People that know me well know I'm into geography and travel (the two go hand in hand). As such, I'm frequently scrolling through travel lists (ex. top 10 places to visit in New England) of sorts and finding places I want to visit. Google maps is a fantastic site as it creates a timeline of everywhere I've been, it allows to add photos of places I've visited and I add places to specific lists (places I want to go, high points, etc.). Over the last few years, I've compiled a long list of places I want to visit, both local, domestic, and international. So I can hopefully look back on this in 5 years, and see a bunch of destinations I've crossed off my list, here's the full list below. I'm not including any high points as that's a separate list and many high points I'm only interested in because they're high point or anything specific in an area I've already visited (for example I want to do more white mountain hikes, but since I've been to the area plenty of time, it's not on my bucket list)
*area of very high interest
Northeast US
1. Colt State Park (RI)
2. Block Island North Light (RI)
3. Southeast Lighthouse (RI)
4. Rodman's Hollow (RI)
5. Fields of Fire Adventure Park (CT)
6. Fisher's Island (CT)
7. Gillette Castle State Park (CT)
8. Cockaponset State Forest (CT)
9. Dinosaur State Park (CT)
10. People's State Forest (CT)
11. Nantucket (MA)
12. *Cape Cod National Seashore (MA)
13. Provincetown (MA)
14. Boston Harbor Islands (MA)
15. Wachusett Mountain State Reservation (MA)
16. Mt. Watatic (MA)
17. Pisgah State Park (NH)
18. Mt. Kearsarge State Forest Park (NH)
19. Mt. Cardigan (NH)
20. Mt. Major (NH)
21. Lake Winnipesaukee (NH)
22. *Camel's Hump State Park (VT)
23. *Portland (ME)
24. Mt. Bigelow (ME)
25. Montauk (NY)
26. Fire Island National Seashore (NY)
27. *Brooklyn Bridge (NY)
28. Catskill Mountains (NY)
29. *Watkins Glen State Park (NY)
30. *Letchworth State Park (NY)
31. *Niagara Falls State Park (NY)
Rest of the US
32. Assateague Island National Seashore (MD)
33. Cape Hatteras National Seashore (NC)
34. *Great Smoky Mountains National Park (TN, NC)
35. Springer Mountain (GA)
36. *Georgia Aquarium (GA)
37. Wormsloe Historic Site (GA)
38. Panama City (FL)
39. Gulf Islands National Seashore (FL, MS)
40. Dry Tortugas National Park (FL)
41. New Orleans (LA)
42. Chicago (IL)
43. Apostle Islands National Seashore (WI)
44. Isle Royale National Park (MI)
45. Theodore Roosevelt National Park (ND)
46. Chimney Rock National Historic Site (NE)
47. Austin, TX (TX)
48. *Glacier National Park (MT)
49. *Zion National Park (UT)
50. Arches National Park (UT)
51. Monument Valley (AZ)
52. *Griffith Observatory (CA)
53. Channel Islands National Park (CA)
54. Marin Headlands (CA)
55. *Hawaii
56. Wrangell St. Elias National Park (AK)
57. *Katmai National Park (AK)
58. Mendenhall Glacier (AK)
Rest of North America
59. Ottawa (Canada)
60. Toronto (Canada)
61. Forillon National Park (Canada)
62. *Gros Morne National Park (Canada)
63. *Torngat Mountains National Park (Canada)
65. Bruce Peninsula National Park (Canada)
66. Resolute (Canada)
67. *Banff National Park (Canada)
68. *Jasper National Park (Canada)
69. Athabasca Glacier (Canada)
70. Hadia Gwaii (Canada)
71. Mount Logan (Canada)
72. Pico de Orizaba (Mexico)
73. *Mexico City (Mexico)
74. Chichen Itza (Mexico)
75. *Havana (Cuba)
76. Cuba
77. Nassau (Bahamas)
78. Citadelle Laferriere (Haiti)
79. Gros Piton (Saint Lucia)
80. Tikal (Guatemala)
81. Monteverde Cloud Forest (Costa Rica)
82. Corcovado National Park (Costa Rica)
South America
83. Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)
84. *Macchu Picchu (Peru)
85. Angel Falls (Venezuela)
86. *Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia)
87. *Iguazu Falls (Argentina-Brazil border)
88. Torres del Paine (Chile)
89. Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona (Colombia)
Europe
90. Silfra (Iceland)
91. Dettifoss (Iceland)
92. Vatnajokull National Park (Iceland)
93. Jokulsarlon (Iceland)
94. Geirangerfjord (Norway)
95. Snowdonia National Park (UK)
96. Lake District (UK)
97. Edinburgh Castle (UK)
98. Royal Mile (UK)
99. Loch Lomond (UK)
100. *Scotland (UK)
101. Glen Coe (UK)
102. Ben Nevis (UK)
103. Fingal's Cave (UK)
104. Skye (UK)
105. Skara Brae Prehistoric Village (UK)
106. Giant's Causeway (UK)
107. *Ireland
108. Cliffs of Moher (Ireland)
109. *Eiffel Tower (France)
110. Mont St Michel (France)
111. Sagrada Familia (Spain)
112. Alhambra (Spain)
113. Cinque Terre (Italy)
114. Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Italy)
115. Grand Place (Belgium)
116. Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany)
117. Lake Bled (Slovenia)
118. Charles Bridge (Czech Republic)
119. Old Town Square (Czech Republic)
120. Prague Castle (Czech Republic)
121. Dubrovnik (Croatia)
122. Bay of Kotor (Montenegro)
123. Thera (Greece)
124. Hagia Sophia (Turkey)
Africa
125. *Great Pyramid of Giza (Egypt)
126. Biwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda)
127. Maasai Mara National Reserve (Kenya)
128. Serengeti National Park (Tanzania)
129. Ngorongoro Crater (Tanzania)
130. *Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania)
131. *Victoria Falls (Zambia)
132. Cape Town (South Africa)
Asia
133. Petra (Jordan)
134. Burj Khalifa (UAE)
135. Taj Mahal (India)
136. *Maldives
137. *Mt. Everest (Nepal-China Border)
138. Pamirsky National Park (Tajikistan)
139. Old Bagan (Myanmar)
140. Terracotta Warriors (China)
141. Great Wall of China (China)
142. Forbidden City (China)
143. Ha Long Bay (Vietnam)
144. Angkor Wat (Cambodia)
145. Ko Tao (Thailand)
146. Gardens by the Bay (Singapore)
147. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (Japan)
148. Arashiyama Bamboo Forest (Japan)
149. *Mt. Fuji (Japan)
Oceania
150. Great Barrier Reef (Australia)
151. Uluru (Australia)
152. Blue Mountains (Australia)
153. Twelve Apostles (Australia)
154. Mt. Kosciuszko (Australia)
155. Abel Tasman National Park (New Zealand)
156. Mount Cook (New Zealand)
157. Sutherland Falls (New Zealand)
158. *Fjordland National Park (New Zealand)
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Weekly Log: December 23 to 29
Another high mileage winter break week, much less total running time this week as I didn't have any trail runs.
