Training Log Archive: Wyatt

Icy trails mostly, some fields and forests that were darn bumpy and some briars that I quickly learned to go around. ~15 minutes was hard head-to-head ~2.2km with Vadimas

Bad pace... It was a little hilly, but I didn't think it was that bad.
At the start, as seems common, there were two kids out in front. One guy ~15, who could possibly hang out in front for a while, and a 12 year old girl who was clearly overdoing it.

As the course rolled it's way up and down through the first few minutes, the 15 year old guy started to disappear up front, and Johnny Wrongway was fairly consistently pulling away from me. The 12 year old girl held on admirably, holding ~ 20m ahead of me for the first 3 mintues, when Johnny finally passed her. On a long downhill I passed her at ~ 5 minutes into the race. Amazingly strong little girl. And the lead woman at that point! Anyway, I continued pushing along, doing relatively well on the downhills and holding my own on the flats and uphills. On a gradual but long uphill to the mile mark, I hear someone catching up. And then I hear a high pitched cry of "I can't do it", as the 12 year old girl pulls ahead of me... I push to stay with her but by pulling around to the outside where the 1 mile mark is on a corner, she stays ahead and crosses the 1 mile just 1m ahead of me, both of us in 6:10 (rolling hills, but net downhill. Probably fairly comparable to a flat first mile...). Damn. My first mile that fast came in college... Impressive.

Still, the next downhill lets me pull away, but yet again, she catches me on the next uphill. When is she going to slow up? Note that I'm not slowing up much effortwise, as we aren't passing or getting passed by anyone! Finally at about the 1.5 mile mark I give up on staying ahead and just pace this incredible 12 year old through some fairly flat stuff. At about this point the top woman over 12 catches us and pushes past. She has paced herself well. She's got one guy on her too, and they go by, both encouraging the 12 year old girl as they do. Finally I push ahead and start to leave the 12 year old girl behind, but again, she gets close on every uphill and is still just by ~2-3 meters behind me at the 2 mile mark. 6:55. A little hillier and/or mismarked and/or I'm getting more tired. Plus it's net flat, not net downhills.

Just after the two mile mark, the guy who was hanging with the ~35 year old woman can't make it and starts walking. 20 seconds later, me and the 12 year old girl go by. He can't take that and runs back past us, only to give up and walk again about 2 minutes later, never to be seen by us again. The third mile is definitely net uphill, which ends up keeping my relative weakness and the 12 year old's relative lack of endurance balance out. As we continue, I hear her behind the whole time, and even with what felt like a solid push by me at the end, she finishes just 2 seconds behind. (3rd mile 7:09, 3m-5k: 37, total 5k: 20:51.) Bad time, but it's hilly.

Johnny was ~19:40, and was supposedly 19:20 or so a month ago on the same course. What's up with me? My next WOC training goal is a flat 10k in 38:00 in a month. That'll be hard.

VF loop, following O' tracks. Ate 6 slices of raisin toast at 5 am, slept a bit, then ran ~7-9. Not too bad. Not easy though. R-knee achy last hour, fine after.

Warmup closer to 3, cooldown defintely 2...

8x goalpost-sideline-goalpost (less snow on the field than the track I went to.) Hopefully today's ~35-40 degree rain will clean up a lot of the remaining snow, and not just turn it to thin sheets of very heavy/hard snow..

Anyway, today's splits (w~90 second 120m walk rest): (warmup/test 67)
62.9, 63.4, 62.5, 62.1, 62.6, 60.2, 59.2, 58.7

Decending splits to (in order of importance, I think)
1) better warmed up
2) better form on snow
3) more packed down path in places

I think 2 is the point of Repeats, and while I don't care much about my form on snow, just learning to more quickly adapt my running form to whatever terrain I'm on at the moment is good O'/running practice.