Training Log Archive: piutepro

The "When the ice melts, then the mailbox is full" loop. I am somewhat slow at times, find a rhythm after a while.
I remember the winter, when the same place was all covered with a foot of snow. An excellent mind game to imagine the snow while running in the gentle summer brise.

The 'Two rocks floating in the river north" loop. The easy run in moderate temperature. The river is overgrown with what I think is called water chestnut. It looks funny, but I think it is a weed. Not the right thing to grow here. No, I didn't start weeding the river. In fall they leave funny looking capsules wtih maybe seven or nine or eleven pointed horns along the river's edge. They are so hard that they right through the sole of the shoe. Maybe something to feed the attack badger, see how he takes this.

Run to Dennings Point, recovery between tempo runs and return. Do a fast 2k on the way back, but I don't have much energy left. I want to get used the push the limit in the moment when I already think I am tired.
The last 1.5k I take it easy, focus on running relaxed, on breathing well and recovering while running.

Flying awesome kick the dirt fast running. 8 x 3 min. (or less) with one minute (or less) recovery jog. Still a challenging training, this time the full package of eight repeats. I wonder if I can go up to 10 or 12 repeats. Or if I crawl back home on my knees when I try this. Well, for some time I try to stay on this level, this is quite a work out.
I lose 4.5 pounds of fluid during the run. I guess it is not winter.

Running up from Fishkill to the hilltop, using mainly the contours to navigate. I find a good opening in the mountain laurel to get up. On the higher hills are beautiful open woods with some grass undergrowth. It is cool in the woods, even now, an hour before noon. I run trails to get to a decent speed, but they are rocky and harder to run than the woods. I have to stay away from the camps, since this is not an fully official visit on this map. I wanted to get used to an orienteering map again after the USGS maps which I used the last two weeks.
I think about the pace counting myth. Several times I just know, that a specific trail or boulder or other feature has to come up, I look over there and bingo. Having a sense of distance is so much more effective than the technocratic solution of pace counting. The sense of distance includes climb, vegetation, speed all automatically combined with map reading. It appears that pace counting prevents map reading and prevents developing a productive connection between the imaginary map and the real landscape.
Amazing beautiful places in the woods, the cluster of rocks, the vegetation, the ferns in the swamp and the moss, fallen trees and wild shaped cliffs. It is a whole story of a natural garden out here. It just grows this way and is this way. How quickly I get to places where I sense I am the only human being who was here in a long time, except maybe myself. When I get back near the road, the traffic sounds loud, very loud. It is so quiet in the woods and I only realize it on the way out, the almost absence of sounds besides some particular musical birds.
When get home, I read of the comeback of Floyd Landis. Yesterday a meltdown, today a crazy escape. Definitely a wild TdF this year. Just wonder if they maybe should coordinate the days when they soup themselves up with you-know-what. I still don't have the illusion, that the bicycle races are clean now. Still fascinating how they bike over this steep mountains. They have to do it somehow, no matter which chemical state they are in.

To, between, back. The usual running around the fast running around. I have some energy left, so I add a tempo run over about 1.5 k on the way back. The temperature is much nicer, especially in the evening. Problem is, that it gets dark. And in the dark I don't see the trails. So I can't go full speed during the tempo runs.

4x 3 min. around Dennings Point. To compensate for the missing speed in the semi darkness, I use a lot of leg lift. This also prevents stumbles over roots and other weird stuff. I imagine the leg left might also help in the prairie grass of Wyoming and to leap over my new fences which I am about to import there.

The "Cat That Was The Slurpee With Rough Rapsy Tongue" loop was a complete success today. On Main Street I outrun two young icecream slurping cats, down at the river the night was so dark, that I almost trampled a rabbit yet avoided it with an exemplary Wyoming anti beaver leap. Otherwise an uneventful loop. - The cat at home (a vacation cat from the Hawes', who travel in Transilvania or is it Romania?) is fine, some slurpee would help to get her spirits going in this uncatish heat.

From, between and back from the missile silo, eh, sorry, I mean tempo runs. It is 90 degree or more, but running is still going fine.

4x 3 min. tempo runs. The trail is more open and pleasant to run on the south side of peninsula, so I go below three minutes. The way back is overgrown and narrow with many roots, so I rarely make it in three minutes. It is relatively cool under the trees and near the water.