Training Log Archive: jtorranc

Warmup/running to Cardozo track.

Running intervals - 8,6,8,4 minutes, selected by drawing cards from a deck. Some cards selected calisthenic exercises on various sorts, of which we had three.

Carolyn's last Crawlers workout as she's moving to Tucson next week. Will have to finally send he a friend request in Facebook so I can see what adventures she gets up to out there.

C • Caroline 1

Cooldown lap with the group plus slowly jogging home.

Event: Susquehanna Stumble XX - Pine Grove Furnace State Park
 

The Susquehanna Un-Stumble - need a longer time of doing LSD regularly - with Ken at 15, still in sight at 17, fell apart physically thereafter. Caught and easily passed by Samuel as well at the end of the second window.

This was an apparently intentionally least Stumble-like Stumble ever of those I've run - the two score-O windows, 4 controls each, couldn't have amounted to even 1 km of the total distance. In the first window two of the controls were even visible from each other. Not to say I didn't enjoy the ~13.5km of point-to-point orienteering but if there's only going to be one Stumble annually, I don't understand why you wouldn't lean into what makes the Stumble different rather than trying to make it as much like a conventional orienteering course as possible.

C • Stumble 1

Long stumble - Splits

Jogging warmup/cooldown.

Silly walks. Taking it easy leading up to the Stumble but don't want to do nothing running-like in the leadup to same.

Event: QOC Balls Bluff
 

QOC Balls Bluff blue - clearly not running on fresh legs after yesterday's 5K, although the slopes at Balls Bluff are steep enough to reduce me to walking regardless. I was sloppy in places but not enough so to pay much of a price until near the end - confusion as to which trail I was on coming around the parking lot at the next to last control had me go the wrong way, most of the way to the go control before I turned around. The useful but not stellar, especially given the passage of time, vegetation mapping also made me hesitate in some of the early going in the vaguer north end of the park than would have been necessarily if I'd really been on top of my navigation. No particular issues with the contours, although they could also stand to be improved in our current LiDAR era - simply swapping unedited Kartapullautin output for the current contours, as I did at Mason Neck, would probably be an improvement. Should have worn studded shoes or made different route choices - I ran down a stream bed for a few hundred meters on one leg to save energy compared to alternative routes with more climb, and slipped on a nearly flat bit of exposed rock. One foot and one hand soaked - fortunately not in a way that got any water inside the map case.

Regardless, a pleasant run on a crisp, sunny fall day through mostly quite pleasant woods. Can't complain about any part of that .

Blue - Splits

Race for every child 5K at Freedom Plaza, downtown DC - 14th overall, 2nd 45-49 (not that any 40-44 beat me, so not a consequence of the generous 5 year are groups). I believe my perspex award is intended to be used as a coaster so props to the race for not entirely useless prizes.

Time/chip time slower than the race a week before in pretty much equivalently favourable weather on another dead flat course but this was at least a slightly better physical performance since due to my poor time management skills plus a brief but unexpected delay imposed by the organizers (really, who requires the contents of bags to be emptied in front of the bag check volunteers for security reasons then repacked to check? - until today, no on ever at any race I've run) I didn't start the race until 2:58 after the gun (if there was a gun - I didn't hear anything but I might actually have been far enough away at that point to have missed it and whatever verbal announcements were made leading up to it after the 5 minute warning which I did hear) and must have lost easily more than 10 seconds to the difficulties of weaving through the at least several hundred if perhaps not quite a thousand or more much slower runners my lateness allowed to start ahead of me. At least I apparently managed not to trample any small children, of whom there were many on the course given the theme/charitable purpose of the race.

Jogging warmup and cooldown.

Silly walks of the usual sorts. Did this mostly to get some easy running and running-like movement out of my legs prior to 5K tomorrow.

Run to Carodozo track/warmup.

The workout - a descending ladder of 6 minutes running, then 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, with 2 minutes rest (unlogged jogging and walking) between each part.

Cooldown lap around the track with the whole group, then jogging home as people peeled off to their respective daily routines.

