Training Log Archive: piutepro

After two days with tempo runs an easy day. The legs are a little bit aching, but running is fine. I wish the warm weather would stay, but it seems not to happen.

Same runs as yesterday plus an additional 2 k trail loop with some micro climb down on the river. The two tempo runs are kind of simulating an A-meet weekend.

C • Impressive consistency... 2

Tempo run along the river up to 9D, mostly on road and gravel, maybe 20% trail. I am too lazy to do intervals. I rather do a tempo run. No jacket and stuff, no mumified wrapped moving through the frozen air. I feel like a young mustang out on the meadow in Spring.

Try to keep good form, stay fast and relaxed up the hills and maintain the tempo even in the last third of the run, when some exhaustion sets in.

I vary my speed, go fast for 30 sec to 3 minutes. I think this kind of speed variations comes close to an actual race, where the speed constantly changes. It is almost harder to change the speed than to keep a constant speed like in a tempo run.

There is always a difference in intensity between training/running and competiton. The focus and the physical limit is hard to produce during training. I am in better shape after some real races, especially when competing head to head with some runner of about the same level.

While doing the fast elements along the river and two full speed uphill segments, I think through some work (writing) problems. Not only I simulate the orienteering situation, I also get some work done. The hard thing is to remember the new ideas. One trick is to simplify them to one sentence. Map simplification is very similar: Reduce a complex situation to its core, which should be easy to remember.

Those fresh discoveries are pesky little weasels, so once I am back home, I write the ideas down before they evaporate.

I use the Silvermine permanent course for a one hour map training. I am on the way to the airport to pick someone up, so I can't go overtime. I decide to move full speed. Some slopes have nasty snow on it, the easiest is moving on the bare rocks.

What makes speed in the woods? Aggressive running, shorter steps, immediate acceleration after every obstacle, taking the shortest route, cut corners, attack whenever possible, minimize looks at the map, simplify and memorize the route to take. Probably also more risk in route choices and running.

I need to work on my speed, so I do a fartlek again, fast tempo for 30" to 3 min. I have to slow down on the trails and in the mud since it is already getting dark.

On the weekend I read why my favorite loop on the peninsula at Dennings Point is closed. No, it is not the shark population in the Hudson River, it is because of the bald eagle nest somewhere around there. Seems they prefer to be left alone. They spend the winter at the Hudson River. I thought they rather live on the steep hill sides around West Point and at Storm King. They are pretty smart. They fly up the river, sit on a floating piece of ice and drift south, looking out for good fishing opportunities.

A real lame, slow sloshing 7 k run with not much energy and no great lower Hudson Valley poetry jumping at me. There is some ruminating about the chapter which I am revising today. I also ponder, why my book has 600 pages instead of a sleek 150 pages, which would be 4x less work to revise. I am definitely writing a Highlander, not a sprint. Wow, this is a good metaphor. Completely useless though, because nobody in the rest of the world knows what I am talking about. Really cryptic, almost Joyceian or Proust-like. And all this on a lame, slow, sloppy run.
I fry some chocolate chip cookies in the microwave to celebrate. Something goes wrong while nuking the Nabiscos. They explode and send a yellow haze through the kitchen and across the city of Beacon. More... no I can't... shouldn't have... got to go. The Hazmat guys are outside. I just wanted to be a good American, maybe even Texan, at least for a minute.