Training Log Archive: ebuckley

Warmup/down.

Bubba XC at Mount Pleasant Winery. As the venue was a winery, I managed to convince Kate to come along. Too bad I had no legs. She managed to get some good photos which I'll post soon. Ran well on the downhills, but just couldn't get it moving going up. A very fun duel with Tony Rigdon ended badly for me when he surged big time on the final climb. Third overall, first M40+.

Easy morning jog round the hood.

Took Yaya to Faust Park where they have replaced the climbing rock with one considerably more technical. Still easy enough to get up if you use the more obvious handholds (this is, after all, a playground for kids under 12), but by avoiding those, it's a decent bouldering stone.

After dropping Yaya with Kate, I met Andrew Karandjef at Forest Park for some mapping. Andrew's been coming to O meets for about a year with above average success and is interested in the more technical aspects, so I invited him to join me in turning the ISOM map into ISSOM for the A-meet next year. He's got a good eye, noticiing details many new mappers wouldn't consider like, "that rockpile isn't a meter high, but it's pretty wide and obvious, maybe we should map it." Need to hold onto this boy. Also, he's running Boston and has a place to stay right downtown. Sweet.

The Big Shark Tri team decided to put on a score-O at Forest Park as part of their year-end picnic. And I didn't even have to do anything to put it on (except deliver controls to Theresa Eppert, who set courses)! Fun little event, although finding those tiny stakes with the Tikka headlamp was pretty tough. Since I was the only person there (besides Theresa) who had ever orienteered before, it wasn't really much of a race, but I ran it reasonably hard anyway.

First run in the IceBugs. I like 'em a lot. Wierd running through puddles an not feeling my feet get wet.

Just to clarify earlier comments. I didn't say the 7:10's felt easy, I said they felt slow. Because I thought I was going slow, I pushed a bit figuring I just needed to get used to running again. Anyway, this morning's run felt easy, and it was: 7:45 pace.

No forms today, so more time on the floor with lots of jumping. Good thing, because I have too much work this evening to go out for a run. Deadline for moving all December changes to UAT is tomorrow, so hopefully things will lighten up next week.

Finally got out the door, despite the fact that it's still cold an rainy. Legs felt OK, but it seemed like I was going really slow. Funny how running three hours at 7-minute-miles changes your perception. I got on the HS track to check my pace and I was running 7:10's! Better not do that every day or I'll have no legs for the workouts that matter.

C • If I were running 7:10 mile... 2

Family class with Yaya.

Another day of cold rain and lots of work, so family class with Yaya will have to do it.

Got my confirmation of entry to Boston today. That was closer than I would have liked it. They stopped accepting applications 2 days after I submitted mine. That's kind of sad, really. Boston used to be a real runners event. If you couldn't run, you didn't get in. If you could, you did. Now they're jamming the field with charity "runners" and a lot of qualifed runners are shut out. Granted, none of those folks will be in wave 1, so it doesn't affect me, but it would have been nice if one of the world majors had stayed a selective affair. Don't get me wrong, I think running for charity is great. I'm doing it myself. And, I have no quarrel with those who want to do a marathon just to do it and don't care about time. I just think that this one event could have stayed a bit truer to it's roots.

C • Wait til you see Hopkinton! 10

Probably about time to get back to regular training, but with cold rain falling all day, it can wait another day.