Training Log Archive: RJM

Chalahgawtha Green Corn Moon Rogaine? http://www.nsfadventures.com/cgcmr.html

Rogue's Hollow 5k. Doylestown. http://www.ohiorunner.com/calendar/racedetail.asp?...

After 2hr offtrail hiking searching for Mimulus alatus at Whitlam woods, dropped by Big Creek Park (Geauga Parks) to get my 20min tempo in on trails. Some hills, groomed trail, pleasant. Great weather. I really need to explore more of Geauga County - beautiful!.
Never did these trails before, and treated it as some nav. practice for simple terrain using trail map, tracking my location, some simple trail junction decisions that were hard at speed. This was good for both nav and speed.

1.5 hr prorated with park trail/stream map, no compass, looking for Mimulus alatus on stream network. Found 2-4 patches with perhaps 20 plants total (<50 flowers total). No bees on that plant. Great terrain, open woods, enjoyable. Surprisingly good nav. practice.

Early (5:30AM) field day. While waiting for a timed observation period got in this run. Felt slow and clunky - perhaps blood donation, perhaps harder workouts, perhaps all the field time.

Commute after field work (12:00) in drizzle, return

Did the planned 4x800 with 2min jog.(2:57, 3:03, 3:03, 3:07) in a drizzle. But obviously something happened. The first one went well, and was the pace I was aiming for, but i never really recovered from it, and had trouble matching effort to time after that. progressively more ragged breathing (over tempo) at speeds that didn't require it. During the 3rd 800 i even had stomach pains and wondered if I'd be up to do the last one at speed (and i was 4 seconds off on the last one..). However, i felt better during the recovery, and was up for the last one, but despite real effort was slow). I choose to blame my recent blood donation (which may have sapped some strength), and rusty sense of pace, and also running in lane 4 (adjusting for the stagger across 2 laps when starting away from usual places is harder than I thought).

A little weak today - probably due to blood donation yesterday.

NEOOC volunteered to pick up trail markers from the Burning River 100mile trail-run today. I had the riding run loop (~5 miles). Quickly discovered that these folks are nothing if not thorough in marking a trail! There was some sort of marker every 20m or so for that stretch (tricky single track with some side trails to avoid). For the first mile there were several dozen wood stake markers, about twice as many pinflags, and assorted streamers, reflectors and glowsticks (this was mostly a night leg). And that doesn't count the chalk marks on the ground or the cups and forks i picked up. Once my pack and arms were full I had to shuttle that batch to the road and go back for more. Surprising how much all that slowed me down, and had to do it twice. Luckily, after the first mile a different style (and easier trail) prevailed, and miles 2.5 to 4 were much less thoroughly marked (and many fewer of the bulky wooden stakes). The last .7 miles was heavily marked but near the road. Woods were wonderful today, and i remain convinced that this would be a great map if we ever got permission for it. Enjoyable way to give a little help to the BR100. It even got me thinking (again) that I shoudl try it or the BT50k sometime. I'm sure that i'll have a more sensible view on that soon