Training Log Archive: ccsteve

The boy scout troop puts on a haunted ride through Locust Hill CC each year and I drove, tagged along, and played the part of a creepy guy in the shadows... Over the three hours I probably walked a mile or two and had time to exercise muscles with odd gaits, balance positions and lunges. It definitely counts as a "workout" of some degree as my legs are sore this day after...-)

6:32 / 1:02 / 7:11

New hill workout today. I decided with Blossom open I didn't want to run it... I also read about a cycle event in the park - probably a good thing as I found a great new hill route.

Ran over to Irondequoit Bay Park East off Denonville Pl - An older O map shows a park connection there and when I arrived I found a nice trailhead.

There's a high area with a trail rising all the way up and a short somewhat steep section down, Here it is: (and it probably looks better in the topo view - it just looks like running through the forest otherwise;-)

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2359553

I'm going to call it 700m up and 300m down.

Here's the odd part - my O map clearly shows 9-10 5m contours on the climb, and that's what it feels like. Google pedometer says it is only 25m or so... I'm going to go with the 50m... [[Hmm - thinking - maybe it is 3m contours and the O map is mislabeled... If anyone gets over here, make an estimate for yourself and let me know please;-]]

I really like this climb as it is runnable the whole way and doesn't have many flat or too steep sections. (though it does flatten out at the top for a bit of a break before the end) [If you have the O map, I start midway between the "swamp" on the lowest section of trail around the hill, and stop at the triangle junction as the trail heads off the plateau down the hill, I head down right there]

Pacing was about 360 strides up. That makes the 3:58 climb at 90 spm, the 4:45 at 82, and the others in between. (though I probably shortened my stride on the 4:45 as well so it may not be that low, I only counted on 3 and 4]

warmup m1 - 8:51, m2 - 6:59 [.9 miles - I can make it 2 mile running into the woods next time]
warmup / explore - 2:57
walk / rest - 5:01
climb 1 - 3:58, walk down - 1:51, rest - 2:00
climb 2 - 4:13, walk down - 1:53, rest - 2:00
climb 3 - 4:14, walk down - 2:15, rest - 2:00
climb 4 - 4:23, walk down - 2:01, rest - 2:00
climb 5 - 4:45, walk down - 2:06, rest - 2:00
climb 6 - 4:34, walk down - 2:06, rest - 2:00
climb 7 - 4:30, walk - 7:15
warmdown m1 - 8:41, m2 - 10:00

C • 5' and 25' contours on USGS topo 1

6:44 / 1:00 / 7:23

Up and out today, and able to convince the dog to go with me. 7:13 / 1:07 / 7:01

Event: ROC - Dryer Road Park
 

Worked the Yellow course at Dryer Park with Melissa as a training exercise. I'm probably not coaching her enough on this, so it was a good day to get out. We did well except for the leg that I followed a slightly mapped trail off the edge of the park space...

It was clearly my error for failing to read the map well. I was also using a base plate compass, so that didn't help that the trail went 45 degrees off course (to the left naturally;-)

My lesson was to learn "tan not mapped" doesn't mean it won't have interesting terrain, trail, and the like... We "found ourselves" when we overlooked some homes...

My plan was to consult with Melissa on each leg to ask her how she thought we might go and then offer advice to help her form a good plan.

Also distracting was having the dog (who was less friendly than I remember a couple summers ago), but hopefully she got tired out from her exercise.

Show out at Cloverwood

Beautiful night out for a run, full moon, clear sky. Pacing run for 3 of 4 miles. 7:49, 7:43, 7:55, 9:20.

7:10 / 1:01 / 6:55

Another nice hill workout.. Warmed up over to Ellison down the semi-closed Blossom. Short walk and rest before I worked the new hill route. Power walked up the steepest section - about 1 minute's worth. All trips back were at a jog. [600m up, 400m back, 20m climb per circuit]

Warmup m1 - 8:57, m2 - 11:18, walk 5:11
Hill 1 4:17, 4:02 back
Hill 2 4:39, 4:06 back
Hill 3 4:49, 4:01 back
Hill 4 4:42, 3:46 back
Hill 5 4:47, 4:03 back
Hill 6 4:42, 3:42 back
Hill 7 4:46, 4:10 back

Walk: 6:41
Up Blossom and Bunker Hill 15:24.

Warmdown 1m 9:33

Another in the series of pace runs... didn't count the first two miles, but it felt about right. Counted 650 strides on the third and fourth.
7:44, 7:50, 7:10 (650 strides (with a mostly uphill segment), 65 strides short of a mile), 7:24, :45 [making up the 65 strides]

So the handy-dandy calculator tells me I was at 90.7 and then 87.8. So - that means I've got three miles of 90 strides/minute and then am falling off a bit. Better than I've ever done at that... [[Though if my first two miles had 650 strides at that slower pace, I didn't do as well there... my recollection is that I did not speed up my pace when I started counting on mile 3]]

I posted leg splits and comments on the Green O from the meet Sunday below.