Monday: 8 Miles
Annual Christmas light run, this year from Chris Garvin's house. Felt pretty good and relaxed except for my headlamp which was really loose and bouncing around a lot. Need a new one (which I got on Christmas) and my lack of experience in night running made me forget to check it before. Most guys were doing six so Dad and I tacked on a mile before and after. Started off at 6:50 pace, so running 7:50s with the group felt really slow. Got used to it after a few miles though. Nice group run overall, haven't run with most of the guys there in a long time.
Tuesday: 10 Miles
Around the pond (w/an extension to Noyes Neck and a cool-down mile to make 10) w/Dad and Tom. Got going a lot quicker than usual in a 6:35, then hovered in the 6:40s for most of the run. Picked it up to the low 6s for the last few, felt solid overall.
Wednesday: 9 Miles
Super easy Christmas run with Dad and Brady. Mostly on roads with a mile or two on the Champlin trails.
Thursday: 12 Miles
Last year on the 26th I went for a Newport Cliff Walk strava CR and got it in a hard tempo effort. After making it an official FKT in the spring, now seemed like a good time to come back as I'm reasonably healthy, hadn't done a workout in a while and wanted to return to the area. Felt tired warming up and due to no workouts in the last month, was dreading putting in a harder effort. Shook it off and got going. Hit the first mile in 5:29 feeling okay, slightly weak. Was surprised at the presence of several staircases that made for awkward (and slower) running as I thought the first mile was paved and super fast. Probably around 5:20 effort. Never really decreased effort, but the pace became naturally slower as the terrain got harder (mainly just an increase in the amount of rocks). There were flat large rocks which were still hard to run on as I couldn't lengthen my stride and risk stepping in the gaps between the rock, but the truly difficult portion were jagged coastal rocks where I was barely moving. The rocks were a bit slippery and I slid a few times, but never went down. There were a few times where people didn't give me as much room as they should have but fortunately it was enough that I avoided a collision. While I never felt that great (always slightly weak, some stomach discomfort) I held on and it went by fairly quickly until the last mile which was tough, dragged on and I started to fatigue at a rapid rate. The last quarter mile on dirt was super muddy and I definitely lost 5s there as compared to last year's drier section. Ended up beating my FKT by 44 seconds, 20:39 to 21:23 as my first two miles were much faster than last year with the last 1.5 being done only slightly faster. It'd be hard to take off a lot more time, but I was pretty satisfied to improve upon it as much as I did while still having it feel closer to a tempo effort than a race effort. Maybe I'll make a few more pushes to get it sub-20 and then let the public attempt to lower it from there.
I ran this as a continuous activity, not wanting to have three activities for one run. I guess this is frowned upon for FKT attempts, as I calculated my time by cropping out the route portion on garmin connect rather than timing my Cliff Walk run from start to finish, and the results could be a few seconds off. The FKT reviewer added "The route has a Strava segment, but these can be off by some seconds so time should also be kept with a stopwatch." to my route description, so I'll likely keep these as separate activites in the future.
About 7 miles "cooldown" from there, nice exploring beautiful Newport and Middletown but legs were absolute toast. Interesting as we did hill repeats on the pie run course last year, that definitely wasn't happening this time around.
Friday: 11 Miles
Mystic run with Aiden. 6:30s on mostly quiet roads. Felt decent overall, wasn't expecting the pace to be so fast but that was probably my fault. Loop from the mystic Y running river road, jerry browne and cove road.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Early easy Ninigret run with Tom and Dad and some dogs. Felt fine energy wise which was surprising with the lack of sleep but legs were feeling crappier than expected and achilles bothering me for the first time in 2 and a half weeks.
Sunday: 16 Miles
Longest I've done, Charlestown roads from the bakery w/Dad. Felt kinda crappy for a few miles, then settled into a slower pace and felt okay for the rest of the run. Want to feel stronger on longer runs, but still felt much better than did on both longer weekend runs last week. Finished up a little faster but sacrificed feeling decent in the process.
Weekly Total: 74 (highest week ever)
YTD Total: 1,422 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Continuing the high mileage and actually running my highest week and highest run ever. It feels to go long. Also felt nice to do the cliff walk FKT and get in something resembling a hard effort as well as beat my time by more than expected while not feeling terrible, an indication that I'm at least in decent aerobic shape.
Weekly Lowlight: 1) Feeling somewhat beat and exhausted a lot, generally feel like I'm struggling more to get through 65+ mile weeks and feeling a lot less fresh than in past high mileage periods (although I made a bigger jump to get there this time and came in with pretty much 0 workouts) and 2) having almost zero structure/focus to my training for the first time in a long time. Really just running as much as I can without any idea of what I want to do for workouts, where I am fitness-wise and where I want to be and when or what my next race will be. I generally have all of these figured out but right now I'm really just running w/seemingly no purpose or goals. I think that's okay for now but I think I need to get a grasp on this sooner rather than later.
Monday: 8 Miles
Annual Christmas light run, this year from Chris Garvin's house. Felt pretty good and relaxed except for my headlamp which was really loose and bouncing around a lot. Need a new one (which I got on Christmas) and my lack of experience in night running made me forget to check it before. Most guys were doing six so Dad and I tacked on a mile before and after. Started off at 6:50 pace, so running 7:50s with the group felt really slow. Got used to it after a few miles though. Nice group run overall, haven't run with most of the guys there in a long time.
Tuesday: 10 Miles
Around the pond (w/an extension to Noyes Neck and a cool-down mile to make 10) w/Dad and Tom. Got going a lot quicker than usual in a 6:35, then hovered in the 6:40s for most of the run. Picked it up to the low 6s for the last few, felt solid overall.
Wednesday: 9 Miles
Super easy Christmas run with Dad and Brady. Mostly on roads with a mile or two on the Champlin trails.
