Training Log Archive: iansmith

GPS track shamelessly stolen from coach; easy run with Giovanni, Katia and Jeff on trails in Wompatuck. The group was running faster than I expected.

Easy evening run. This week has been challenging, and I was not feeling enthusiastic. However, I am determined to reach my 200 km goal for December, so I willed myself out onto the streets. I ran with a street map and improvised a line-O trying to devise the most interesting route I could. Once I started moving, I felt good.

While my workouts this week were unremarkable, their consistency has been good. I'm also happy that running 25 easy miles in five days feels trivial.

I continued The Admirals and learned to my delight that Roosevelt, Marshall, and King all thought of MacArthur as a pompous, overhyped, preening fool. The political conferences among the Allies are fascinating in their own right; the interplay between the British and American military commands and the reconciliation of the two nations respective goals was surprisingly delicate. I am reminded that while Churchill was a brilliant statesman, politician, and orator, he made an unremarkable and meddlesome strategist. While Halsey was an inferior fleet commander to Spruance, he was not without redeeming qualities, particularly compared to the ineptitude of admirals like Kinkaid. The Admirals has turned out to be an excellent read, though I think a cursory familiarity with the Pacific theater and naval history of the early 20th century is necessary to fully appreciate the context.

Ghettotrack.

CSU indoor track workout 3, out of 13. I missed the first two due to lameness, and I was the sole orienteering representative today. I haven't run anything this fast in weeks, so my body responded with a measure of incredulity. The long workout was a convoluted pyramid of Terry's invention: 2, 4, 6, 8; 8, 6, 6, 4, 4, 2, 2. Unfortunately, I was using ghettowatch, which doesn't take splits, so I tried to remember them.

2, 4, 6, 8: 37, 78, 2:02, 2:43 = 6:40 for 2k. Much faster than target 3:40/km.
8, 6, 6, 4: 2:55, 2:05, 2:10, 85 = 8:35 for 2.4 km
4, 2, 2: 83, 40, 43

As we were stretching afterward, our BU coach announced that the girl cruising around the track had a 15:52 5k, a 32-something 10k, and had set the BU indoor track 5k record. We cheered for a few of her laps.

Easy cruise in the city. My favored Asics are muddy and smelly from the Dover Raid, and I will clean them before using them. As they have over 600 miles, I should probably retire them soon. I continued listening to The Admirals.

Easy evening run. My body felt surprisingly good after the adventure on Saturday, with only some mild tightness in my left arch. I muddied my favorite running shoes during the Dover Raid - a venerable pair of Asics GT-2150s that have about 650 miles on them. The 2150s are my most comfortable pair and bother my feet the least. I ran in my other primary trainers. I will probably acquire another pair of Asics in the assumption that the benefits are general to the model and not the specific pair.

Listened to Walter Borneman's book The Admirals about the quartet of Fleet Admirals from World War II. I'm least familiar with Leahy, and I'm terribly disappointed that Spruance - who arguably was a better field commander than the impulsive Halsey - isn't included.

I am increasing my running volume, and I have 21 days to the remaining 160 km of this month's goal. I plan to spend some days orienteering and skiing, so I will need to average about 10 km per day. I'm off to a good albeit bizarre start.

Ghettotrack.