Training Log Archive: PG

Event: North American Championships
 

First sprint at the North Americans, not good, not bad. Ran ok, found the points ok, but seemed to keep getting tangled up in bits of bad vegetation. Not terribly satisfying.

Second sprint. Just terrible. Missed the 3rd point, climbed too high, then really missed the 6th, bunch of overgrown clearings, took almost 3 minutes on a leg of 100 meters. Sad.

Don't know what is going on between the ears but it is not good.

Or, trying to think positively, maybe it was just another day in my normal manic-depressive cycle.

A little warm-up before the sprints.

Sprints: OBG Preliminary - Splits

Sprints: OBG Final - Splits

Last night's run really zapped me -- lots of lower GI distress plus sore hip plus dehydration plus didn't sleep well. Better today. Have a late afternoon run scheduled with Phil, probably not such a smart thing to do....

It's good to see that at least one company in Corporate America has recognized the need for us to HTFU and is doing something about it. Wonder if we can get Nothing But Tears as a sponsor.

Pocumtuck Ridge trail with Phil, sort of. He ran most of the way out/up about 20-30 yards ahead of me, trying to send the message (I assume) that I should pick the pace up, sort like the guy who drives very close behind you to send the message that you are driving too slowly, and all he accomplishes is pissing you off.

But I tried. Not to run faster, because I was running as fast as I cared to given a tight hamstring that I didn't want to do any damage to by running aggressively. Rather, tried not to get pissed off, though at some point I was grading his antisocial behavior on a scale of 1 to 10 and he was very close to double digits.

But things pass. And at the turn-around point he waited and we ran part of the way back together, until he could no longer keep the brakes on and was soon out of sight. But by then I was feeling more mellow and just glad that the run was about over and done with. And glad for the company, sporadic as it might have been, it certainly got me out the door.

26:02 out/up, perfectly respectable time, 23:36 back/down, slow.

Legs are sore but not terrible, gut is recovering. the G was at a temporary low of 135, got my monthly credit-card statement and we seem to have caught the short-term low in the Estonian kroon just right (not a big deal, but everything helps), well, life could be a lot worse.

C • anti-social behavior 5

So I went to yoga class early this morning despite (or maybe because of?) all the snide remarks. And I seemed to have survived. Though it was disappointing to find that the ratio was nowhere close to 20:1, more like about 6:4 (M:F), plus 0:1 for the instructor. Old as I may be getting, I have yet to find that I've tired of looking at pretty women....

And my self-consciousness was solidly under control despite not being able to hide away in a dark corner of the room -- first because I knew a couple of folks there, and one is as much a klutz as I am, second because my general conditioning is better than it might be due to the nautilus workouts I've been doing for the last 9 months so I wasn't inflexible and lacking balance and totally weak (just 2 out of 3), and third because at some point early on when we were on our bellies I took my glasses off for comfort reasons and then pretty soon my mind assumed that since I couldn't see much of what anyone else was doing, clearly no one else could see much of what I was doing. So no worries.

And I enjoyed it. The hour went by quickly, a little sad when it was over, just the way you want. I certainly could have done better about emptying my mind out, but maybe that will come.

And I really need it. Will have to see if I can make a habit of it.

C • Congratulations 7

Finished reading Siddhartha, it got handed to me on the plane ride home, I think Barb probably read it in under an hour, all 120 pages, took me over a week of very concerted effort to make it to the finish, usually no more than 4 or 5 pages at a time was all my attention span could handle.

Now I'm certainly glad I don't have to write a paper on it, or take a test, but it was good to read. Got me thinking more about my own life, where it's been, where it's going. Not that anything is figured out, especially as to the couple of great scary unknowns, growing old and death, two losing battles where the figuring out has to do with how much you fight (in vain) and how much you accept, and where my guess is that this never comes close to getting figured out, in my case at least.

In meantime, you take pleasure out of small bits of progress. And twice in the past couple of weeks I have spoken up when something quite trivial bothered me, when it took all my courage to do so, since for as long as I can remember I have held my tongue in such situations, letting the proverbial molehill become a mountain, at least as how it affected my psyche. And the process was very stressful but also positive. We shall see if I can continue.

Tuesday late afternoon Mt. Toby run, even though now it's more an evening run, last 30-40 minutes with the lights on. Average energy, usual left butt/hamstring soreness towards the end. Entertained (I hope) the group with tales from Estonia for the first 45 minutes, then we turned uphill seriously and I had not much more to say....