Thursday: 12 Miles
Last year on the 26th I went for a Newport Cliff Walk strava CR and got it in a hard tempo effort. After making it an official FKT in the spring, now seemed like a good time to come back as I'm reasonably healthy, hadn't done a workout in a while and wanted to return to the area. Felt tired warming up and due to no workouts in the last month, was dreading putting in a harder effort. Shook it off and got going. Hit the first mile in 5:29 feeling okay, slightly weak. Was surprised at the presence of several staircases that made for awkward (and slower) running as I thought the first mile was paved and super fast. Probably around 5:20 effort. Never really decreased effort, but the pace became naturally slower as the terrain got harder (mainly just an increase in the amount of rocks). There were flat large rocks which were still hard to run on as I couldn't lengthen my stride and risk stepping in the gaps between the rock, but the truly difficult portion were jagged coastal rocks where I was barely moving. The rocks were a bit slippery and I slid a few times, but never went down. There were a few times where people didn't give me as much room as they should have but fortunately it was enough that I avoided a collision. While I never felt that great (always slightly weak, some stomach discomfort) I held on and it went by fairly quickly until the last mile which was tough, dragged on and I started to fatigue at a rapid rate. The last quarter mile on dirt was super muddy and I definitely lost 5s there as compared to last year's drier section. Ended up beating my FKT by 44 seconds, 20:39 to 21:23 as my first two miles were much faster than last year with the last 1.5 being done only slightly faster. It'd be hard to take off a lot more time, but I was pretty satisfied to improve upon it as much as I did while still having it feel closer to a tempo effort than a race effort. Maybe I'll make a few more pushes to get it sub-20 and then let the public attempt to lower it from there.
I ran this as a continuous activity, not wanting to have three activities for one run. I guess this is frowned upon for FKT attempts, as I calculated my time by cropping out the route portion on garmin connect rather than timing my Cliff Walk run from start to finish, and the results could be a few seconds off. The FKT reviewer added "The route has a Strava segment, but these can be off by some seconds so time should also be kept with a stopwatch." to my route description, so I'll likely keep these as separate activites in the future.
About 7 miles "cooldown" from there, nice exploring beautiful Newport and Middletown but legs were absolute toast. Interesting as we did hill repeats on the pie run course last year, that definitely wasn't happening this time around.
Friday: 11 Miles
Mystic run with Aiden. 6:30s on mostly quiet roads. Felt decent overall, wasn't expecting the pace to be so fast but that was probably my fault. Loop from the mystic Y running river road, jerry browne and cove road.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Early easy Ninigret run with Tom and Dad and some dogs. Felt fine energy wise which was surprising with the lack of sleep but legs were feeling crappier than expected and achilles bothering me for the first time in 2 and a half weeks.
Sunday: 16 Miles
Longest I've done, Charlestown roads from the bakery w/Dad. Felt kinda crappy for a few miles, then settled into a slower pace and felt okay for the rest of the run. Want to feel stronger on longer runs, but still felt much better than did on both longer weekend runs last week. Finished up a little faster but sacrificed feeling decent in the process.
Weekly Total: 74 (highest week ever)
YTD Total: 1,422 Miles
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| Top of the leaderboard again, but unsurprisingly kicked down on time and elevation |
Weekly Highlight: Continuing the high mileage and actually running my highest week and highest run ever. It feels to go long. Also felt nice to do the cliff walk FKT and get in something resembling a hard effort as well as beat my time by more than expected while not feeling terrible, an indication that I'm at least in decent aerobic shape.
Weekly Lowlight: 1) Feeling somewhat beat and exhausted a lot, generally feel like I'm struggling more to get through 65+ mile weeks and feeling a lot less fresh than in past high mileage periods (although I made a bigger jump to get there this time and came in with pretty much 0 workouts) and 2) having almost zero structure/focus to my training for the first time in a long time. Really just running as much as I can without any idea of what I want to do for workouts, where I am fitness-wise and where I want to be and when or what my next race will be. I generally have all of these figured out but right now I'm really just running w/seemingly no purpose or goals. I think that's okay for now but I think I need to get a grasp on this sooner rather than later.
2019
Note that I didn't title this 2019 in year in review. Usually it's the time of the year to recap all the running that took place, but this year there really isn't anything to recap. I basically had a bad indoor season where I totally bombed my two important races and came nowhere near sub-15 and then have yet to race since then after being injured (completely unable to run, no more than 20 mi/week) from april to october. While I'm back now, I'm still nowhere near in race-ready conditions and my injuries still linger, even if they've mostly left me alone. In other words, this was by far the worst running year I've ever had. To recap the high and lows like previous would make no sense. I only raced 5 times, none of them were very good, I didn't meet any of my goals and I was barely running for the bulk of the year. To keep statistics going, here are the stats compiled over the year.
As for the lack of best/worst races list, none of my races were bad or good enough to make any all-time lists except for New Englands 5K, which is probably my 2nd or 3rd worst race of all time.
Total Mileage: 1,430 Miles
Highest Week: 74 Miles (PR, December 23 to 29)
Longest Run: 16 Miles (PR, December 29th)
Longest Running Streak: 27 Days (also another 27 day streak and a 26 day streak)
Longest Non-Running Streak: 43 Days (w/many 5-20 days non-running streaks as well)
Biking Miles: About 750
Number of # PR's/Number of New PR's: 1 (4:27 mile)
Number of Races: 5
-2018: 53, 2017: 57, 2016: 75 (there's a good chance I included events at track meets as separate races in past years, which I didn't do this year, I'd have 7 otherwise)
Number of States Run in: 7
Total # of Runs: 196 Runs
New Hampshire: 118 Runs (60%)
Rhode Island: 50 Runs (26%)
Connecticut: 14 Runs (7%)
Massachusetts: 5 Runs (3%)
Florida: 4 Runs (2%)
Maryland: 1 Run
Maine: 1 Run
-to be fair, I have strava activites in Delaware, District of Columbia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia but I didn't run in them due to injury
-2018: 9, 2017: 12, 2016: 7
Number of Countries Run In: 2
United States: 193 Runs (98%)
Canada: 3 Runs (3%)
Number of Canadian Provinces Run In: 2 (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia)
Number of Municipalities Run In: 26
Durham, NH: 116 Runs (60%)
Charlestown, RI: 20 Runs (10%)
Westerly, RI: 18 Runs (9%)
Stonington, CT: 7 Runs (4%)
South Kingstown, RI: 5 Runs (3%)
Groton, CT: 4 Runs (2%)
Municipalities w/3 or less runs:
Rhode Island- Hopkinton, Exeter, Richmond, Narragansett, Bristol, Middletown
Connecticut- Berlin, Voluntown
Massachusetts- Boston, Lincoln
Florida- Key West, Miami, North Miami
New Hampshire- Lincoln, Hampton
Maryland- Grantsville
Canada- St. John, Iverness, Hillsborough
Maine- Rockport
Frequented Venues
UNH: 116 Runs
Ninigret: 10 Runs
Home: 9 Runs
Burlingame: 5 Runs
Mystic YMCA: 4 Runs
Woody Hill: 4 Runs
Haley Farm/Bluff Point: 4 Runs
Avondale: 3 Runs
Movies Watched: 189 (very surprised to find out I crushed last year's total of 141 despite a huge decline movie watching over the last 3 years or so)
Video Games Completed: 13
Non-Failures of 2019
I can't exactly have a highlights/successes section of a year where I only had one PR. But they were a few things that still went according to plan, despite all the issues I had.
