Training Log Archive: gas_turbine

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So I looked up Ed Hensel (55), who finished right behind me. I thought I was a decent runner for my age (50), but he kept gaining on me on some of the longer stretches in the 2nd 4k loop. ... Turns out he's won multiple 'rochester ultra runner of the year' awards in his age group. That makes me feel better about my 2nd half. I train like a 5K guy, so after that length, I don't feel bad about losing ground... Luckily in this case, I kick more like a 5K guy.
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C • He he 1

J not in the mood to even do the neighborhood loop.

Cooler morning, dewy ground. Now there are many places on the south Mendon trails where you have a wall of grass or other on either side of the path - so much different than the openness of winter or early spring.

Been seeing a higher % of black an red squirrels vs. standard grey ones - Anecdotal?

1 rabbit
several deer pairs, mostly does & fawns, but one Buck (medium rack) and doe(?)

First cucumber coming along - small pickle size currently. Several beans Several weeks from now, I think I will be overwhelmed, however, there is a disturbing brown appearing on some leaves.

C • where 5

Speed work: Trying to ensure stamina for ~5mi.
Hard-steady for 2 mi (14:04 - but have used all the downhills by then)
1 fast mile (6:32 - lost concentration in there, would have loved a 6:20) - makes 3 mi at 20:36 (6:52 pace)
1/4 jog
1/4 faster (6:34 pace)
1/4 jog
1/4 faster (6:41 pace - definitely fatiguing by now)
- finished 4 at 27:58, previous 2 at 6:57 pace
1/4 jog
1/4 faster (hill? - 7:24 pace)
<1/4 jog (untill downhill)
>1/4 faster (mostly downhill & stop before home hill - 6:35 pace)
5 mi at 35:38 - 7:08 pace. Extremely pleased with this run.

(pre-injury in january 2013 - ran route 43 seconds faster; the GPS traces were about even at 4mi.).


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Nothing like a hard mid-day run in summer to artificially lower your weight.

"Abs blaster" from book - some are harder, some easier. continuous 40s on, 20s off. Still have yet to see 'muscles' there, but I sometimes feel them working while I run.

some minor cardio to go with the abs.

"dumbbell fun" from book

Not expecting it to be this fast. Nor have my weight that low. Double bonus. Direct correlation?

Feet were stiff (throughout) from after the trail race.

Hedgewood - got to knute's house but no Knute. That caused a lie-down. J's Sherpa carried no water because it was cooler. Bummer. I also let him down this morning, as somehow I forgot to feed him. Not really a food focused dog, although an occasional swipe of cat food is always a treat.

Event: ROC - Durand Eastman Park Trail Challenge
 

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Lesson learned - post your GPS AFTER you claim the splits in routegadget. Then the AP system auto-splits your GPS route. I never knew that. I just figured folks were religious about pressing their GPS lap timer.
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C • RouteGadget 2

Trail race.
Fascinating. Finished 3rd, despite having only 3 of 24 individual legs be 3rd or better.

(note that on splits, because #6 was missing, the split times are shifted by 1 control after #5)

1 - wow, people went out hard. Quite a group in front of me. Zach is way too fast to tag behind (2 years ago at Webster, I followed him through all but the last 2). Now, he is 2 years stronger, and I'm just 2 years older. One nice thing about trailing by just a bit was that I could pick a cleaner approach route, and there was no back-up when I got there.
2
3
4 - Still able to view where the folks ahead were going.
5 - People stringing out by this point. Following Greg(? - ponytail). Probably 7 or so in front of me.
6 - No control there.
7 - I was trailing 'Greg', and poof, he stops at the water jug area (he claims he didn't get water), so I am all alone going up the little trail.
8 - So this is the first time I was in 3rd, which I kept except for a back and forth near the end.
9 - Consistently 5th or 6th fastest per leg through here. To this point, I didn't make any real bobbles.
10 - A bit of a bobble (41s) a little searching, also, a bit of path issues - Tim R. passed me to this one. He misses punch later on - no wonder I see him running the wrong way later on - him doing that made me double check my map, I figured I was doing it right.
11 - Straightforward. getting fatigued by now, as I was only 6th fastest.
12 - Took the path closest to the lake rather than by the stairs. Probably worth 15 seconds.
13 - No longer pushing it extremely hard, as I'm kind of all alone. Turns out I had 3 minutes on the next guy by here. (I'll slowly lose that cushion)
14 - the easiest one, theoretically. We should have all seen the control at the start. I blow right by it. (thinking that it was the finish punch), and then misread the map, so I go past the potties. Meanwhile the crowd at the start/finish were wondering whether I had gotten it. So they got to see the whole episode. Doh! Lost 1.5 minutes here. The routegadget calc was pretty close - I estimate 1:20 by tracing my GPS back and forth.

The crowd claimed I was 4th? Turns out I was 3rd. Where had all those in front gone to? In road racing, you can count those in front, and count them down as you pick them off. Here, there were enough people going different routes, that you could pass and have no idea.

15 - Didn't try anything fancy. Went longer to find path from lap 1 to get a good AP. I thought I had run pretty hard along the road, so being 10th on the leg was due to conservatism.

16 - Used telephone wires as handrail. Led me down a steep decline, which really slowed me down, but it did plop me at the exact spot to cross the bridge. 6th on that one, so it was a wash speed wise.
17 - Had talked with ccsteve beforehand. Felt that going around rather than straight down & up would be better. I suppose my slower time on this was due to looking at the map several times.
18 - Straightforward. However, at this point, Chad Borden starts sneaking up (coming into control after I leave).
19 - Thought I'd cut straight up to look for the row of trees, rather than find the path. I ended up going into the yellow area, past 20 (which Chad punched) and swinging all the way down to the lake. Claims I lost 32 seconds, which is probably right.
20 - Having been by 20 already, I knew my way back. Best leg.
21 - Ran hard to this - straightforward. Bud Ed Housel is now appearing in the mix.
22 - Mostly road running. With folks breathing down my neck, I pushed hard.
23 - Pulled a real stinker. Went up wrong inlet - allowed the two guys behind me to catch up. Luckily, there were several 4K people around looking, and the other 8K's were not perfectly clean.
F - Ed took the left of the log, I squeezed by the right. It allowed me some distance as we turned onto the road. Was it impolite to put on burners and kick hard? (PS - It worked).

Completely soaked with sweat. Lots of fun.


The safety glasses with 2x bifocals worked great. I say that because after the race I realize I didn't think about them at all.

C • Clarification on #6 ... 4

8k TC - Splits

around the block.

Hot. ….Mostly humidity driven

Quite muggy in weight room. I needed the towel to keep from slipping on my mat. Seemed more difficult than it has been lately.

Cooler, but humid. J likes to try out different variations. Explored cul de sac off of East St. which featured 3 supersized brick homes (hidden behind more modest homes).

Reverse Cole loop, with harder 1/4 near end.
- Needed to do a different loop. This one is good, except that I hit two more major roads that I generally try to avoid (Mendon, Mile Square). Very humid, but cooler.
Didn't want to put on too many miles, but on a weekend, I want to do more than a simple 3. This seemed to be a good compromise - upper ham was not barking.