Training Log Archive: ebuckley

Warmup for sprint 1 (12 min) and sprint 2 (15 min). Neither was long enough, but I was there to learn how to run the epunch system. Racing was a side benefit.

CAOC Sprint #1 at Arie Crown (1:7500). Turns out learning a software package is not the best mental prep for a sprint event. First three controls were terrible. Had fast time from #3 on. Woods were kind of junky.

Sprint #2. A better effort. Small boom on 3 followed by a bad route on 4 gave away 2-3 minutes. Was at or near the lead pace for the rest of the course. OK effort considering the distractions and good light green training (a season priority).

Sprint 1 - Splits

Sprint 2 - Splits

Warmup.

Marine Road Race (Marine, IL). Flat course with a fair bit of wind. Only had 1 teammate and that turned out to be a real problem as Mack and Velo Force had 6 and 9 riders respectively. It was pretty much impossible to do anything aggressive so I spent the day closing gaps. Not the most gratifying race of my life. Broke my cleat with a couple miles to go so I had to sit out the sprint. Finished near the back of what was left of the pack, maybe 20th.

Test running a few legs for Team Trials at S-F (1:10) and also making a few adjustments.

Test running the Blue course. Decent, but not great speed. Winning time should be around 33 minutes.

Finally broke down and had some pizza. Stopped in Farmington for the lunch buffet at Pizza Hut. Quite dissappointing. Not because the pizza was bad, it was fine, but I should have satisified the craving with some really excellent pizza from a shop flagrantly violating 4 or 5 health and safety codes. Anyway, it made the vetting at Hawn (1:15) a bit less enjoyable because I was belching the whole time.

The west side of Hawn is much greener than the east side. Speeds will be slower than we thought, but that's actually good because the courses are a bit short.

C • Either way you really don't kn... 1

Another fine day in the woods. I don't know why I continue to stress this. It's clear from our paltry entry list that more people read Swampfox's log than mine. It would serve him right if we do get a cooker.

C • Hey, I haven't been trying to ... 4

Touching up the vegetation on S-F. Looks like we'll have full leaves on all the low vegetation, not sure how much further the big trees will come in the next two weeks.

Ran the Red course for S-F (1:10). It was fun to run with the tapes out so I didn't have to stop and confirm my position at each control. No warmup, so not quite race effort, but pretty close. Legs were fine (2% climb helps). Could probably shave a couple minutes off.

Two small booms near the end when I started thinking about my A-meet to do list and forgot I was still running fast through subtle woods. I may make one more adjustment tomorrow, but I think it's pretty much final.

Was definitely a play it by ear kind of day. With thunderstorms forecast for the whole day, I planned to use the day to knock out some errands and A-meet admin tasks and then ride the trainer in the evening. However, by mid afternoon things cleared up nicely. It was too late to go down to S-F, so I hopped on the bike hitting some hills in West County figuring I'd hook up with the Big Shark ride at Marquette.

Legs were OK, but I remembered Ted McRae saying something about wanting to do the Marquette loop in under 90 minutes which, while doable, is a race pace effort and I wasn't really wanting to go quite that hard. The decision to skip the ride was made easier by the return of some menacing cloud cover. So I headed north to the flood plain where the sky looked a bit lighter and bounced up and down the bluff a few times.

Did get caught in a little light rain right at the end. The big drops showed up about a block before my street, so I got a good sprint in to finish the ride.

I'm very torn between the desire to keep my weight at 178 and the desire to eat pizza. As of this writing (7:45 PM), pizza has the upper hand.

C • I know that feeling! 2

Another great day to be in the woods. This time hanging tapes at S-F (1:10). No test running today, but I got the feeling that S-F is just a hair slower than Hawn. Of course, the relative lack of climb and shorter distance should more than balance that out.

Found a few areas where the vegetation didn't fill in quite the way I expected - I'll have to go back and touch up the map. Also found one leg where the scouts have chopped down a bunch of trees for no apparent reason. That will certainly affect route choice.

Over to Carondolet plus some warmup laps. Found a new route that's a bit shorter and more pleasant.

Tuesday Night Crit #1. Seems that everybody was recovering from Tour of STL. Pace was off a bit. Still some fairly fast riding at times. I mostly sat in the field. Found myself 10th in line on the back of the Dogfish train on the last lap and really wished I had some legs for the sprint. I didn't and rolled across in 15th or so.

Only felt like doing one race tonight, so I went home the old way to get more distance and climb. Took a while to get up the gumption to turn the big ring, but after half an hour or so I was making good progress.

Vetting Hawn courses. Legs were not too pleased to be asked to do anything today, but they felt better after about half an hour of easy jogging. The task was sweetened by the fact that, contrary to Swampfox's doomy forecasts, it was a truly delightful day to be out in the woods.

Test running some legs to make sure the vegetation mapping accurately reflects running speed. It does - even though the woods look a lot greener, they are still quite fast. Even in my infirmed state, I was running sub-7's in white woods.