-Establishing an official FKT on the Newport Cliff Walk and lowering it by 44 seconds in December (the only goal from 2018 in review post I met)
-Running in Maryland for the first time (a pathetic and unremarkable run, but still something)
-Getting 5 High Points: DE, DC, PA, MD, WV
-Going to West Virginia for the first time (progress towards going to all 50 states)
-Hiking in the White Mountains: Moosilauke, Chocorua, Liberty, Flume, Lincoln, Lafayette
-Running in Florida and going to Miami and Key West for the first time
-Highest run and highest week ever in late December (16 and 74)
-Running the entirety of the east bay bike path
-Going to the New England Aquarium and The American Museum of Natural History (crossing items off my bucket list)
-Running a mile PR (honestly about as mediocre as races go, but one PR in 2019 definitely beats none)
-PR'd in longest bike twice, with a 33 mile ride in July followed by two 45 mile rides in September. I still don't like biking, but for whatever reason it feels nicer going long
Picture Gallery (photos I took)
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February: UNH in the snow
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| March: Pelicans and boats (Somewhere in the Florida Keys) |
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| March: Bahia Honda State Park (FL) |
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| March: Miami Skyline over Biscayne Bay |
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| March: Odiorne Point State Park (NH) |
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| May: Weekapaug |
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| May: Mt. Washington State Forest (MA) |
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| May: Race Brook Falls (MA) |
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| May: Bear Mountain State Park (NY) |
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| June: Minute National Historical Park (MA) |
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| July: Mount Chocorua (NH) |
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| July: View from top of Mt. Chocorua (NH) |
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| July: Franconia Ridge Trail (NH) |
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| July: Ebright Azimuth, High Point of Delaware |
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| July: Point Reno, Highest Point in Washington, DC |
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| July: Camping in New Germany State Park (MD) |
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| July: Swimming Area in New Germany State Park (MD) |
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| July: Mt. Davis, Highest Point in Pennsylvania |
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| July: Hoye-Crest, Highest Point in Maryland |
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| July: Seneca Rocks (WV) |
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| July: Spruce Knob, Highest Point in West Virginia |
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| July: Panoramic View from Mary's Rock in Shenandoah National Park (VA) |
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| August: Ocean View in Cape Breton Highlands National Park (Nova Scotia) |
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| August: MacIntosh Brook, Cape Breton Highlands National Park (Nova Scotia) |
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| August: Rocky Coastline of Acadia National Park (ME) |
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| August: Panoramic View from Gorham Mountain in Acadia National Park (ME) |
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| August: View from Acadia Mountain, Acadia National Park (ME) |
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| October: New England Aquarium (MA) |
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| October: Boston Harbor (MA) |
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| December: T-Rex Exhibit, American Museum of Natural History (NY) |
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| December: Wolf Exhibit, American Museum of Natural History (NY) |
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| December: Exterior of American Museum of Natural History (NY) |
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| December: Central Park (NY) |
2020 Goals
Time to get ambitious again, even though I've lost some confidence and feel less focused than usual.
-Break 15 minutes in the 5K (this will be on my list until I do it or until I quit running)
-Score in the 10K at outdoor conference
-Break 53 minutes in the Blessing of the Fleet, top 3
-More White Mountains hiking
-Up to 31 highpoints
-3,000 miles on the year, 20 mile run, 80 mile week
-Break an existing or establish a new FKT
-Run in 20+ states (likely contigent on me doing a big highpoint trip and running most days during it)
-Run in all 6 new england states
Not a ton of goals this year, just some checkpoints to keep me motivated. There will be a few others things I change here and there, but the main goal to run a good 5K and 10K. Honestly, if raced twice and broke 15 and 31, it'd be a good year and I could care less about other races.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Weekly Log: December 16 to 22
Nice week from home getting in some higher than expected mileage and the return of the long run. Good week for the achilles too.
Monday: 8 Miles
Easy AM run with Keith on local roads. First run with him since last Winter this time. Cruised along at a comfortable 6:50. First time running on a Monday in quite a while due to days off for the injury.
Tuesday: 10 Miles
Early rhody loop, new edition in the freezing rain w/Dad and Brady. Absolutely frigid for the first mile on Sanctuary road, haven't felt that cold on a run in a long time. Quickly warmed up on singletrack and felt decent for the rest of the run. Dragging a bit on the technical sections and felt tired, sloppy and beat up. Still getting used to trail running again.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Solo usual Haley Bluff fire road loop. Awesome weather (upper 30s) made for an enjoyable run. Last time I ran here it was pretty much flooded so I was surprised the main loop was completely dry. Ran 6:40s/6:50s which seemed a little quick for the gravel surface but I felt really good. Wanted to get in a little singletrack on the way back but turned too early, got disoriented and when I got back on the main trail I stayed there. Definitely one of my favorite places to run, love running on softer surfaces but manicured so it's not really slow/challenging.
