Training Log Archive: PG

Event: Forest Park Sprints
 

Forest Park Sprints, #1. Warm and humid (dewpoint in the low 60s, first day it felt like summer). Good run, don't think I could have done much better. Working hard, but energy ok.

Sprint #2. Got off to a bad start, went down the first hill in the wrong place, got stuck in the swamp at the bottom. After that, not too bad but not as good as the first one. Energy not too bad.

Warm-up, didn't take much to work up a sweat.

Sprint 2 - Splits

Sprint 1 - Splits

A day off, sprints in Forest Park tomorrow. Drinking a lot, been dehydrated the last couple of days.

Swiss Cup, 1984.

Strange run. I had in mind to do the direct route (from aid station #1/#5 to #3) up to the top of Mt. Toby -- the usual up to the power line, and then another 700' vertical that gets steeper and steeper. I'm not sure if I've ever run the whole thing, but I thought I'd see how far I could get.

Well, I wasn't feeling very strong. The upper part divides easily into three parts, and I made it a little ways into the second part before throwing in the towel. Normally I would have just started walking and hiked the rest, but I didn't even feel like that, so I just stood there for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do to salvage the run. And the idea popped into my mind, how about 60 seconds running, 60 seconds rest, until you're at the top or you croak again.

So not quite 6 of those, the last couple very steep, and I was at the top, and feeling much less discouraged. Came back via the top 3/4 of the phone line trail (heading NE off the summit), then cut over to the race course and home that way. Still not feeling real good (dehydrated, I think), but I cranked the pace up on the last bit down from the power line, why I do not know, but at least it meant the run was over sooner.

Continuing the series, the Zala Cup in Hungary in 1983.

C • Ahhh, yes, if memory serves, t... 1

Early evening run in Greenfield after a round of golf, 13 hills loop. Very hard to get going and for the first 5-10 minutes, felt ok thereafter. Moderate pace.

Skellefteå (Sweden) national meet, 1982.

I've also posted some comments from last weekend's races.

Now to get focused on the main events, World Masters in Austria first week of July and the Swiss O Week in Zermatt in mid-July. Need to work on a training schedule and motivation, gets harder to get out as it gets warmer.

A separate matter is the need to work on the G. If I don't watch out, it will be back to 140, when I'd really like to have it at 132 in 6 weeks. It just feels so much better to be lighter, and the reward comes when I finish a race, and maybe collect a scalp or two (i.e. beat some young stud who's made a mistake or two), and think how much longer I would have been out there last year. So it's a question of how to do it. I've got one idea which I'll try and get started this evening....

C • G 11

With Phil, from Mill River north on the Robert Frost trail to the railroad tracks, plus a detour coming back. Not feeling very zippy but good to get out.

So my project to keep down the G is based on just cutting down how much I eat before bedtime. Which is easier said than done.

So the plan is to make it easier in two ways -- one is to give me something else to do then, the other is to add some motivation by resurrecting memories of how much fun it is to run well in Europe.

Both of these are done at the same time and in the same way -- by adding to my web page one evening at a time the map and a few comments on races I have won, or almost won, outside of North America, starting tonight with the beginning, day 1 of the Swiss 5 Day in 1980.

We'll see if I can keep this up.

I've posted my routes from the Team Trials, comments coming....

Trials, classic. Good run. One small miss and a couple of places where I didn't have the willpower to keep pushing through some thick stuff. But I ran pretty well right to the end, including a lot of hills. Pretty pleased with time, couldn't have been more than a couple minutes faster if I'd done everything right.

I'll post routes later.

Short warm-up. Felt lousy, headache (still around 24 hours later), sweating a lot. But once I got going on the course, legs felt ok.

Blue - Splits