Training Log Archive: wilsmith

Middle distance at S-F Scout ranch.

Still feeling sick and quite tired, but the goal was to race cleanly and see how things stacked up. Middle distance is my favorite and best event, so it felt pretty frustrating to not be healthy and rested, standing on the start line.

Did my full pre-race preparations, minus a complete warmup. Felt too awful after even a few minutes of jogging to really contemplate much more than that. Lots of coughing - I'm not usually one for seasonal allergies but after yesterday and today I've been covered in pollen dust and I wonder if that's contributing to coughing so much...?

Quite a successful race, no serious problems technically. Took virtually every control aggressively and directly. The only time I tried to take a "safe" route I ended up in an area with too many felled trees to let me read the map and actually lost time versus the straight route. Otherwise, I had to make a detour for some greener-than-expected green on the long leg, but no other major problems. Total loss of maybe a minute. My time of 34:36 was good enough for third. Magnus (also sick) ran a nice steady race to finish in 35:26, good for 5th place. Of note is that we were the only runners in the top 6 to not have contact with any other blue runners on the course - in this terrain it would have been quite useful to have another runner to help push the pace and lessen the chance of missing a control.

Still sick, but less sinus and runny nose - mostly coughing and shortness of breath now.

Warm up and cool down for the above. Mostly cool down since the warm up felt so bad.

Blue - Splits

Event: US Team Trials
 

US Trials day 1 - Sprint at UMSL.

Nice day - very warm to me (got up to the mid-high 80's), but that's probably useful acclimatization for Barebones in June.

My thoughts and expectations for this weekend are that it'll be a good chance to develop toughness, both mentally and physically, while racing under decidedly suboptimal conditions (i.e. sick, no rest, sleep deprived, first weekend away from baby). I might not have the legs this weekend but I'll give it a fight every time I step to the line. I've been really missing out on running in real pain and discomfort. This will be a good chance to force myself to run hard when it hurts.

Race-wise, it was actually pretty decent. Was sitting up in 3rd place by the 8th control or so, but had a few problems from then. My SI didn't register on one post and I lost several seconds struggling with it and eventually punching manually. One bad route choice, one mistake (with the glare I didn't see an uncrossable wall that was pretty much covered by a line between controls that arguably should have been broken), and one more bad route choice. Total miss of about 40-50 seconds, but that was enough to keep me off the top of the list. Ended up 10th, about 50 seconds behind Jon Torrance, the top North American. I will consider that a huge success, considering how the week has gone.

Warm up and cool down for the above.

After the sprint, piled into the car and headed south through rush-hour traffic to get to the model event for tomorrow's middle distance event at S-F Scout ranch.

Felt a little bit uncomfortable with the map (though not nearly as uncomfortable as what the others were describing), but realize I'll have to be quite careful tomorrow. Visibility is sup-optimal in places, and the terrain is quite subtle and doesn't have many truly distinct features to aid in relocation should contact be lost....

Still sick, need sleep.

Sprint - Splits

Another tough night - not on call but Mia seems to prefer sleeping in the day and being awake at night. Hopefully we can convince her of the benefits (to mom and dad at least) of sleeping when it's dark outside.... Katta is threatening to banish me to the sofa until after our test races so that I can at least get enough sleep and rest to be healthy again.

Nice to have the day off work, though. Lots of little and big household tasks to take care of. Thankfully Ulf and Sigyn are tireless workers and are happy to take care of getting the garden in, the bushes pruned, planting flowers, and so on. We've done a lot this week but it still seems like there are lots more things to do.

Mia is (other than staying awake at night) doing wonderfully well and is a real joy to be around at any time of the day.

Had intended to play badminton tonight but since I can barely keep my eyes open, it just didn't make any sense. I have to get up at 0300 anyway to make it to Timmins for my flight to St. Louis, plus a weekend away from the girls will be strange. Better to be at home as much as I can for the moment. Plus, I'm still sick as a proverbial dog and rest is likely better than badminton for what ails me.

One of the nurses at work also foisted some Cold-FX on me. Started the cycle today and am crossing my fingers that it actually works. I'm a pretty die-hard evidence-based-medicine guy for the most part, but at this stage it seemed that Cold-FX is likely to be in the "probably not harmful, possibly helpful" category and I'm willing to give it a try.

Brutal night in the ER. Home for a little bit around 0100 to help out with feeding and changing and so on, plus just enjoy being around Katta and Mia. But the pager sprang to life at 0130 and back to work I went - an intoxicated and ?suicidal leap from a second-floor window luckily ended up with no truly serious injuries, but by the time the labs, xrays and ultrasound are done, plus everything else, all of a sudden it's after 4am and fatigue is really setting in....

Heavy day in the OR too, especially after only 2 hours of sleep. The list was cancelled yesterday so I could be with Katta and Mia and bring them home, so it got added onto today. Long day and I was very happy to make it home by 8pm. Except for a couple hours of sleep it's been pretty much straight on for nearly 30 hours....

Obviously, too sick to train - and with the lack of rest and sleep it'll probably not get better very soon. Does not bode well for this weekend's races (yes I'm still insane enough to go - with Katta's blessing and encouragement, particularly since she's doing so well with Mia already and she has her parents here as backup).

Not enough sleep last night, but who cares? Things went so well with Mia and Katta that they were allowed to go home this morning, so we're all back at home in Cochrane. Proud grandparents Ulf and Sigyn (vising for the month from Sweden) got their first glimpses of their latest grandchild.

Perhaps rather stupidly, I agreed to take call tonight so that I could have both Thursday and Friday off this week. Pretty busy so far with a couple of admissions already - hope it doesn't get too bad overnight.

Still too sick to train.

Officially sick - nose running everywhere, cough, and short of breath on exertion. Plus the HR goes way up just walking up a flight of stairs..... Not good, with a little one (hopefully) on the way today!

It's a girl!!!!

We had a beautiful healthy baby girl this evening at 22:24. Katta did wonderfully throughout the labor and it was as smooth as anyone could hope for. Amazing experience!

Mia Katarina Smith weighed 3333gm and was 48cm long. Healthy right from the very beginning, and already learning to breastfeed, so we're very, very happy about that!

Both mom and baby are doing well.

C • Congratulations! 4

Nice night out at badminton. This was to be a rest day, but hey - can't miss out on the badminton too.

Starting to come down with a little cold / URTI / LRTI. Probably something to do with an unusually long work week last week - 114 (!) hours over 7 days.... But now I'm not on call (excepting real emergencies) until the 22nd, so that will be good. Although with a little one coming soon, I may yet be looking at last week as "those nice and easy days"....

C • easy days 2