Thursday: 12 Miles
Another early run with my teammate Aiden. I had good memories of running Castle Craig and Ragged mountain on separate runs in 2017 and 2018, and since he lived just a town over it seemed like a good time to return. Got an early (8am) start so I wouldn't get back super late. This meant a very early wakeup for me as I needed to drive 1hr15min over to Meriden. Met him at a very small parking lot at a Metacomet trailhead, before he drove us to the ragged mountain trailhead. I rarely ever do point to point runs, but they're pretty fun and this was a good opportunity to run two cool areas while exploring a new area of the Metacomet trail I hadn't been on before. A major factor that I overlooked was just how icy/snowy it would be as Westerly was in dry conditions. It was a really cold day (14 degrees, real feel -2) but it was all fine on the trails.
Really tough 1.5 mile ascent up ragged mountain. It would have been hard in good conditions, with a 500ft elevation gain but a frozen layer of snow made it really tough to not run slow (think an easier version of soft sand). Quick break on the top, then it took us 10 minutes to maybe go 100 meters as the next descent was very steep and technical, completely covered in ice. There was no way to even walk this section on the ice, so we very slowly made our way down it. After that, the trail was much better followed by several faster road miles. Turned back onto trail for a tough ascent up metacomet. There were some tough steep climbs but only a few icy sections (concentrated in technical sections). Some of the downhills were very icy and required complete stops. Eventually went up and over the two peaks (Castle Craig was locked and surrounded by ice) and got to an intersection where we got really confused and went the wrong way twice before finding the right path. The trail seems to be marked really well for the most part, but definitely could use clearer (and more frequent) blazes on road intersections. Overall, a fun run in bad conditions. Definitely would have been easier (and more fun) w/o all the ice and snow. Either that, or I just needed microspikes.
Friday: 8 Miles
Charlestown roads from the bakery/breachway grill w/Sam. Went by pretty quickly, felt solid. Got a little confused one of the turns headed back from the beach. Nice area to get in quiet road runs.
Saturday: 14 Miles
East Bay Bike Path point to point. We parked at India Point park in providence and took an uber to the start in Bristol. Had never run the east bay bike path before, and really liked the last 4 or so miles of it into providence as river/city views, hills, and bridges mixed things up and kept it interesting. However, most of the non-city sections were actually quite boring as it felt endless and flat with no scenery change. A good bike path for sure though. Anyway, felt really weak on this run and struggled big time. Some of it was just randomly feeling bad that day and some of it is my lack of endurance right now. Definitely want to continue long runs to get stronger. Pretty dead the last 2-3 miles.
Sunday: 12 Miles
Green falls/arcadia/yawgoog loop. Blue blazes (northbound) on the CT side towards beach pond, yellow blazes back (south). Really underestimated how difficult the run would be and overall, it beat me up a lot when I was expected a relaxed trail run. I feel like I almost always think the trails won't be too difficult in yawgoog area and they always prove me wrong. I like some hard trails, but it was just way too much for that day and I felt pretty terrible in the second half, especially towards the end.
Weekly Total: 72 Miles (tying highest week ever)
YTD Mileage: 1,348 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Getting back to not only a respectable mileage, but back into the 70s. Definitely a big jump from 53 but surprisingly didn't feel too bad other than the weekend runs. Also best week in quite a while for my achilles, not 100% yet but haven't had pain in a while and only have the occasional mild soreness. Fun to run with some guys I haven't in a while.
Weekly Lowlight: It was a pretty solid week and there wasn't anything too bad, but I definitely felt much worse than usual on the weekend despite feeling fine all week. Need to work on endurance and proper fueling/sleep.
Movies Watched: 6 Underground, *Yesterday, Marriage Story, *Tower Heist, A History of Violence, Angry Birds 2, Eastern Promises, El Camino, *Gone Baby Gone, *The Departed, *The Hateful Eight, *Blood Diamond
Best Movie Watched: The Departed
*Indicates rewatch
Monday: 8 Miles
Easy AM run with Keith on local roads. First run with him since last Winter this time. Cruised along at a comfortable 6:50. First time running on a Monday in quite a while due to days off for the injury.
Tuesday: 10 Miles
Early rhody loop, new edition in the freezing rain w/Dad and Brady. Absolutely frigid for the first mile on Sanctuary road, haven't felt that cold on a run in a long time. Quickly warmed up on singletrack and felt decent for the rest of the run. Dragging a bit on the technical sections and felt tired, sloppy and beat up. Still getting used to trail running again.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Solo usual Haley Bluff fire road loop. Awesome weather (upper 30s) made for an enjoyable run. Last time I ran here it was pretty much flooded so I was surprised the main loop was completely dry. Ran 6:40s/6:50s which seemed a little quick for the gravel surface but I felt really good. Wanted to get in a little singletrack on the way back but turned too early, got disoriented and when I got back on the main trail I stayed there. Definitely one of my favorite places to run, love running on softer surfaces but manicured so it's not really slow/challenging.
Thursday: 12 Miles
Another early run with my teammate Aiden. I had good memories of running Castle Craig and Ragged mountain on separate runs in 2017 and 2018, and since he lived just a town over it seemed like a good time to return. Got an early (8am) start so I wouldn't get back super late. This meant a very early wakeup for me as I needed to drive 1hr15min over to Meriden. Met him at a very small parking lot at a Metacomet trailhead, before he drove us to the ragged mountain trailhead. I rarely ever do point to point runs, but they're pretty fun and this was a good opportunity to run two cool areas while exploring a new area of the Metacomet trail I hadn't been on before. A major factor that I overlooked was just how icy/snowy it would be as Westerly was in dry conditions. It was a really cold day (14 degrees, real feel -2) but it was all fine on the trails.
Really tough 1.5 mile ascent up ragged mountain. It would have been hard in good conditions, with a 500ft elevation gain but a frozen layer of snow made it really tough to not run slow (think an easier version of soft sand). Quick break on the top, then it took us 10 minutes to maybe go 100 meters as the next descent was very steep and technical, completely covered in ice. There was no way to even walk this section on the ice, so we very slowly made our way down it. After that, the trail was much better followed by several faster road miles. Turned back onto trail for a tough ascent up metacomet. There were some tough steep climbs but only a few icy sections (concentrated in technical sections). Some of the downhills were very icy and required complete stops. Eventually went up and over the two peaks (Castle Craig was locked and surrounded by ice) and got to an intersection where we got really confused and went the wrong way twice before finding the right path. The trail seems to be marked really well for the most part, but definitely could use clearer (and more frequent) blazes on road intersections. Overall, a fun run in bad conditions. Definitely would have been easier (and more fun) w/o all the ice and snow. Either that, or I just needed microspikes.
