Sunday, April 24, 2011

Training Week 4/18-4/24

M- 3.4 mile tempo in 21:13 (6:14 pace, 19:13 for fun run course), then 8x1 min hill repeats (~0.15 miles=2.4 miles) in 16:43 (6:58 pace). Pretty good workout. The tempo looks slow, but that's the same fun run course that I run 16:40 for 5k all out. I tried to keep the pace quick on the downs to simulate what Cranmore is going to be like. I was running about 58-60 seconds on the downs.

Tu- AM: 3.2 miles in 52:38 on Whitton Ledge trails, some bushwhacking
PM: 5.0 miles on snow-covered Sawyer River Rd. with Roger in 1:02:15

W- 10.3 miles at White Lake State park with DoubleJ. Easy run for him, felt like a tempo effort for me. 1:21:45

Th- 0 Went to my aunt's funeral in Lebanon.

F- 1:05:26 up and down Tuckerman Ravine Trail, 6.0 miles. 39:31 to Left Gully. Felt like garbage from my bad nutrition choices all day.

Sa- 6 x 1 mile at 10k pace, 3:00/0.25 mile recovery. 5:18 5:18 5:19 5:24 5:24 5:25 (5:21 avg.) That would be a pretty bad 10k for me. It was snowing and cold the whole time, but I should be able to run faster than that.

Su- 13.0 miles on the Moat Brook singletrack in 2:08:05. Pretty tired on the run, but felt good to get out on some of my favorite trails FINALLY. Still some snow left over from yesterday's snowstorm. 4 mile hike up and down Peaked Mt. with Jess in the afternoon.


My beautiful bride and I on Peaked Mt. Photo by Steve Smith


Totals: 56.5 miles, 8.8 hours. Not a bad week, but nothing spectacular. I've averaged 57 miles the last 4 weeks, and I think I'm feeling the cumulative effects of finally getting back into some consistent training. The workouts have been pretty ugly though. Saturday was pretty tough conditions, but I thought I could average 5:15's. I'm just glad I finished all 6. My legs had no pop. I was probably pretty dehydrated from work on Friday too. I have a hard time believing I'm in that bad of shape after a solid winter of snowshoe racing, but maybe I need a reality check.

Speaking of reality checks, it looks like I will be running the Muddy Moose 14 Mile Trail Race on Sunday instead of 7 Sisters. I really wanted to run 7 Sisters, but I've got a lot going on right now with family stuff and can't spend a day and half out in Western Mass. Maybe next year.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Training Week 4/11-4/17

I have nothing else to post, so I thought I'd throw this up.

M- 8.0 miles in 1:20:04. Up and down Black Cap, then added on 2 miles on the flats to get 5 strides in. 1700 ft gain

Tu- 4.0 miles in 33:57 before work. Planned on getting in the 6 x 1 mile after work but officiated a track meet until 8PM.

W- 5 x 1 mile (+/-HMP), 3:00 rec. 5:32 5:28 5:32 5:37 5:45 (5:35 avg.) Not a very good workout. Cold and rainy and in the dark. Didn't start warm-up until 7:30 PM. Just tried to run relaxed and the times showed it. Didn't bother with a 6th one. 1.25 wu, 0.25 cd.

Th- AM: 6.4 miles with Paul in 1:01:49 on Redstone Quarry singletrack FINALLY.
PM: 4.75 miles in 54:51 with Roger on Bear Notch Rd., 650 ft. gain

F- 5.5 miles 56:54 at Bradbury State Park in Pownal, ME. I had a surveying conference in Freeport and met up with Ian Parlin and Jeff Walker. Pretty hilly.

Sa- Had all day to run, but didn't get out. Got a 2 mile walk in the woods on the Wilderness Trail with Jess.

Su- 22.4 miles in 3:50:55 in the Green Hills. 3000 ft of elevation gain. Nice run, but tired from the get-go. Just tried to stay smooth on the way back. Last 8+ miles were mostly flat (thank god).

Totals: 58.8 miles, 9.55 hours, 5350 ft gain.

Good to get some volume in, especially where I was pretty busy with a lot of work and after-hours stuff this week too and after weeks of 53 and 61 miles. I should have got some type of workout in yesterday, but after my crappy workout Wednesday, I wasn't too motivated. I'm a little concerned with the mile repeats. The last 3 weeks of them have been less than stellar. I have been trying to go by effort, which has been fine, but they haven't been that fast or very consistent. I've been trying to ignore looking at splits while I do them.

