Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Longfellow Loop, breezy but a tail wind along the river. Knee feels okay!

Decided not to run Ramble (too broken) or ski up Kearsarge (too long a drive to ski 5k in the rain). Went to yoga with sister and BiL in JP, and then since I was halfway to the Blue Hills, went for a lap of the yellow triangle trail. Nice, easy L1 running. Super nice loop, colors out, not wet, really despite a downpour on the drive, and IT band didn't really have feels.

Need to do more yoga. Old and broken.

Classic roll with Andy, Frank and John. Juniors off on their own, I guess? Excellent day, although my form for double poling lost something about 2/3 of the way through.

Back to NP for the first time in a while. Felt good down the first hill at good speed, won the split back up (apparently I was supposed to play RPS at the top, or something) and then down again. Back up, back hill, then down another front hill. 2.5 miles in and ooh now I feel the IT band. Went and walked the stairs a couple of times. Well, better than 0 miles in.

60 pulls on the rollerboard! Of course, I may have gone too hard, as my back hurt a lot after.

Hooray for "everything is broken" week.

Out to test out a workout with some folks from NP. I hung on for 11 sections before the IT band said "no."

That's okay: September '15 it took me a week and a half to get to 8 sections, and I'm beyond that. If it holds, I should be fine in a couple of weeks. STRETCH!

Lincoln and Jess asked if I wanted to come down in the afternoon and bike around Merrymeeting Bay. Sure. We started a bit late so made sure we had lights for the last bit. What a lovely day: temperatures in the 60s (but dropping later) lots of color and once off Route 1, basically zero traffic, 18 mph the whole way round, and some nice pace lining at times.

I got bonky around mile 30 but Lincoln lended me a goo. We also stopped for him to check out a little airfield. We needed the lights for the last five miles, but most of those are on a very nice bike path paralleling Route 1, so the super-high-beam light they lent me (which I'd probably get if I rode more rurally at night and needed to see the road, not just alert other drivers) wasn't really necessary.

Then we ate lots of food.

Packing for the weekend (obscene amount of stuff in the car: AT skis to get mounted, bike, etc) made me late for rollerskiing. With Frank not there and Rob there, the drills and balance must have gotten cut short, because at 9:11, when the pack is usually assembling, they were already rolling towards the bridge.

So the parking lot was deserted when I rolled in. I changed boots and rolled out like a bat out of hell rolling down the bridge at a 4:12 pace for the first mile, and kept poles on and was sub-7 up the first two miles of the hill, by which point I was nicely in L3 and backed off to join the crew.

Actually, I think I may start using that hill to go hard, it's long enough to get a nice interval in.

Anyway, the rest of the roll was quite relaxed. Long loop, no extensions, L1 the whole way. Just a gorgeous day, leaves, cool breeze, no traffic. The best roll of the year. And hopefully a few more weeks until white.

C • 9:11 2

Got to Maine after dropping the skis off and errands and it was so damn nice I grabbed the bike out of the car for a quick lap around the lake, chasing down the sunset. It gets dark early!

Fun relay race set up by Juanma, and I got to run a leg so we could have enough teams.

After coaching, home to throw on ski boots and go ski. Hit Central just as the second train of a bunch was leaving, but made it on. Quick trip to Alewife and on the trail 19 minutes after leaving my house. DP up to Lexington, then skating back. IT band is feeling a good deal better, you know! Made it back on the light through Lexington, and got to Rindge just in time for the 83 bus, but it was running late (of course) but no matter, I had plenty of time to ride home on my transfer.

Warm up run over to Riverside Press for Basketball Court O.

This was super fun? Run to the points marked on the basketball court, say "beep" a lot, and go slow enough the IT band doesn't get angry. Did every course forwards and backwards, and then one where you had to stay on the lines (super fun, let's do that some time Alex).

Then run to pick up pizza.

IT band is effed? To the Minuteman! 8 miles of double poling because I ran out of light.

Adams Challenge, or, I haven't been to the Northern Presidentials in way too long. Still feeling like a cold, but my sister and BIL wanted to go up to NH, and everything was booked solid, but the OH wasn't, so they provided the ride and I provided the lodging. They hiked something in the Carters, but I wanted to hit the peaks. So I did!

Legs still felt a little tired and cold was certainly still there. Not a lot of get-up-and-go but I figured I'd have no trouble making it up within the allotted time frame. Ran what I could, hiked what I couldn't, passed a lot of goofers on the Air Line, and made the summit soaked in sweat and glad I had a different shirt to put on. Ate lunch, listened to very goofery conversation as long as it took to scarf half my sandwich.

Running down. Well, my legs didn't feel great, so the bottom part was much more hiking than running, but no slips or falls on the VW.

