Training Log Archive: cmorse

Event: Ratlum Holiday International Night O
 

Long Strider run on the Metacomet. Wishing to avoid the GI issues I had a couple weeks ago, I ate a light dinner and no breakfast. 20ish with a light coating of snow on the ground at the daybreak start from the north edge of Penwood SP on the Bloomfield/Simsbury town line. Group of 8 of us headed north for Suffield - being an out and back route along the ridgeline, any number of mileage options were available. My goal for the day was 5 hours running.

Bruce, Mark & Dave turned around at the 7 mile mark where I had cached 4 gallons of water near Rt 20 in East Granby. That was about 90 minutes in. I felt good, with no signs of GI distress. I figured I'd shoot for about 2:15 and see how I felt, assuming the return half would be somewhat slower than the outbound leg. The five of us continued on and around 2:20 John announced at we had hit 10 miles (I didn't replace my GPS batteries so it died early on - no track). I decided that 10m seemed like a plausible turnaround for me and John opted to join me on the return trip. Art, Dan & Tony continued on to the official turnaround at Mountain Rd. in Suffield.

Walked quite a few more uphills on the way back, but still felt good and made decent time until around mile 16 when my feet just weren't doing what I asked of them, so I slowed down to a walk in many of the rocky sections to avoid any unpleasantness. As we headed down the hill to Tariffville to cross the river, I got a bit lightheaded. I had been drinking and taking on electrolytes (Nuun) but had elected to skip any calories to see how the GI thing worked out. So this was an old fashioned bonk - my legs felt great - just no more juice in the tank. John had an extra GU, so I downed that and headed down the road to the next trail segment. Dizzyness cleared within about 4 minutes and within 10 my legs regained some sense of control. Not exactly 'perky', but they went where I expected them to. Finished up the final section and rolled in to the cars in 4:56, just 4 minutes shy of my 5 hour goal. Sweet....

Ran into Simsbury to grab some DD treats and a cocoa, then back up to wait for Tony who was going the full 24. Dave Sutherland was there (he missed the AM start and was hoping to tack on in the afternoon, but 24 was enough for all the early starters so Dave ran 12-15 solo.

Also ran into George heading into the woods for some GC work. I've played with a copy of GC on my iPod and it seemed very promising, but seeing this later version on a full iPad with a bona-fide basemap underneath was very nice. I think its time to trade in my plexi map boards and mylar for a shiny new iPad.... (Santa, are you monitoring AP?)

Short night-o w/ Hayden. I read the map and called out directions, features etc, he executed and punched. Good time and running not much slower than I did in daylight. Hayden took a couple faceplants not watching his feet in the dark. Also went through a couple icy spots into water in some places. Only real mistake was on #11 - we left #10 too far to the R and up the wrong hill, hit a trail where we expected, but it wasn't the correct trail and my failure to look at compass I didn't note the error until we were looking at the deer fence in front of us and had to figure out where we were - quick correction, but lost some time - though I hear we weren't the only ones to make this particular mistake.

3rd out of 9 on the short course.

Followed of course by good food & friends at the Villa Deweese.

Short - Splits

More trail exploring at Soapstone. Started with a ccw circuit of the base, then off exploring trails. Tried to keep the pace up the first part, then slowed down a bit as there was a lot of dead-ends/back-tracking going on. Then picked the pace up at the end again to get back to the car and home before bus time.

C • Friday 3

Nice early AM training run with Turco, Buongiorno & the Goat.





Brisk pace, but felt pretty good all the way around - probably the best I've felt on the push back up the Shenipsit Trail on Case coming back than I've felt in a long time.