Training Log Archive: cmorse

4F at sunrise. Met John A over at the forest. Got there and decided to wear the big bulky mitts rather than have cold hands - but that precluded carrying the hand bottles - so I just drank two 20oz bottles of warm drink right at the start and left the empties in the car - what better place to carry fluids than in your stomach eh?

Ran the moonlight course up to the point where it meets the outbound 24k course and then followed that. Pretty rough footing in the areas where ATV's and dirt bikes have chewed things up but good HTFU training. Skipped the streambed section after the 2nd water stop as that would have been particularly grotty in these conditions. Once past the halfway point there were definitely some spots where I probably would have walked if I were running solo - so good to run with John and having him push me harder than I would normally go. Still walked a couple, but not much.

Got back in just over 2 hours, not feeling any worse for the wear - until I got home and jumped in the shower - then it became painfully obvious which bits got a bit more chilled than they should have. Going to make those 30 & 40 degree runs feel downright delightful though...

Had planned to go over to West Hartford to run a loop of the Traprock 50k course this AM, but woke up before dawn when the power went out. No power = no heat and only 1F outside. Damn...

About 6:55 the power came back on, so I dashed downstairs, restarted the pellet stove then upstairs to put running gear on and dash out the door to meet John in East Hartford at 7:30. 7:02 power dies again. Double Damn. Called John to bail on the run, not knowing how long the power would be out, how cold the house would get, whether I'd have to drain down plumbing etc. Just kind of hung out for a while with cat keeping me company, but then figured I might as well climb back into bed where it was warm. Power came back on to stay around 10:30, house down to around 50F. Morning shot.

Will try and sneak out for a run later on - though I'm not sure where or how far. Long run harder to motivate without company...

Regular day at work, then heading down to New Haven for a new greenhouse dedication at Yale, so it looks like I won't get that last 30 miles of biking in this period. I'll probably just do 15 minutes core before bed, then off to MDC tomorrow AM for a loop of the Traprock course. Had I planned ahead, I would have tossed some running stuff in the car and run one of Boris's routes at East Rock or Maltby while I was down that way.

Very good month - 5 long trail runs, no zero days (though about a third of the days were just core exercises) and my best training month (total time) in 10 years logging on AP if I don't count those months where I logged backpacking trips, rogaines or field-checking.



And in retrospective mode: it was 10 years ago this month that something felt 'funny' when I ran all out that would eventually lead to heart surgery in April 2000. Damn I'm feeling good, lets hope it stays that way.

some time to kill before picking up Jackson so rode the bike for a bit

still haven't gotten the rest of the biking in, but everything else on the training plan is done. No biggie on the bike I guess.

Doing an orienteering thing in mid-Feb on a scout camping trip to Rutland, MA. So I gathered up some data - USGS, ortho-photo-quads and a couple versions of a 'trail map' and began drafting stuff into OCAD this evening. I'll take that as a base and perhaps go up and do a GPS exploration of the trail system on Sunday. Won't be a great map, but should provide something worthy enough to teach O in a legitimate fashion. Looks to be around 5-6 km² though some peripheral areas may be privately held.

Happy Hills w/ Bruce & Mark - mild - 30's, light rain. Only needed 5 more miles on the training plan for January, so I only did two repeats rather than the typical 3. 19:43, 19:45. Then off to work... Road work done for the month, trails already done, need another 12 minutes of core plus about 30 miles on the bike.

Wasn't sure how to deal with the fact that the month ends Sunday, but I'll pretty much be at my training goals by Friday. So I edited my training calendar so that January officially ends Friday, and the February training cycle starts Saturday the 30th. So this week is an easy recovery week, but only through Friday. Then we put it back in gear, perhaps with a preview loop of the Traprock 50K course in West Hartford on Saturday morning.