Training Log Archive: piutepro

Various warm-ups and warm-down and nervous jogging around before the three sprint rounds. I probably would need a half hours of warm-up before each sprint, but this gets tough with three rounds. And the wait time in between is enough to slack and having to warm up again.

Sprint Finals at Hickory, 3 rounds. I am seeded in the top group. Have not much of a chance to keep up with the flying young legs and there is not enough stuff to outwit their brains. The most fun is the last round, when I am racing against runners with a similar speed. The lead changes constantly, At one time I don't even know that I am ahead and vice versa.

Well, I guess it's a reality check for the age being what age is. Still, I got my high seeding by doing well throughout the year in the sprints. For the master class I am still doing pretty well. Still, maybe, somehow, I could build some more speed. Got to try it, have time till next year.

Sprint #1 - Long - Splits

Sprint #2 - Long - Splits

Sprint Final - Long - Splits

The "Will-run-fast-tomorrow" loop. Warm weather is back, an easy run, no vegan dogs on the River Trail. I am getting to ready to drive to Hickory Run. It is on the way to Wyoming, said Mario, you better stop in time. I guess the Mississippi will be a good catching feature.

The "Right rain runs rarely ruin regular rust" loop. I feel lazy and rusty. Sometimes this is good sign while tapering off. Sometimes it indicates empty batteries and calls for dramatic measures, the intake of something powerful and mean-making. Maybe pizza sumption would do it.

Map practice on Moneyhole map 1:10,000 copy. I start off the map and have to figure out where I hit the map. This is a some relocation challenge. I enter the map in a not very defined reentrant. I hit control #1 of the world cup race on a cliff. I figure out the position, because I know it has to be a well defined position.

I follow a trail deeper into the woods. It rains, there is fog in the woods. The moss is deep green, with some magic glow. Nobody is out today, not even the bees and birds. It is quiet and beautiful.

I run and (over)read the details, focusing on map contact. After 30 minutes I switch to the sprint-o mode. I run short legs, inventing the course as I go. I pick the next 'control', simplify the navigation and check the direction. And run. It turns out to be a tough practice. The speed is so high and the focus intensive. No time for bungling or recovering after losing contact. It is constant high alert racing.

It gets dark. I run out on the next fastest trail. I see some "traitors", the yellow leaves which point out, that it is fall soon, that the summer is over. I change at the car, it is peaceful out here, no matter what. Being in the woods makes me feel good, the rain makes it even more beautiful.

The "Lazy & easy as ingenious training tool" loop. I force myself to another easy run to recover, taper off and polish my running shape to perfect shape. It appears through some unconscious point collecting I end high up in the sprint standing. As a punishment/reward I start in the top heat (I guess this relates to the temperature with which I am being fried by young, jumpy, arrowfast runners).

So my strategy for the first round is a given: Follow the fastest runner and beat him in the finish. Hm, sorry, got to go, time to take my doping, a cool mix of banana split icecream with a sprinkle of moon sand, two Hudson River eel eyes and fifteen milligram of pure home grown datura extract. No mushrooms today, they seem to trigger visions of P.G. putting note cards in restaurants and hair salons all over NYC, as part of the weird TV series called SOM (Spying on Mom) with a weightless master mind keeping the city safe from his visiting mother.

The "Easy and no TV" loop. I was tired enough for the easy run, even though I could have also done a long run and I know I would have felt even better. On the way down I discover a whistle pig without whistle, locally called a wood chuck. It dips into his hole and look out like the perfect whistle pig/marmot. It has no clue how to make the fine sharp sound though.

Later an animal encounter of the moron sort, a wild roaming rottweiler, a literal killing machine with nothing than muscle, probably not a vegan dog. The owner (beyond qualification, as they would say in the Tour de France) comes when I stop, tells me that it is a playful dog, while a teeth bleeking dog with serious Gulf war syndrome (Attack the enemy before it attacks you) slabbers at me. A not very nice exchange follows, with words like fascist, Gestapo and other historical references hurled at me, when I tell the owner to control his extremely well educated playful body building dog. Guess next is that someone wields some semi-automatic riffle and tells me, how funny and entertaining it is.

I wish I had brought a whistle pig, which whistles the exact pitch which makes dogs to frozen mole hills. Sorry all dog owners, but this one was not a good encounter.

I keep running and the warm sun dissolves unkosher thoughts and gives space to pleasant thoughts about Indian summer and flowering datura.

A good fast run, somewhat slower than last time. I still had the intervals from yesterday in my legs. Four rabbits, all down on the river. They are good runners, at least until they disappear into the bushes. I am not so sure how well they would do over 12 kilometers.