Mother's Day Weekend

Hope any mothers reading this had a great day! No running for me today (Sunday). Instead we did some hiking up to the top of Maryland's Sugarloaf Mt. Skylar rode in the backpack most of the way (see above). Here's our journey in pictures:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v377/robisch/Mothers%20Day%2008/?albumview=slideshow

Yesterday, I ran a local 5K, the Mission of Mercy Run for MOM in Frederick. The morning here in Maryland was quite rainy, but I decided that I didn't care about a little rain. I figured anything that might lower the turnout might give me a better shot at placing in my age group!
Well, fortunately, the rain started to let up right as we were starting. There were 89 runners, and for the first time in a long while, a very long while, I stepped up near the start line for a race. I was hoping to take a legitimate stab at a very old PR of mine for the 5K. I believe that's from the 1987 Bastille Day 5K in Chicago, where I managed a 6:59 pace for roughly a 21:38 time. However, based on training runs, I didn't think that I was quite back to running a 7 min pace for 3 miles. My more reasonable goal was breaking 22 minutes, which I haven't done in probably about..., well, since that Bastille Day!

I knew many of the other runners, and my strategy was to try to shadow my friend Tim, who runs between 20 and 21 minute 5Ks almost like clockwork, for as long as possible. I figured I'd rather start too fast than too slow. I was thinking I'd shoot for a 6:50 or so first mile.

Well, the horn blows and we're off! I took off fairly fast and quickly found myself in the unusual position ( for me ) of being fairly near the front, like AHEAD of the bell curve, not TRAILING it! After the first few hundred yards - and no sign of Tim yet - I become alarmed. OMG what if Tim's taking it easy for some reason? He was my pacer! The alarm was short lived, however, as Tim soon came up and passed me. Whew! So I tucked in behind him.
I think I stayed with Tim for the first mile. 6:37. Faster than I wanted, but during that mile the couple of times I checked my GPS I was going faster than expected. I felt okay so I tried to maintain that pace. A half mile later I was beginning to drop off of that pace, and Tim was pulling away. The rest of the way was simply a struggle to keep my pace as fast as possible. Mile 2 was about 7:28. Mile 3 was 7:26. My kick at the finish was fairly weak, for me, and I finished at 22:08. That got me 5th in my age group, and 17th overall out of 89 (top 20%). And a stat that I've notice Jerry (from the MCM forum) frequently notes: one woman finished ahead of me (in 16th) place. Top 20% is really good for me! It was cool to actually be ahead of most of the other runners for a change. An odd thing, that.

Not a PR, but this was a solid 5K time for me that I haven't seen in many years, so I'll take it! Next 5K, look for me to challenge that old PR!

A Taxing Day

Ah, Tuesday. I remember it well...

Went to bed at 3am after working on taxes. Got up at 6:30. Called off work to keep doing taxes (NOT the way I like to use my leave time!). Spent pretty much all day doing taxes. Raeann home at 3:25pm. Left house at 3:30pm to take her to Speech Therapy at 4pm. Left speech by 5pm. Drove to downtown Frederick and got Rae a sandwich at a little Italian place down the street from the church where chorus would be. 6pm Musicianship class for Rae across the street from chorus practice. I drop her off, hang out for a minute or two, then cross street and change into running gear in the bathroom at the church where she has chorus rehearsal starting at 7pm, immediately following musicianship. Drop stuff off at my car and begin warm up. By 6:30 I'm at Baker Park and ready to run!

Actual time of running was just under 50 minutes for the 6 miles, but that includes a 5 minute break. Finished by about 7:40. Run to car (.21 miles). Change shirt to a dry long sleeve. Run to Olde Town Tavern (.4 miles). Meet two other runners there and go in for a cheeseburger and fries. Bacon and mushrooms on the burger. Steak fries. Important note for future reference, OTT has ping-pong. People show up to play doubles there on Tuesday nights.
Food takes a while though. Get burger at 8:20pm. Down it and leave by 8:30pm.
Run .4 to church to get Raeann who finishes around 8:30pm. Drive home.

Doing taxes by 9:30pm, finishing State. Done and efiled shortly after 10pm. Beautiful choreography for the night!

Trail Run from '06

Just ran across this on my hard drive. From 2 years ago, but I figured I might as well post...


