual distance, going around buildings, considerably greater.

When I finished, I didn't think it was that good of a run because leaving most of the controls, I had to stand still for a bit in order to locate the circle for the next control: there are a lot of dark buildings on the map, the controls and numerals were overprinted in a fairly dark color, and the campus was pretty dark. Nevertheless, by taking my time in that manner, I didn't make any mistakes and my route choices were pretty close to optimal. So, I would up with quite a good result: fastest time on the Masters/Juniors course, which included all the Green runners (e.g., Tapio).

Because of the technical difficulty of the course, there were very few times when I could actually run. Weird finishing a sprint and not being tired at all.

Started catching up with Gavin Wyatt-Mair (who started 2 minutes ahead of me) as I approached #3, and passed him as I was going into #6 (thought I hardly saw him in between as we had taken different routes). After that, he left most of the controls faster than me (which certainly contributed to my feeling that it wasn't a great run) and then I wouldn't see him (it was dark) and then pass him near the control; apparently, the time I took leaving the previous control paid off in that I was able to go right to the flag once I got in the circle. Got ahead of him (yet again) going into #12, and stayed ahead because the last two controls were away from the buildings (making the control circles and numerals more visible) so I was able to plan those legs while on the run during the previous legs.

Warm up: a little difficult to plan since Vlad was still out hanging controls and it wasn't clear when we'd actually start. Fortunately, my legs felt great and I got loose immediately, and didn't have to do a lot to stay loose. 8 mins, 0.7 miles.

Cool down: 6 minutes, 0.4 miles.

Day One: Masters/Juniors - Splits

Theraband and weights, about half the usual amount.

Front of house. Get out early, ahead of the rain. Just loosening up for Friday's race. Got going quite swiftly and felt great. Be very happy if I can run Fri's 1.4 km night sprint in today's time :-)

618, 507, 106.

Watch battery died; got a new one later in the day.

Pilates mat interleaved with theraband, hips, and thigh adductors. Only did about half the mat exercises since my right quad is somewhat sore from Sunol's hills.

Upper body weights.