Did some work sitting on a bench looking up at Mount Adams. Then went to hike up the South Imp branch to meet the others. After 10 minutes going up the trail I realized I was going up the north branch. Uhm, whoops? Went to turn to run down and my IT band was having none of it. Better 10 minutes from the road than at the Madhaüs like last time. Also, left IT band, so a new injury! Seeing a lot of double poling in my future.

So I ran Chicago, and came down with a cold. I guess I might as well get the legs and body out of commission at the same time. Running road marathons is dumb.

Quick Chi Marathon notes:

1. Marathons are so dumb. If I don't go sub-3 at Boston I probably won't push to do something else to requalify and let the chips fall where they may. (I say this now …)

2. Having said that, marathons are so cool! Three hours of just flat out running, with lots of people, crowds, cities. Such fun!

3. No marathon ever has enough port-o-johns at the start. Which is why guys use trees/bushes/fences/whatever. Although the guy dropping a deuce in the bushes in a park, well, the rain won't wash that away as easily.

4. Chicago really could stand a better finish. 800 meters to go huge crowds running up South Michigan and then? Right turn, no crowds, incline up over the IC, then another left turn where they have grandstands, but it's so goddamn hard to get there that few people cheer. If it just went straight north on Michigan to Balbo, it would be 100 times better.

Chicago 26.2! This was fun. Mostly to run a hot race and not die.

Train down to start, NP bounce, prep, bags at bag drop, then off to the start pen. Nice to be in the front group. Race went out with pleasant temperatures and nearly all in the shade, so that was good. Had to use the mile markers for splits for a while, since the GPS gets so off in the Loop, but ran pretty even splits right around 6:45, a 2:57 pace.

I held that pretty well until around mile 16. At this point it was warmer, a lot sunnier, and my legs were beginning to get beat. I've also learned to cool down! To maintain the same pace my HR went from 150 to 157, and I was having to push unsustainably hard. I slowed down a little bit, to around 7:00s, and was able to maintain that for a few miles.

It got warmer, and I've learned my lesson. After the NP cheer station I backed off a bit, down to mid-7s, and cooled down; grabbing several cups of water at each aid station. CFD had big water jets out, but didn't have them all on until later! I stayed cool enough, ran a little faster for the last mile (but didn't really have a push) and finished, standing up. 3:02:37, less than 4 minutes off a PR given the heat is fine, although not enough to be set for a 2019 Boston. So I'll hope for good weather for next spring!

Then drank beer, cheered, ate, swam, drank beer, etc. Beats the heck out of sitting in hospital.

Street O, very relaxed pace, navigating well (helps to live in the 'hood), then pizza!

So, Harriman. Highlander. This went mostly okay, by navigation skills are quite rusty, and one mistake probably lost me 10 to 20 minutes or more.

I ran out fast with the leaders, on an easy bit of road and then a long leg through the woods. Feeling pretty okay, and hanging on fine, following. Then, somehow, I ran past 4 with a bunch of other people and they all punched and somehow, I didn't. I have no idea how this happened, since people were all over the place; I just noticed I was going the wrong way.

So, now I was in no man's land, having had to go back to find the control. Then I stupidly went around the hill to avoid the green, paralleled down the wrong reentrant, went way low, gave myself lots of extra climb, and lost a ton of time. So now I was catching up on Alex et al up a 500 foot climb.

Alex and I lost a little time going across a dam that should have been marked out of bounds, and then through the start for drinks.

So it was off to 8. I ran this well, going along a white bench to the control, but Violetta pulled me to the wrong control, and a group reformed. A large group to 9 and 10 (Joe here knew where all the controls were, so I'd run ahead and then wait for him to point at the right rock, funny what setting the course will do) and trail run to 11. Navigated well to 12, and Balter led a group of four of us through the green to 13. Bash bash bash. Then in to the trail run, which had some bashing, and I kicked a branch in to my hand, hooray.

Trail run was fine. I was pretty tired, had to pee, but had a good run, putting a minute on Patrick (Balter and the other guy were doing the Lowlander). I waited for Patrick up to 18 to have someone to navigate with. We did pretty well to 20, I ran the hill to 21, spiked 22 well, and navigated well to 23 and 24 (with a hesitation to think about taking the trail around). Violeta had caught up by here having made an early mistake and was moving well.

Then there was a climb up Rockhouse. I saw a road and a trail and did that, which was a good idea; caught up with Violeta, almost, but somehow didn't see the control out in the open. Then so much blueberry until I finally hit a trail for the last two controls, which were repeats of earlier controls.

Finished just over 4 hours, which was fine. If I'd kept contact with the group early on I probably would have been 20 minutes better. But I'm mostly uninjured, and now get a week off before Chicago. (Checks weather, says curse word.)

Highlander - Splits