Friday: 8 Miles
Charlestown roads from the bakery/breachway grill w/Sam. Went by pretty quickly, felt solid. Got a little confused one of the turns headed back from the beach. Nice area to get in quiet road runs.
Saturday: 14 Miles
East Bay Bike Path point to point. We parked at India Point park in providence and took an uber to the start in Bristol. Had never run the east bay bike path before, and really liked the last 4 or so miles of it into providence as river/city views, hills, and bridges mixed things up and kept it interesting. However, most of the non-city sections were actually quite boring as it felt endless and flat with no scenery change. A good bike path for sure though. Anyway, felt really weak on this run and struggled big time. Some of it was just randomly feeling bad that day and some of it is my lack of endurance right now. Definitely want to continue long runs to get stronger. Pretty dead the last 2-3 miles.
Sunday: 12 Miles
Green falls/arcadia/yawgoog loop. Blue blazes (northbound) on the CT side towards beach pond, yellow blazes back (south). Really underestimated how difficult the run would be and overall, it beat me up a lot when I was expected a relaxed trail run. I feel like I almost always think the trails won't be too difficult in yawgoog area and they always prove me wrong. I like some hard trails, but it was just way too much for that day and I felt pretty terrible in the second half, especially towards the end.
Weekly Total: 72 Miles (tying highest week ever)
YTD Mileage: 1,348 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Getting back to not only a respectable mileage, but back into the 70s. Definitely a big jump from 53 but surprisingly didn't feel too bad other than the weekend runs. Also best week in quite a while for my achilles, not 100% yet but haven't had pain in a while and only have the occasional mild soreness. Fun to run with some guys I haven't in a while.
 |
| Not too surprised to be first for distance on the WTAC leaderboard (the only one who would likely challenge me would be Jonny), but not sure if I've ever been first for total running time or climbing before. Total running time seems kind of insane, but makes sense considering I did three pretty slow trail runs. Took much more time to run 72 miles this week than when I did it in January. |
Weekly Lowlight: It was a pretty solid week and there wasn't anything too bad, but I definitely felt much worse than usual on the weekend despite feeling fine all week. Need to work on endurance and proper fueling/sleep.
Movies Watched: 6 Underground, *Yesterday, Marriage Story, *Tower Heist, A History of Violence, Angry Birds 2, Eastern Promises, El Camino, *Gone Baby Gone, *The Departed, *The Hateful Eight, *Blood Diamond
Best Movie Watched: The Departed
*Indicates rewatch
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Weekly Log: December 9 to 15
Tough academic week with a lot of finals, but wrapping up the semester Friday (a little earlier than some other UNH guys who have to spend the weekend) and heading home for winter break. Achilles still sore but on an improving path which allowed me to get out of my low mileage funk (I know 50s isnt high mileage but its an improvement).
Monday: 0
Continuing to take off days so I won't injure my achilles. Didn't feel necessary but just being cautious. Also had a busy schedule for once that limited my running time (I still could have easily gotten in a run, it just would have been a little later than normal and probably solo). Looking to break the 6 day running curse (as in I can't run all 7 days) next week though.
Tuesday: 10 Miles
Long snell with Andrew. Seemed a little long for me but Andrew was going longer and I didn't mind too much. Mild discomfort in the achilles but nothing too bad. Nice easy pace (7:03) kept it comfortable. Two unexpected things in the run: 1) it was really warm, 50s so a pleasant surprise to run in short sleeves and shorts, and 2) having to poop suddenly around mile 6.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill group of 5. Cruised comfortably (6:50s?) through 4ish miles then the leaders picked it up the last couple with the last 3 sub 6:20. Since I've been running so slow this felt fast but surprisingly still comfortable.
Thursday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill again. Mildly annoying to do this route 3 times in 5 days, but I guess I can't really argue when I was running with a new group every time. Unlike Wednesday, we got moving after just a mile and were sub 6:30 pace with a low 6 split by mile 6. I felt much more uncomfortable during this run and dropped off after 6 (they only continued to pick it up after, so I'm glad I made that move). All the guys on this run (except me) were pretty fast and fit, so not surprised we went so fast.
Friday: 8 Miles
Minuteman on the way home, OAB in two directions (technically a lollipop in once) on the awesome battle road. Nice historical scenery and a great manicured gravel path for any runs (easy, workout, moderate, etc.). The temperature was around 40 so great weather as well. Sections with a lot of snow slowed the pace down but I didn't mind and it was even somewhat fun to run on the snow (only bad section was an icy tunnel with limited vision).
Saturday: 8 Miles
Afternoon carter with Dad and Brady. Usual perimeter loop I do plus an extra grassland loop to get 7. Trails were a bit wet but otherwise very enjoyable. First true trail run since spraining my ankle in August, decided just to start running trails again and all went well. While mostly non-technical there are a couple rocky sections in there. No ankle issues whatsoever but my trail running ability is definitely lacking right now. Ankle still isn't 100% but I think I'm fine to run trails again.
Sunday: 10 Miles
Point to point run covering the entirety of the South County (William C O'Neill) bike path plus a few miles on Narragansett roads at the end. Coasted in the 6:50s. Felt good other than some heavier than expected legs. Picked it up a lot the last two miles with 5:51/5:14 splits. 5:51 felt very comfortable, then I continued to pick it up and was pretty much all-out the last half mile but still nice to see that split. Achilles felt good.
Weekly Total: 53 Miles
YTD Total: 1,276 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Getting in 50+ was nice, glad to have 8 be my minimum. Achilles was not 100% for sure and tue-friday there was some discomfort. It felt better on the weekend. Overall just a solid week, enjoyed and felt good most runs while feeling like my injuries are heading in a good direction. Run-wise, minuteman in the snow was really fun and it felt good to run a couple sub 6 miles sunday after some very easy weeks.
Weekly Lowlight: Nothing too bad, but Achilles was hurting more than usual pre-run Friday. Took care of it with some icing but momentarily thought it might mean a day off.
Planning on running 7 days next week. Not going to jump into workouts just yet as I'm still somewhat injured despite the improvement but would like to get to 60+ with a real long on the weekend.
Movies Watched (time to bring this back): Logan Lucky, The Grey, In the Heart of the Sea, Bumblebee
All rewatches, will be watching more movies in the future.
Monday: 0
Continuing to take off days so I won't injure my achilles. Didn't feel necessary but just being cautious. Also had a busy schedule for once that limited my running time (I still could have easily gotten in a run, it just would have been a little later than normal and probably solo). Looking to break the 6 day running curse (as in I can't run all 7 days) next week though.