Another trail run in Rock Creek Park, presumably at least a little more than the 10 miles last time but I didn't take a GPS along. Tried venturing north of Fort DeRussy and found the first natural surface trail heading north from there closed, allegedly on account of a large, new erosion gully having swallowed up part of the trail. Did a few hundred meters on a paved trail to reach the trails north of there and found that while the ones on the west side of the creek are otherwise unimpaired, the work around Beach Drive continues at least as far north as the Pinehurst Trail. Maybe it's still possible to get across to the east side trails at the DC/MD line - I'll have to check that out sometime when I'm up for an even longer run. I suppose it's possible that the east side trails are still open, but only accessible entering the park from their trail heads on or near 16th St NW.

Of course, there is something about this on the park web site. Yes, to crossing at the DC line, and it looks like it is also possible to get there via the Western Ridge Trail. But nowhere to get back across the creek short of going to 16th St, around the golf course, and back to the police station or to trailheads near Carter Barron. Oh well.

Vida Thrive DC 5K at East Potomac Park - 9th overall, 4th 40-49 male, dead flat 5K in near ideal conditions (cool, no appreciable wind) a little faster than I managed back in May but still well off my time last Thanksgiving (which would have just barely won this race overall, ignoring any possible increased finishing kick from competitors if I actually had run that fast).

QOC Patuxent Blue - a slog in considerable heat and extreme humidity. Muffed first control pretty badly, then stopped for 30 seconds or so on the way to 6 because I'd done a cursory job of tying my shoelaces, thinking I'd do it right before starting, then forgot to do it right - bad habit. Also lost maybe a minutish on a later control on a stream bend right next to a stream junction. Except it was actually hung on the edge of the circle, one stream bend further west. Rather than first look where it was I jumped straight to evaluating whether I might have made a parallel error amd was actually looking at a completely different nearby stream junction and bend. Boris and Ken both did shorter courses with, IIRC, comparable TPKs.

Is it just me or is Patuxent slowly trending to thicker/slower woods? Still mostly quite runnable when not surrounded by mountain laurel. Rose-tinted memory may be most or all of the problem.

Also did a chunk of control pickup but almost entirely at walking speed and not for purposes of exercise so it will go unlogged.

Blue - Splits

Saturday morning yoga class at my neighbourhood library.

As long a trail run as I felt up/was able to get in without going north of the trail loop around Fort DeRussey - as far as I can tell the whole east side of the stream valley is closed north of the park police station by construction of some sort on Beach Drive. Well, I haven't actually gone further north to see whether that ends around say the Whittier Trail, so maybe the trails north of there are still accessible, if less conveniently so. In any case, after going around the fort, I futzed around doing loops on the various trails linking creek level with the Western Ridge Trail until I felt like it had been enough .

Pleasantly cool. A very brief rain shower early in the run, fortunately not enough to make the footing slippery or otherwise unpleasant.

A somewhat longer loop that gets into Rock Creek Park proper, turning homewards again at Pulpit Rock. 2 vs 3 intensity - hard to say. A little soreness from the track workout on Wednesday so this was more to shake my legs out than anything else. LSD tomorrow, getting much further north in the park, unless my body has other ideas.

Silly walks and a brief interlude of high knees running in place.

Running from home to Cardozo High Schoold track for the weekly Cardozo Crawlers workout starting at 6:30am (ouch but not as bad as recently during the summer when there were quite a few of these starting at 6:15am).

The actual workout - 5 x (800m somewhere between 5K and 10K pace, 1 minute rest, 200m sprint, then 200m walk/jog back to the starting point). Obviously includes mostly 5 intensity mixed with the rests - I'd log them separately if I weren't too lazy to take splits on everything.

C • Crawlers! 2

Some partnered circuit training - 3 bouts of 90 seconds during which one partner did a dynamic strength exercise while the other did a static one targeting the same muscles, alternatiing each time the partner doing the dynamic stuff hit a prescribed number of reps.

Running home again, with a group most of the way, then with Julie, who didn't do the workout but dropped by the track as part of a longer run, as far as 16th St.

Just about the shortest trail loop I could possibly run through Piney Branch Park, the offshoot of Rock Creek Park my apartment overlooks.

Warmup/cooldown.

The less usual than formerly silly walks.

Back to logging as part of an attempt to do running training a litltle more often and more consistently than I have been wont to recently. We'll see how long the underlying phenomenon and my ardour to document it last.

Note: I'm going to log running training and orienteering and anything else explicitly intended as exercise for the sake of exercise. This will exclude a lot of utilitarian cycling.

C • Welcome back! 1