This week's schedule has me switching the mile repeats to 10k pace, which I had penciled in as 4:55-5:00. I think that is a bit optimistic right now. I think there is some fitness there, but am wondering if I should start with 5:10s this week. I think with some good, consistent work in the next few months I can do some good things, but I'm definitely cutting it close.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Snowshoe Nationals + Road Trip + New Bedford = Feeling Like Dog $hit

Well, March was an interesting month. After a solid winter of snowshoe racing I headed out to Wisconsin for the National Snowshoe Championships. I was shooting for a top 5. Jim Johnson and Tim Van Orden were my travelling companions for this race. Without getting into too many details, Jim got 8th, I got 9th and Tim got 13th. I had a pretty good race, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. The race went out pretty hard, and my heart rate was through the roof for the first two miles. Not my style of racing. I was able to recover after that, but could never real Jim in. No replay of Sidehiller or Northfield here. The course had a lot of rolling hills, but no big climbs and no singletrack. Not my type of course, but fair and fun nonetheless. After the race I enjoyed some good brews from the Angry Minnow Brewery at the bar of the Lakewoods Resort where the race was held. They had a pretty good oatmeal stout and a honey wheat.



The bar at Lakewoods


After a leisurely run Sunday morning, TiVo, Double J and I started the 3 hour drive back to Minneapolis to catch our flights. Due to a few too many stops, Jim and I missed our boarding by 7 MINUTES. Delta wasn't able to get us on another flight, so we opted to do what any other sane people would do: we rented a car to Boston.

Up to this point, my longest road trip ever had been the 7 hour slog from NoCo to Syracuse for last year's Snowshoe Nationals. That would be about the length of our first stint on this trip. Jim took the first leg after we loaded up on Taco Bell and made a provisions shop at a Wal-Mart somewhere in Wisconsin. We loaded up on gas, coffee and beef jerky and changed drivers just before we hit Chicago just after 11PM. I usually don't like driving at night, but I had the next 6 hours of Midwest interstate to get me accustomed to it. The roads were pretty clear, the weather was good, and Jim stayed awake and kept spinning the tunes like he was at The Red Door circa 2005. I made it to just before Cleveland before handy over the reins of our trusty Focus to JJ.



The scenic Midwest at 2AM



The only thing I didn't eat


We had planned on doing 6 hours/full gas tank shifts the whole way, but after we hit some ice east of Cleveland and Jim started telling incoherent jokes, we decided to switch it up when we got tired, which only took about an hour and a half. We grabbed some breakfast at a Mickey D's and headed for New York.

I managed one more shift across NY just west of Syracuse, where we stopped for gas and a second breakfast of Arby's. I am such a bad eater on the road. This is when Jim realized we were bhind our rental car return time by about 7 minutes according to our GPS. Not again! Here is where Jim took off like a man possessed. We knew driving 85 all the way to Boston would not be a good idea, but 5 or 10 over the speed limit should get us there on time. Jim drove the last 270 miles with no stops while I watched out for cops and played navigator.



Buffalo? WTF?


We arrived at Logan at 3:36 PM, 4 minutes before our return time! All that was left was a 30 minutes train ride to Norwood to pick up my car, then 3+ hours back to drop Jim off in Salem and make it home. We stopped for an awesome dinner at Brothers Deli in Wakefield, MA then I dropped Jim in Salem. I felt ok before heading out, but definitely hit the wall north of Concord. I took a half hour nap at the Meredith McDonald's before finishing the trip to North Conway. I was on the move for about 35 hours. Not cool.



DoubleJ at "touchdown" at Logan



I couldn't waste a perfectly good beard


The only way to follow that up was to barely run the next week, then run ther New Bedford Half Marathon on Sunday! I threw down a stinker running a 1:14:42 for 70th place. I have run 1:10:00 for 9th place there in the past. My greatest accomplishment of the weekend was sporting a sweet handlebar mustache.

I'm finally starting to feel like a human being again. I'm starting to get my mileage up and getting some workouts again. I know I'm in decent shape after this winter. I just need to get back on track.