Tuesday: 10 Miles
Long snell with Andrew. Seemed a little long for me but Andrew was going longer and I didn't mind too much. Mild discomfort in the achilles but nothing too bad. Nice easy pace (7:03) kept it comfortable. Two unexpected things in the run: 1) it was really warm, 50s so a pleasant surprise to run in short sleeves and shorts, and 2) having to poop suddenly around mile 6.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill group of 5. Cruised comfortably (6:50s?) through 4ish miles then the leaders picked it up the last couple with the last 3 sub 6:20. Since I've been running so slow this felt fast but surprisingly still comfortable.
Thursday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill again. Mildly annoying to do this route 3 times in 5 days, but I guess I can't really argue when I was running with a new group every time. Unlike Wednesday, we got moving after just a mile and were sub 6:30 pace with a low 6 split by mile 6. I felt much more uncomfortable during this run and dropped off after 6 (they only continued to pick it up after, so I'm glad I made that move). All the guys on this run (except me) were pretty fast and fit, so not surprised we went so fast.
Friday: 8 Miles
Minuteman on the way home, OAB in two directions (technically a lollipop in once) on the awesome battle road. Nice historical scenery and a great manicured gravel path for any runs (easy, workout, moderate, etc.). The temperature was around 40 so great weather as well. Sections with a lot of snow slowed the pace down but I didn't mind and it was even somewhat fun to run on the snow (only bad section was an icy tunnel with limited vision).
Saturday: 8 Miles
Afternoon carter with Dad and Brady. Usual perimeter loop I do plus an extra grassland loop to get 7. Trails were a bit wet but otherwise very enjoyable. First true trail run since spraining my ankle in August, decided just to start running trails again and all went well. While mostly non-technical there are a couple rocky sections in there. No ankle issues whatsoever but my trail running ability is definitely lacking right now. Ankle still isn't 100% but I think I'm fine to run trails again.
Sunday: 10 Miles
Point to point run covering the entirety of the South County (William C O'Neill) bike path plus a few miles on Narragansett roads at the end. Coasted in the 6:50s. Felt good other than some heavier than expected legs. Picked it up a lot the last two miles with 5:51/5:14 splits. 5:51 felt very comfortable, then I continued to pick it up and was pretty much all-out the last half mile but still nice to see that split. Achilles felt good.
Weekly Total: 53 Miles
YTD Total: 1,276 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Getting in 50+ was nice, glad to have 8 be my minimum. Achilles was not 100% for sure and tue-friday there was some discomfort. It felt better on the weekend. Overall just a solid week, enjoyed and felt good most runs while feeling like my injuries are heading in a good direction. Run-wise, minuteman in the snow was really fun and it felt good to run a couple sub 6 miles sunday after some very easy weeks.
Weekly Lowlight: Nothing too bad, but Achilles was hurting more than usual pre-run Friday. Took care of it with some icing but momentarily thought it might mean a day off.
Planning on running 7 days next week. Not going to jump into workouts just yet as I'm still somewhat injured despite the improvement but would like to get to 60+ with a real long on the weekend.
Movies Watched (time to bring this back): Logan Lucky, The Grey, In the Heart of the Sea, Bumblebee
All rewatches, will be watching more movies in the future.
Monday, December 9, 2019
Weekly Log: December 2 to 8
Slight improvement and generally a better week than last. Still not where I need or want to be at all but 39 miles is way better than 0.
Monday: 0
Off. Sick of taking Monday's off but not exactly in a position to run 7 days a week.
Tuesday: 4 Miles
Finally told Coach about my injury so he had me run less than usual. Wanted to do more than 4 but averaging 10 miles a day probably isn't the best move either. Easy run on quiet campus roads during the snow fall. Pretty fun. Achilles felt okay, annoying but not terrible.
Wednesday: 5 Miles
Went with a couple guys doing 5, fortunately they went easy. Achilles felt fine through 3 then was definitely hurting the last 2.
Thursday: 7 Miles
Another snow run, this time with a bunch of guys. Glad to do a little more and achilles today finally felt fine. Pace was pretty fast in the last few miles.
Friday: 7 Miles
Very snowy run with a couple other guys. Felt good, no achilles issues again.
Saturday: 7 Miles
A weird run. Ran with Mike who was apparently feeling awful. We ran near 8 minute pace for 3 miles with a few breaks then picked it up a little after that. I broke off after 4 to do an add-on and despite feeling fine, I felt terrible for the rest of the run and my achilles started hurting badly. After standing around at the the track meet all day, my achilles felt fine.
Sunday: 8 Miles
Ran with Andrew on a easy pudding hill. Achilles felt mostly fine, only mild discomfort at the end.
Weekly Total: 39 Miles
YTD Total: 1,223 Miles
Weekly Highlight: N/A
Weekly Lowlight: Still feeling some lingering achilles pain, although glad to have it in 2 of 6 runs this week instead of 4 of 5 runs last week. I'm glad that A) I was able to run this week and B) the mileage was spread out better.
I definitely feel that my achilles felt much better overall this week than last. Aside from pain improving on runs, walking, which was extremely painful two weeks ago generally feels normal and at the worst, uncomfortable. I also feel like my achilles feels significantly less sore to the touch than previously. It's annoying how inconsistent this is as I can feel like there's been a lot of improvement only to have a really painful run follow, but I'll definitely take occasional pain over worsening pain every run (like the last two weeks). Hopefully this week was a sign of things to follow and not just a randomly better week.
Anyway, with this setback it's hard to imagine that I'll be in anything but terrible shape coming from winter break so unless something changes very quickly, I more than likely will skip indoor with the earliest possible race in February or so. If the rest of december goes really well injury-wise, I could slowly jump in training early enough to save the season but it's hard to know right know. I'd at least like to get in a few hard efforts in the form of tempos or progressive runs through the winter. Hoping for around 50 miles (all easy) next week on 6 days.
Monday: 0
Off. Sick of taking Monday's off but not exactly in a position to run 7 days a week.
Tuesday: 4 Miles
Finally told Coach about my injury so he had me run less than usual. Wanted to do more than 4 but averaging 10 miles a day probably isn't the best move either. Easy run on quiet campus roads during the snow fall. Pretty fun. Achilles felt okay, annoying but not terrible.