Good to get out. Start of training for the next rogaine (whenever and wherever that might be)?

Rob, Donna, and Rick --

Also inquired about the yoga class at the gym. Tomorrow morning at 7:15, see if I can get there -- have get up early enough and also overcome my self-consciousness.

C • No need to be self conscious 7

Lower Road - Upper Road in Deerfield.

EMPO local meet at Grafton Ponds (between Williamstown and Albany).

So I was playing golf yesterday afternoon, special event at the club, playing mainly for social reasons to meet a few more people, and at some point after I crushed another drive deep into the trees, one of my partners asked me if I had similar directional problems in orienteering. Oh, no, never I said. I know what I'm doing there. Or something like that.

Is there some universal law that I am unfamiliar with that decrees that when you claim that everything is going really well, or is totally under control, then all hell is guaranteed to break loose before long? Apparently so. Last month my statement of pride that the Subaru has been 145K miles with not really any problems was followed 2 days later by the car breaking down.

And today it seemed to be penance time for yesterday's cocky statement. Blew the second control, maybe 6 minutes, an eternity or so it seemed, except when compared to the 8 minutes lost on 15.

Funny, the first one didn't piss me off at all, the second one did while it was happening but then not much thereafter. I think because I had a plan for the day, and the plan was focused on my running and not my orienteering. I'd been quite distressed at how slow I'd felt a couple of weeks ago at Pawtuckaway, walking at the slightest provocation, so this time I just wanted to be able to run more. Which, harking back to my run a couple of days ago, meant paying much more attention to my breathing, and then trying to keep moving even in a forest that had its share of rocks and deadfall.

And the verdict was that I did well on that, moving Ok the whole time, putting out a decent effort, breathing well. So even though my orienteering sucked, I was quite pleased with the run. And, if this makes any sense, quite pleased about being pleased, rather than sitting and fuming and pouting all the way home. Progress.

My routes.

So the first disaster was #2 --



And here I think it was just a matter of mental laziness, I just sort of headed over to the general area and figured I'd find it. Came up a little short, didn't figure it out right away, couldn't make the rock features to match. So I went up the slope a little and relocated, still having to take the rock features with a grain of salt, and dropped back down to the fault. And then moved on, a little annoyed but no big deal. And kept the focus just where it was supposed to be, on my running. :-)

On the way to #5, didn't see the first trail, crossed the second thinking it was the first, correcting pretty quickly.

On the way to #11, missed the trail junction, meandered up to the general area of the control.

But still doing just fine, happy with my running. :-)

And then #15 --



A boulder up a contour from the rocky flat, a couple of cliffs on the slope to the right. Saw the steeper slope, saw the general extent of the rocky ground. Went to where the control should be, lots of fallen trees in the areas. Wandered around the area, nothing. Checked a little one way, a little the other. Thought about just heading in. Eventually at some point spotted a control off in the distance, down on the flats. Hmm, wonder if that's mine. Went to check it out, right number! Hmmm. "x" marks about where it was, not so far off, but no reason to look there as it was supposed to be up the slope. Oh, well.

So headed off to finish the course. To #16, cranked up the running again, no idea where I was most of the way but read the terrain right at the end and dropped right on to the control. Ditto for 17. Ran fine to the finish, pleased with the run.

C • Learning lessons 3

Nice drive over to Grafton with Phil, catching up on things. And then a pleasant surprise to see Pat and Heather there, missed them at Pawtuckaway (they passed on account of the bad weather), catching up with them too. And then a chat with Tori Borish, now a freshman at Williams, nice girl, can run, should get a lot better at O' as the years pass.

A good day, worth the drive.

And if my left hamstring and butt weren't complaining a little more than I would wish, then it would have been a really good day. Though I did pass on the planned jumping drills, just one halfhearted attempt before sanity asserted itself.

Red - Splits

Old Deerfield - River Road loop. Cold, at least for fair weather (and warm weather) riders like me, low 50s. Long-sleeve shirt and T-shirt, just about right, although I was glad there weren't any long downhills.

Seem to be pretty much recovered from the rogaine. Blisters fading away and just the usual aches and pains.

Saw Vicky Christina Barcelona. Enjoyed it, had a smile on my face most of the time, never a bad thing. Don't see many movies, need to get out more, good for morale.

C • VCB 4