March 19, 2006
Little Bennett Regional Park, Clarksburg, MD
4 to 4.5 miles; trails; somewhat hilly

I have run chronically for many years without keeping a journal, but now as I have begun to run steadily for a prolonged period, it occurs to me that perhaps keeping a log of some of my runs might someday prove worthwhile to me, or perhaps even to someone else. The way I see it, I’ve been keeping a journal of my stargazing observations for some time and, if writing about sleepless nights of sitting quietly and staring at smudges of dark grey superimposed over a black background can be done interestingly enough for me to keep doing it, then perhaps recording my running adventures (ok, “adventures” overstates it, but you catch my drift) might also prove worthwhile at some point.

So I begin with a Sunday morning trail run at Little Bennett Regional Park. Accompanying me on this run was my avid running companion, Red, our golden retriever / yellow lab mix. Little Bennett has many accesses to the local roadways; our destination was about a 15 minute drive, down Clarksburg Road to a small gravel parking lot located at a couple of trail heads right alongside the road. Although Red loves to go running and loves to go for rides, he’s a bit of a car-retard. Upon opening the car door he’ll partially enter the car by sticking his head and front paws in the car while he continues standing on his hind legs outside the car. As athletic as he is at less than 2 years old, this is not a position from which he can jump and thus he ends up stuck and gumming up the works. I coax him back out and try to give him a running start to encourage him to actually leave the ground, but again he ends up half in, half out. If I ever want to get in the car, I’ve actually got pick up all 75 lbs of retriever and toss his ass on the seat. But then, of course, he doesn’t go right over to the passenger’s seat because, Oh-my-God! there’s a parking brake handle in the way! After some spirited shoving, whereby my forceful action is equally and oppositely counteracted by Red’s claw’s fabric-shredding grip upon the upholstered driver’s side seat, his body’s center of gravity is finally leveraged over the parking brake and he’s forced to actually move his paws to the passenger seat.

Thus begins this trip and now I realize this journal may end up being more about my dog than my running. Oh well. The drive over to Little Bennett is otherwise uneventful, though Red never really seemed to get quite comfortable in the small bucket seat. (There’s plenty of room in the back of my Suburu, but he wouldn’t jump in there either!)

We arrive at Little Bennett and I tie my car key to my shoe and have a look at the large sign showing the Little Bennett trail system map. Plenty of options here! I decide to head uphill on Kingsley Trail, mainly because it was really the only trail that I was familiar with. Our run would take us to the end of Kingsley Trail, then left onto Purdum Trail for about eight tenths of a mile. From Purdum Trail we’d take the 2nd left onto Browning Run Trail. This would lead back across Clarksburg Road and eventually to the gravel service road which runs perpendicularly from Clarksburg Road on the opposite side from our parking lot. Roughly 4 miles or so. After a bit more stretching, Red and I were off!

The sky was blue and the temp was a chilly 32 F, but there was little wind and I wore plenty of fleece so I was never cold. Kingsley Trail is wide and not nearly as uphill as I had originally thought, but I soon discovered that part of what I thought was still Kingsley Trail was actually already Purdum Trail. Kingsley Trail ends at the Froggy Hollow Schoolhouse; what I had thought was the continuation of Kingsley was actually the beginning of Purdum Trail. This is where the steeper uphill begins. Red ran happily alongside or a half-stride ahead of me.

Purdum quickly departs from the main trail and becomes a true hiker’s trail in the woods. The grade was steep and the trail wound back and forth for a bit like a strand of freshly boiled spaghetti. The path came quite close, at one point, to the original wide service trail that I was no longer certain which I should be on. We stuck to the smaller trail, however, and that turned out to be the right decision. Although early in the run, between the steepness and my path uncertainty, I actually switched to walking for a minute.

Soon we topped the rise and were running again on Purdum Trail which had turned leftward and became much broader again (Most of the trails in this part of the park are suitable for horses or bikes.) The trail also leveled off and Red and I settled into a nice rhythm. We passed through a fairly isolate campground and said hello to one of the early risers. Once past this campground we were back in the woods and here the Browning Run Trail became quite enjoyable as we began a series of gradual descents. Our pace quickened while we actually exerted less effort, and the activity transformed from a typical run to more of a Pole Position-like game involving more steering and breaking than actual running. Stumps and larger rocks serve not as obstacles, but rather as convenient decelerators. The path eventually leveled off again and soon crossed over Clarksburg Road.

