Training Log Archive: Wyatt

Joy, then Misery, with Magnus.

I've noticed that after ordering my Garmin 610, my 305, which couldn't hold a charge for more than 20-30 minutes in France, is now lasting much longer.

Event: Dipsea East
 

Run for the ages 10k trail race. Age-gender based head starts - I got 2 minutes vs. the fastest wave, and no one passed me, though I had to sprint finish to hold off one of the M20-29's. Two of the 'kids' in my start block (M19) finished ahead of me, as did several of the M40-55's, and an F73, who started 28 minutes ahead of me.

Age also ran the 1st 5.5 km, in about 35 minutes - he had an 8 minute headstart on me which I made up in about 14 minutes, which isn't a great pace for him, but then Zac Barker, who started in my heat and was only about 20 seconds behind at that point caught AJ, and AJ kept up mostly with him for nearly a mile, so he had a good spurt at that point. Overall quite proud of him from try a new sport - trail racing. That's big for him, and important if he's really not going to do any team sports.

Out of 141, I finished 23rd (given the head starts) or 6th adjusting for the head starts - guys age 18, 19, 43, 45, and 50 all had faster times than me, and all had comparable or higher head starts. Gotta get faster :)

Fractured cooldown...

Chesterbrook. Apparently I lost a lot of weight in Europe - probably esp. the 2nd week, when finding enough food to eat given French schedules and portions was a challenge. I was real hungry the 1st week back, so perhaps I caught up?

Finally did a real training run, checking out the flooding damage around VF park. Not too much really. Some logs across trails, some pushed by river overflow, others by wind away from the river. Water-logged fields, downed grass and bushes, as evidence of some pretty high water marks - perhaps the highest I've seen on the Schuylkill, though not the highest on Valley Creek - e.g. 252 doesn't appear to have had much water on it, vs. the ~1 foot that happened a year(?) ago. The biggest damage to a manmade object I saw was a squashed guardrail from a fallen tree right next to the covered bridge. Driving there just at the wrong split second would've been fatal...

Plan going forward is:
today = Long, Fri = Easy (30-50) Sat = Race (10k, trail), Sun = Easy (30-50),
then start, on Monday, on the 6/8/10 week cycle.
That has me ending with a taper-ish 6-hour week just before the SML Champs, the next then I'll consider a 'goal' race, for which an easier week than normal, light Wed. intervals, and a Thu/Fri taper is sufficient.

Other fall events that I'm looking forward too esp. are the Highlander, assuming that materializes, and, hopefully, the Relay & Corn Maze champs :)

Oh the repeated failure to start training again. 6 of the last 8 days have now been scraping above the bare minimum for my running streak criteria (> 2 miles && > 20 minutes.) None of my standard training runs are that short - that's supposed to be saved for the final taper day-before a major race..

Today was Wed. PM intervals day. Which was attended by Angelica, AJ, Oriana, Oriana's friend, and her friends younger brother, but not me.

Today's cause was a Migraine that started around 9am and slowly went from mild to threatening bad by 6pm.

I decided I'd try a short loop from home anyway to see what happened and keep the streak going, before possibly collapsing for the night, and either the run, or the 4 Excedrin over 4 hours seemed to finally turn the corner, getting me happy enough to eat dinner.

I didn't eat enough breakfast and was hungry most the day. Maybe I should eat more tomorrow. I don't think my stomach has figured out the jet lag yet - it's really hungry now again at 11 PM.

First day back home. Mail, yard work and took AJ on a pre-start tour of his new Middle School (starts tomorrow), then got sucked into work for 11 hours straight, eating at my desk. Lots of catch up on, and others going on Vac. soon to prepare for. Gotta set lower expectations for myself quickly to reset to a sane workload.

When I finally got out of work, and ate dinner, it was already dark, and 2 more hours to digest before a late jog - vs. the 40 minutes I'd had in mind and the 2 hours I now realize I was suposed to do (forgot it was Tuesday.) Normal training starts again tomorrow.

The 'ol' Forerunner 305 battery lasted a whopping 7 minutes today And took almost 10 tries to download, even with SportTracks. Just bought myself a Garmin Forerunner 610 for my birthday. Hopefully it'll last a while, replace my regular watch, and download better (wirelessly I hear.)

Up early after a caffienated (wakeful) night's sleep, to run and stretch a little before a travel day back to the US. Made it home on the 4th itinerary, which included my first A380 flight, and 4 flavors of car (rental, cab, friend, and finally our own car.)