Short run, worked on my pace again.

7:07 - about 1 mile, 650 count. (91.3s/m)
7:00 - about .9 miles, 640 count. (91.4s/m)

So the pace seems very good, and the time not so bad either. Ok - I'm up to 2 miles at this rate, now for the next two...;-)

Event: ROC - Mendon Ponds Park
 

Well, I had 70 minutes to get out today and decided the green course at Mendon was a better option - and did it in 73;-) (rough estimate on time here as printing wasn't up before I had to take off, I'll edit from the online stats when they get posted.

This was about the same area as the A meet, but Rob did a great job of varying things. I recognized a few of the locations as I was passing through, but it didn't give me much of any advantage.

Control 2 will look like an error - I arrived at that ribbon quite well, but no control. I searched around both directions and left after 4 minutes. I later found out the control was low in the re-entrant and around a corner (and was moved into the right position). I asked that I not get a mispunch because of it...

Control 6 I overshot 50 meters down the trail and came back for. I had looked in that re-entrant, but missed seeing the control.

Control 10 was my worst error in that I did 80% of the route well, but didn't do the last 200 meters properly. I believe I was tracked right by a hill and then circled the area. I found control 12 and went right in from that. (which would be a good reason to not place controls on the same course at all near each other;-) Weird feeling, I was at about the right distance and realized that I was standing in what appeared to be a dry stream bed - and recalled that was my clue - end of it - look right - and there was the flag...

Running down the trail to 13 I ran too far and made a parallel feature error out a spur and went back through the "swamp".

Rest was reasonably clean.

On the plus side, I might normally take a path route to 7, but decided I wanted to track myself over the hill and did well at it - I don't know that it was any faster, but it was good to do. I hardly ever found anything as useful as a trail in Surebridge...-)

On my "bear left" issue - decided that what I do is take _every_ tree to the left side, and pivot on my right foot - sending me left incrementally. At one point I turned 90 degrees to the right and went 30 yards to get right to the control... Last two legs I tried consciously bearing right at each "pick a route through the obstacle" point, and it did much better. (evening out my I-don't-know-that-I'm-doing-it tendency...)

Enjoyed the course.

Added with splits out:
Control - Me - Linda K - Randy M - comments
1 - 2:38 - 3:54 - 8:37 - hm - seemed easy for my, I took trails and cut when indicated.
2 & 3 - 15:16 - 12:34 - 16:23 - My time includes 4 minutes of searching on 2 and it looks like I was a bit quicker to 3, Randy seems to have gotten off to a rough start.
4 - 1:19 - 1:43 - 1:10 - this was an easy run leg.
5 - 3:36 - 4:15 - 3:58 - Hill scramble on this one.
6 - 3:56 - 2:34 - 2:58 - Yup, this is my double back leg. Probably better off using the trail to mark an attack point when planning the leg.
7 - 4:14 - 5:09 - 4:33 - Nice that my hill climb was very competitive;-)
8 - 3:58 - 6:10 - 4:10 - Linda must have had an issue here.
9 - 3:21 - 2:27 - 2:23 - Wow - didn't know I lost a minute there. Interesting.
10 - 16:42 - 13:30 - 14:32 - Well - we all took the long way on that one...
11 - 2:20 - 3:07 - 3:36 - Guess I left 10 the cleanest...
12 - 2:53 - 3:44 - 7:16 - My wandering on 10 helped out here...
13 - 7:46 - 4:58 - 3:47 - We can see who had the most discipline on this one.
14 - 2:34 - 3:44 - 2:58 - A bit of a shocker here for me, I expected Randy to cover that ground faster than I.
F - 3:16 - 4:26 - 4:46 - Hmm - maybe my legs are currently stronger than Randy's - there was a hill to climb, but the route to the finish was direct on a trail from there.

Well - my initial thoughts on where I messed up were reasonably accurate. #9 was my only surprise - I guess I didn't get out of there cleanly.

Show at Dazzle Theatre

So, not counting some time running around at the Penfield Invitational (and seeing some areas I hadn't quite had the course correct on), I got out for a run in the evening.

Attempt was to get to and hold the 90 stride pace count for as long as I could. The neat thing - I didn't "try" to hold anything other than "about as fast as I could move them", and it worked well. I counted 650 strides in the first mile and clocked it at 7:16 - the math tells me that is 89.5 strides / minute - over a mile. [mini-cheer;-]

Now - I was not attempting to go fast, just to keep that rate up. The theory being that if my "natural" stride rate gets set at that level, other factors will fall into place later and I'll hold the rate there.

So - Now I have to extend how long I can do that for which takes me back to conditioning and strength.

2nd mile so-so, and some cramping on the 3rd and 4th.

7:16 / 8:00 / 9:25 / 9:57