The trail continued on for about another mile along Browning Run. In some places the footing was a little tricky due to horse-trodden sun-hardened dirt that felt like you were running over billiard balls. Keeping to the side we soon passed this area and resumed at a good pace. The trail was only mildly hilly, with really the only memorable uphill section occurring just before the trail passed across the gravel service road that headed back to the parking lot. We turned left onto this road for the final ¾ of a mile of our run on very level, even surface. All the while Red quietly and happily kept pace on my left.

We arrived back at the car after about 45 minutes of a wonderful early spring run!

Sunday February 24, 1:17am...

...I awoke in a pool of my own blood.

No, this isn’t opening for an episode of CSI: Maryland. This is how my race day began. On Sunday I was to run in the RRCA Club Challenge 10-Miler.

I had gone to bed early Saturday night, hoping to get a good night’s sleep in before the race. Earlier in the evening we had gone to my son’s pizza party for his basketball team. I had eaten plenty cheesy pizza and drank some pop. Not sure if I’m becoming lactose intolerant or what, but by 1am I had woken up with…issues…that led me to the bathroom. My blood pressure must have been low, and after a while I found myself suddenly getting dizzy and thinking, “Oh, man, I’d better lay down”, but I never got that far, consciously. I awoke in a pool of my own blood. Uh-oh. Now “pool” maybe be overstating it a bit. My “pool” was more like what you’d see if you knocked my daughter’s leaky sippy cup over for about 20 seconds. But I’ll tell ya, in low light levels blood sure does look black on our ceramic tile floor!

My neck was a little sore and I had cut open my head just above my right eyebrow, but otherwise I was feeling a little better. I got myself cleaned up and bandaged up, and tried to go back to sleep. I probably could have used a couple of stitches, but I had a race to run in just under 7 hours! It took a long time for me to finally get back to sleep.

I was out of the house and on my way to Columbia by 6:30am. No one in the house knew what had happened – if Andrea had seen my eye she probably wouldn’t have let me go.

Well, the race went great! Although temps in the upper 20s might seem a bit cold, with little wind and the sun out it was really just perfect. I ran the whole race with my friend, Crista, who also ran MCM with me. The course was fairly hilly, but not too bad.

My original plan was to shoot for going 8 or sub 8 for the first 5 miles, which are somewhat downhill, and then push hard to stay close to 8s on the way back. Crista had planned on going a little slower than that. In light of the circumstances, I chose to run with Crista for at least the first few miles and not worry too much about the time. As it turned out, she was the stronger runner on this day anyway.

We finished in 1:21:22, around an 8:08 pace. Here’s the data from my GPS:
Mile 1 – 8:05
2 – 8:04
3 – 7:53
4 – 8:03
5 – 7:47
6 – 8:33
7 – 8:16
8 – 8:37
9 – 8:16
10 – 7:46

Lewis Memorial 10-Miler

Well, it's 10:30pm and although my race was done by 10:00am, I haven't stopped running until now! Andrea's out of town and I was left reverse-bacheloring it. Two meals, one load of dishes, a violin lesson, 4 or so loads of laundry, ice cream, and a one-point last second nail-biter of a victory basketball game later and I'm finallly ready to catch my breath and assess.

What an awesome race! The weather was upper 20s but little to no wind, and sunny. Really quite nice for a long race once you got going. The field was about 30 or 40 strong, consistingly mainly of members of the Frederick Steeplechasers. This was my first time running it, and several people said that they though it was their largest turnout ever. It was very informal and inexpensive: no shirts, no bibs, no money (for Steeps members). And no watches. This was a predict your finish time race, with top prize going to whoever came closest to the time they predicted.

The course was reputed to be very hilly and from the starting line that's exactly how it looked. About 50 feet from the start line was the first, very steep (although brief), hill. Tyring to account for some hills, I optimistically predicted a time of 82:15 which would have been just under an 8:20 pace/mile.

To put it simply, this was not my day. My right calf has been nagging me with tightness for a couple of weeks, especially after last weekend's long run, and today it quickly got worse. It didn't help that the first 3 miles were nothing but incessant, up-and-down, grueling hills. And it didn't help that I actually went out fast. Yeah, dumb a$$ second weekend in a row. After a mile I was in about 12th place and running well. After about 3 miles my calf was hurting significantly and the unrelenting hills were starting to really concern me. Were all 10 miles going to be like this? The calf gradually slowed me down because to run faster meant pushing off more off the right foot and that's what hurt. During the course of the next 7 miles I had the wonderful opportunity to meet most of the runners in the race, as one-by-one they each passed me by! I just kept gimping along though, and mentally adjusted my goal to finish without worsening things.

