Training Log Archive: PG

Yesterday's middle Red course (F21), quite different from my Green course.

Totally better than yesterday. A little cooler (the weather) than yesterday, more energy, traces of some long-forgotten fighting spirit, a little more mental intensity. Yesterday there was no way I could say it was fun. Today it was hard work, and that by definition is fun.

Time was just good enough to sneak ahead of the usual suspects among the old men, just a fellow from Hungary (I think) in M50 who was well ahead of me, but I can deal with that.

Still a long ways to go, but it was oh so nice, for example, to actually run up the gradual incline to the 3rd from last control. Time to start thinking about a summer trip? Maybe, but first need to make plans for the Western Mass 3-Day, Tuesday to Thursday this week, sites still to be determined. Time to get in some sorely needed woods running.

I'll post the map later.

And a culture stop on the way home, been meaning to go there for years, the Storm King Art Center, a wonderful collection of outdoor sculptures spread over some 500 acres of rolling hills. Absolutely worth a visit.

C • Storm King Art Center 2

Is this the start of something? Another very cute female orienteer asked me to take my shirt off so she could check me out.

C • "Another very cute" 2

Classic: Green Y - Splits

Event: West Point A-Meet
 

Blah.

Middle distance M-60 (Green-Y). Just not with it. Felt like I'd forgotten how to orienteer, plus not moving well either. (At some point, if you're not orienteering well, is it better to be going slowly, limit the errors?)

Embarrassingly bad route to #1, painfully slow to 2, 3 was ok, stopped for what felt like about 30 seconds a third of the way to 4 to figure out where I might be. 5 was ok, visited another control first before 6, 7 was ok. On a beeline to 8 until I looked up at the road and realized there was an uncrossable fence right in front of me. Very slow over to 9. But then the rest was great!

Intensity level of "2" is probably being charitable. Both physically and mentally.

Here's the map for the M21/F21 sprint.

Took me a while to get into the frame of mind to be at an A meet, both the orienteering and the social. Felt quite out of it. But at least the social improved as the day went on and I had quite a fine time.

Still hungry. That's good. 137 was the goal for this weekend, 135 for the first of May. I can tell it's having an effect because Lyn Walker came up to me and asked me to take my shirt off so she could check me out. :-)

Middle: Green Y - Splits

A nice late afternoon outing from the gate to the top of Toby via the power line, 6:15 running over to the start of the climb, 15:34 up, mostly walking, little sections of running, and then running back down the jeep road, 22:20. 3 PRs!

Not the kind of thing I would normally do the day before West Point, but times have changed, so why not. Plus we are blowing off the sprint, requires getting up too early and Gail would pass on it anyway, so we'll take a leisurely drive down in the morning and just do the middle in the afternoon. Seems much more civilized. Plus I will avoid getting lousy ranking points in the sprint.... :-)

Independence day, more or less, still had to stop at the office for some loose ends, ditto tomorrow, but spent much of the day pretty much vegetating. Felt great!

And then a late afternoon ride to Northampton to retrieve the Subaru. Keeping in the fine spirit of the day, had a gentle tailwind all the way. :-)

Haven't done the final numbers, but it was a good "year" at the office, business was up about 10% despite no advertising and the usual attrition of the base from people dying or moving away. Nothing like good word of mouth. And now, having crammed 6 months of work into 3 months, I get to spread 1 month (actually probably more like 2 weeks) of work over the next 9 months. Excellent. And even opened a bottle of champagne last night, thanks to my good friend Dave who stopped by with it.

Now it's time for some orienteering and rogaining and rogaine practice (ie. golf, though my ribs may object for a little while) and who knows what other adventures I can dream up. While I still can.

A late evening stroll up South Sugarloaf, clear, no wind, no moon, just to get reminded of being out at night again. Would be nice to have the same conditions in Arizona in a month.

Hanging in there well on the diet, though it is much easier to avoid eating after dinner when dinner doesn't end until 10 than when dinner is over by 7. But it is much easier to stick with it if you see results. So far, so good. There are certain targets for my running, don't know if I will make them, but the weight has to come off first.

And only then will it be time to see if any serious orienteering this summer makes sense. All the stuff this spring is just for fun, especially the rogaine, thoughts of which kept me going through the winter. 30 days.

Got a good night sleep, almost no stress at work today, and so my running....

sucked. No zip, not that I was trying to run hard, but just didn't have it. Managed the usual loop, but the plan had been to do an extra 20 minutes. That wasn't going to happen.

On the other hand, I was nicely entertained by parts of interviews with John Mellancamp and Seymour Hersch (who I met once), the former just fun, the latter very interesting.

On the occasion of my 64.5th birthday, time to repeat an item from 6 months ago. As far as I can tell, and I'll venture out on a limb here, the answer is yes. It certainly is true going the other direction.

C • 0.5th Birthdays? 4

Yoga class, hard on the ribs.

Seems like I'm in for 4-6 weeks recuperation. Not so bad I can't do things, just annoying.

"13 hills" loop. Quite unexpectedly had company, Glenn Cafferty, normally a much better runner (2:40 marathoner) but suffering from hip problems, so he was happy to run at my pace. Nice time, chatting all the way, mostly about stuff he is working on, environmental economics. The time went by pretty quickly, managed to keep talking on all but a couple of uphills, and a PR without too much perceived effort. A little more progress.

And now I really need a nap, got about 3 hours of sleep last night, got to bed late after watching a bit of taped TV from Sunday, the Masters and Paris-Roubaix, and then woke up not too much later with the knife-in-the-back feeling that seems to come with rib jobs -- at some point it seems to start hurting more in the back than up front where I bounced off the rock. I guess the muscles are straining to protect things and are registering their objections.

Two other PRs in the last 24 hours -- a young woman, 20, struggling to find her way, who walked in with 12, count 'em, 12, w2s. Broke the record by at least 3. And add to that the fact that her income for the year was about 5K. Do the Republicans know that people like this exist?

And for another kid, a W2 for $7.50. Never seen one that small. One hour of work? And another W2 for $15. Two hours of work?

And lots of very weird clients.

The G is right on the glide path, though it will get tougher now. Very good to escape Ratlum Mountain without a bump up.

3 days to go. Many clients in distress (financial, emotional, relationship, job security, maybe all of the above?).

Easy effort, stayed on the treadmill in case the legs acted up, but they were ok. :-)

10 minutes before to loosen up, 5 after, 5%.