Training Log Archive: ebuckley

AM: Warmup/dn.

Pig Sprint at French Park (1:5). Sloppy through 4 (including a whopper at 4), pretty good after that. Finished mid-pack again. More like a middle course than a true sprint - winning time was nearly 18 minutes and most of the legs were technical woods legs.

PM: Warmup/dn.

Pig Sprint at Burnett Woods (1:4). This one was all good.

Sprint 3 (Blue/Red) - Splits

Sprint 3 (Blue/Red) - Splits

Event: Flying Pig XI
 

Warmup/dn.

The Short Pig at Miami Whitewater North (1:10). First time back on Blue in a loooong time. Finished mid-pack.

Good: Speed through the woods, focus, strong middle section (5-9).
Not so good: rough in the really detailed area (15 & 17 - lost about 2 minutes).
Bad: Really dumb parallel error on an easy control (#10) for 2:30 lost.

Overall, a good outing, especially considering my checkered history on the Friday Pig events, but definitely room for improvement.

Blue - Splits

Lunchtime run with David Welsh over to Lafayette Park and back.

Then we ran a "proof of concept" sprint course on the Lafayette base map (1:4). Ran at an easy pace.

Setting controls for the Forest Park Sprint plus some jogging around on the map.

Control pickup with David Frei and Doug Nishimura. We ran the course easy and didn't even look at the map (mainly because the sun was down so we couldn't much read it).

Four downhill control picking courses at Greensfelder (1:15). Jogged real slow back up the ridges. Fun to go real fast down knowing that I wasn't going to suffer for it going back up. I think my high-speed map reading is getting better, although I still had to stop a couple times.

Warmup/dn.

So, the fitness center at work does these competitions each month. Usually they’re based on something that no self respecting runner would be any good at, like pull-ups (I can do 2 or 3, the winner did 38). So, just when I’m thinking, “Gee, why don’t they test anything I’m good at?” this month’s contest comes out and it’s 1 mile on the treadmill.

Now, this is not the best month to be sliding in another hard effort, but how can I pass that up? I decided I could do it today and still recover for the Pig. I didn’t want to do it at lunch because then I’d be fried for this afternoon’s workout. I didn’t really want to do it right when I got in at 6AM, either. So, I invented an appointment on my calendar and went down there a bit after 9.

Ran OK – might have been able to shave off a couple more seconds, but the treadmill only goes to 12 MPH, so I couldn’t turn the speed up any faster in the last 200m. Warmed down and noticed that I had better move it or I was going to miss my 10AM meeting. Five minutes in an ice-cold shower wasn’t nearly enough time to stop sweating and this is a “business” environment (as in buttoned collar and tie), so I showed up at the meeting a bit damp. Nobody said anything so either people already have a pretty low opinion of my appearance or maybe they thought I had just finished chewing somebody out (I’m actually not one for loud reprimands, but folks often assume otherwise, me being from New York City and all).

C • Nice mile. How does that tran... 11

HTFU training at Queeny (1:10). In anticipation of the Fair Hill meet, I set a bunch of legs that ran across fields and then into the nasty stuff for the control. Tried to keep pace decent even in the medium green (which is rapidly moving towards dark green). Actually a fun session, even if it did draw some blood.

Almost 80 today. Took Baby-O to the pool when I got back.

Lunchtime run from AGE. Basically connecting the three parks in the next post.

Ran around Lafayette Square to see if there was enough feature density to put on a sprint there. Answer: yes, but barely. Then a loop around Tower Grove and finally some running on the SLU campus.

After work went to Cliff Cave (1:7500) and ran a course with fairly obvious attack points and then fine nav into the control. Leaves aren't out yet, but Cliff Cave is already slow with low visibility so it was a pretty ideal setting for this workout.

Daylight savings and a 70 degree day so the only reasonable thing to do was grill up a couple of steaks and bust out some more wine!

C • I sure hope that wine was adeq... 2

Original plan was to train at night, but then Kate got a call from a friend who wanted her to come over this evening, so that moved the training to the late afternoon. The problem is, I found out about this in the late afternoon after having downed a fair bit of wine. Wasn't really sure what to expect; I was a little woozy during the warmup.

But it turns out you can be fairly accurate even when buzzed. I ran a control picking course at Lone Elk (1:7500). My running form was nothing I'd care to take into competition, but I didn't miss any controls by more than a few seconds. Of course, Lone Elk is pretty easy nav, but the map looks an awful lot like the preview map of Burnet Woods I just got from OCIN, so it should be good prep for this weekend.