The middle miles of the race were not all that hilly, thankfully! But around miles 6 and 7 they got pretty nasty again and stayed that way til the end. I managed to steadily make my way to the finish, and gritted my teeth for that last steep downhill at the end while I tried to keep my legs under control.

But here's the kicker: I PR'd! Despite all the hills and a bum leg, I was maybe a second or two faster than the '06 ATM. Finish was about 1:29:55. Just under a 9-minute pace. Maybe that doesn't say much for my old PR, but I had considered myself in decent shape when I ran it. I think what this race tells me is that I'm in WAY better shape now than in '06. Very encouraging, that!

The course was beautifull! A lot of it was on country roads and there was almost no traffic to be concerned with. On another day I would have found the hills to be a fun challenge. After the race, there was plenty of food brought in by other runners. Plenty of baked goods, chili, soup, oranges, cookies, etc. Tons left over!

I'll be taking the next few days or so off. I want my leg fully healed, and I have no need to push the training at the moment.

Today's Run

I woke up a 4:50am this morning, was out the door by 5:25am, and proceeded to run 16.36 very hilly miles. If that ain't inherently bad enough, the real idiocy was the 18 degrees F temp when I left my house in the dark. And it was breezy. No, windy. Quite windy! I don't own a gaiter, though I think I know what one is, so I wasn't wearing one. And no scarf. Bareface.

I was fine for about a mile and a half, then it became apparent that I was in for an extended period of time running into the stiff wind. No idea what that wind chill was, but it was bad. That was the first time I contemplated turning around. But I'd touch my face frequently and could tell I really hadn't reached the so-cold-it-hurts stage, much less the more dangerous so-cold-I-no-longer-have-feeling stage, so I trudged on. By mile 3 the battery on my Ipod had conked out (serious bummer), and the stiff headwind changed to a stiff crosswind. I had that for about a mile or two before gaining some tree cover. Wheew! The cover was much appreciated! Without wind, not a bad run when properly dressed. Unfortunately, by this point my Camelbak's water hose was frozen solid. No more water this run!

Around mile 6 I had my last real opportunity to cut the run short (make it just a 11.5 miler), and I seriously considered this, but again didn't. No. Instead, more headwind! Now I was frequently trying to use my gloved hand to shield different parts of my face from the wind. Not real effective, that. This was the first point where I started brief stints of actually running backwards to get my face out of the wind!

Needless to say, this was not a particularly fast run for me. After about 6 miles I was already falling behind a 10 min/mile pace. At least the sky was starting to brighten!

A few more miles of crosswind and then I had a blissful repreive from the wind for about 3 miles. I enjoyed this part! But the worst was yet to come...

Around mile 11 or 12 I turned off of Glissan's Mill Rd and onto Jessie Smith Rd. After a long, steady climb Jessie Smith follows along parts of a ridge, where there are long sections that are utterly exposed to the 20+ mph sustained winds out of the northwest. This was brutal! I knew that in that wind it wouldn't take much to get frostbite. Most of it was blowing against my right cheek. I alternately turned my head left (imploring the newly risen sun to lend me some heat), held up my fleeced hand against my face, and ran backwards. My winter hat, once actually drenched in sweat if you can believe it, had now frozen into something resembling those motorcycle helmets that offer minimal protection to the rider -- you know, the ones the riders seem to be wearing as a protest to being made to wear a helmet. I could feel it bouncing up and down on my head at times. I was a bit worried now.

Well, after what seemed like forever, I made it to another valley and some relative shelter. The last few miles were in and out of the wind, and up and down various hills. In the end, I made it the full 16.36 miles at just under a 10:30 pace. The temp had DROPPED TO 14.7 degrees F! Amazingly, I was without frostbite!

I usually consider myself to be a relatively wise person. I wear my seat belt, don't smoke, don't drink, eat well, and stay fit. But really I'm just another dumb ass. Today proved it.

Frozen Moose Star Party 2008

On January 11-13 I hosted the 4th annual Frozen Moose Star Party at my in-laws' farm in Potter County, Pennsylvania. Although this year's attendance was a little sparse, we managed a great fun-filled weekend! We arrived Friday afternoon with enough daylight left to get our telescopes set up in spite of the overcast sky.

Bringing the Wii along turned out to be a great idea, what with the cloudy sky socking us in on Friday evening. After a pizza dinner brought back from the Gold General Store, we were ready for some jammin' on the Wii. Bowling was fun, albeit humiliating. (I need to figure out how to change the way they oil the lanes!) But Guitar Hero Rocked! Lots of Foghat, Kiss, and Pat Benatar played to...imperfection! At least we didn't get booed off the stage too often!

Saturday morning brought us more clouds, but the online Clear Sky Clock was starting to give us some hope. We scrambled up some eggs for breakfast and then got ready for geocaching! (If you're not familiar with geocaching, it involves using a portable GPS to search for caches or little treasures hidden away by other geocachers.)

First target: the only triple continental divide east of the Mississippi! Fortunately, this was only about a mile away from the Farm. There are a few signs in maybe a 1 square mile area that mark the starting points for three major rivers: the Allegany, the Genessee, and the Susquehanna. We made a point of taking a picture at each. Our first cache was supposedly right at the official point of the triple divide. We parked about a 1/4 mile away and, using Matt's trusty GPS, hiked our way right to a little sign sticking out of the ground marking the Triple Divide. From there, the actual geocache -- a small ammunition box -- was an easy find in a bramble bush (a clue for finding the cache advised us not get stuck looking for the cache). [Incidentally, I've posted about 40 photos from the weekend on my photobucket site: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v377/robisch/Frozen%20Moose%2008/ .]

Our next geocache was by a small nearby lake called Rose Lake. After parking, we were required to hike our way around to the opposite side of the lake in search of the exact coordinates. Once again, Matt led us right to the spot and we scored another cache! We saw a couple of beaver damns and several trees that beavers had obviously been chomping upon. We returned to the farm in mid-afternoon and took a few minutes to fly an RC helicopter that Lincoln and I got for Christmas. This actually went remarkably well for several flights before an unfortunate landing that involved a wood pile in the backyard. One of the blades hit it, and that was the end of our flying!

Well, it was time for chili anyway! This year we had it spiced up with some Weed Killer sauce that I brought. Mmmmm! And it kept us warm all night!

Speaking of night, as the sun was setting the clouds were departing, as if on queue. By dark, it was ABSOLUTELY CLEAR!!! So Matt and I got to work. We started with Mars in Matt's 10", which showed a fair amount of detail in brief instances of clearer seeing. I began with the wonderful Comet Holmes in Perseus. I initially picked it out naked eye, and it looked reminiscent of the Andromeda Galaxy, only perhaps larger. Moving to my 7x50 binoculars, it was fantastic! Reminded me of a huge beachball. Probably my favorite view of the night!

Next came Comet Tuttle in Cetus. It was not quite a naked eye object, possibly because of a slight glow in that part of the sky from the setting crescent moon. In the binoculars it was pretty easy. Small but fairly bright; diffuse.

At 7:10pm we witnessed an iridium satellite flare of about -2 magnitude. A beautiful, slow event! Maybe THIS was my favorite view of the night! It dropped out of the sky a little to the right of Orion.

NGC 1514 - pn Taurus. The 10th magnitude central star was easily visible in this planetary nebula. Nebulocity was large and faint. My Ultrablock and OIII filters did not help greatly with the view. Best at 50x and unfiltered.

Unfortunately, the cold sometimes discourages one from taking adequate notes, and it was at this point that I neglected to keep up my log book. I made failed attempts at a couple of galaxies in Taurus and Eridanus, I think. I did view the Orion Nebula later, but that was as high humidity in the air, and perhaps a bit of frost on my telescope's corrector plate, were beginning to effect the view.

The other highlight of the night, for me, was taking a break to give my son a little nake eye tour of the sky. We laid on the ground side-by-side and I used Matt's green laser pointer to show various constellations and Comet Holmes to Lincoln. We also searched for what Linc dubbed the Squid constellation last year, but on this night he wasn't sure if he'd found the same squid. I think Lincoln really enjoyed this part of the night, and so did I!

As Matt indicated, we were back inside by about midnight and soon hit the sack. Sunday morning involved mainly packing up to head home, but we also took a second to snap some more pictures outside, including the obligatory Moose group photo!

It was a shame that a few of the Frozen Moose Star Party regulars were unable to make it this year, but we'll be back again next winter! See you then!
-Ron