Wednesday: 5 Miles
Went with a couple guys doing 5, fortunately they went easy. Achilles felt fine through 3 then was definitely hurting the last 2.
Thursday: 7 Miles
Another snow run, this time with a bunch of guys. Glad to do a little more and achilles today finally felt fine. Pace was pretty fast in the last few miles.
Friday: 7 Miles
Very snowy run with a couple other guys. Felt good, no achilles issues again.
Saturday: 7 Miles
A weird run. Ran with Mike who was apparently feeling awful. We ran near 8 minute pace for 3 miles with a few breaks then picked it up a little after that. I broke off after 4 to do an add-on and despite feeling fine, I felt terrible for the rest of the run and my achilles started hurting badly. After standing around at the the track meet all day, my achilles felt fine.
Sunday: 8 Miles
Ran with Andrew on a easy pudding hill. Achilles felt mostly fine, only mild discomfort at the end.
Weekly Total: 39 Miles
YTD Total: 1,223 Miles
Weekly Highlight: N/A
Weekly Lowlight: Still feeling some lingering achilles pain, although glad to have it in 2 of 6 runs this week instead of 4 of 5 runs last week. I'm glad that A) I was able to run this week and B) the mileage was spread out better.
I definitely feel that my achilles felt much better overall this week than last. Aside from pain improving on runs, walking, which was extremely painful two weeks ago generally feels normal and at the worst, uncomfortable. I also feel like my achilles feels significantly less sore to the touch than previously. It's annoying how inconsistent this is as I can feel like there's been a lot of improvement only to have a really painful run follow, but I'll definitely take occasional pain over worsening pain every run (like the last two weeks). Hopefully this week was a sign of things to follow and not just a randomly better week.
Anyway, with this setback it's hard to imagine that I'll be in anything but terrible shape coming from winter break so unless something changes very quickly, I more than likely will skip indoor with the earliest possible race in February or so. If the rest of december goes really well injury-wise, I could slowly jump in training early enough to save the season but it's hard to know right know. I'd at least like to get in a few hard efforts in the form of tempos or progressive runs through the winter. Hoping for around 50 miles (all easy) next week on 6 days.
Weekly Log: November 25 to December 1
Unfortunately, a big decrease in mileage due to my lingering Achilles problems. Disappointed to spend most of the week at home with increased free time and running freedom but not do a whole lot with it. Still got a few solid runs.
Monday: 0
Off
Tuesday: 7 Miles
Hampton Beach roads in the dark with Dad. Usually enjoy exploring new places, but just didn't feel like this was a great route. Running the dark didn't help either, but not much choice there. Achilles hurt badly from the start and I was forced to cut short. Not a good run.
Wednesday: 3 Miles
Did part of Dad's shakeout in Weekapaug but again dropped off early. Felt generally uncoordinated/heavy.
Thursday: 0
Unexpected off day. Definitely a little disappointed to be not running at all instead of racing a turkey trot.
Friday: 11 Miles
Bluff Point fire roads + a loop in Haley. Achilles felt mostly fine (almost certainly from the nonexistent early week mileage) and only had minor discomfort at the end. Felt great overall and definitely enjoyed this one.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Ninigret. The wildlife refuge was still closed, so we stuck to the park which got a bit boring. Running the park paths along with a loop in the refuge makes for a great run, but having to overlap in the park isn't quite the same. Cut down again, this time more due to boredom although my achilles definitely felt a lot worse.
Sunday: 12 Miles
Forced myself to get out there rather than running 28 miles on the week and pretty much 4 days off. Was so painful in the first three miles I nearly turned back but slowly got better and I felt fine the entire second half. Longer run through local roads, including shore road and atlantic.
Weekly Total: 40 Miles
YTD Mileage: 1,184 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Enjoyed a return to bluff. Haven't had a true run in there in a quite a while.
Weekly Lowlight: Running low mileage due to injury and being in pain most runs. On the bright side, I remember think I might take the following week entirely off and I didn't have to do that (writing this a week later).
Monday: 0
Off
Tuesday: 7 Miles
Hampton Beach roads in the dark with Dad. Usually enjoy exploring new places, but just didn't feel like this was a great route. Running the dark didn't help either, but not much choice there. Achilles hurt badly from the start and I was forced to cut short. Not a good run.
Wednesday: 3 Miles
Did part of Dad's shakeout in Weekapaug but again dropped off early. Felt generally uncoordinated/heavy.
Thursday: 0
Unexpected off day. Definitely a little disappointed to be not running at all instead of racing a turkey trot.
Friday: 11 Miles
Bluff Point fire roads + a loop in Haley. Achilles felt mostly fine (almost certainly from the nonexistent early week mileage) and only had minor discomfort at the end. Felt great overall and definitely enjoyed this one.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Ninigret. The wildlife refuge was still closed, so we stuck to the park which got a bit boring. Running the park paths along with a loop in the refuge makes for a great run, but having to overlap in the park isn't quite the same. Cut down again, this time more due to boredom although my achilles definitely felt a lot worse.
Sunday: 12 Miles
Forced myself to get out there rather than running 28 miles on the week and pretty much 4 days off. Was so painful in the first three miles I nearly turned back but slowly got better and I felt fine the entire second half. Longer run through local roads, including shore road and atlantic.
Weekly Total: 40 Miles
YTD Mileage: 1,184 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Enjoyed a return to bluff. Haven't had a true run in there in a quite a while.
Weekly Lowlight: Running low mileage due to injury and being in pain most runs. On the bright side, I remember think I might take the following week entirely off and I didn't have to do that (writing this a week later).
Monday, November 25, 2019
Extra Tender Achilles- Weekly Log: November 18 to 24
Some confirmations that I'm not in shape and that I still have injuries to deal with.
Monday: 0
Tuesday: 9 Miles
Solo morning on Jenkins. Ran pretty slow and felt tight for 3ish miles then put in a surge, started running a lot faster and somehow started to feel much better. Got in the last few sub-6:20 and was mostly cruising then. Got pretty tired towards the end.
Wednesday: 11 Miles
Bennett into a gables w/Aiden. Everyone else was doing speedwork but we had a tempo. Probably would avoid workouts but it didn't seem too hard. We warmed up for 4 miles then ran a 20 minute tempo at target 5:40. I felt pretty okay for a mile in 5:35 then felt really terrible after that. Felt really weak, a little tight and having the route be somewhat hilly didn't help. Stayed in it mile 2 in another 5:35 but completely died on a long uphill in the third mile as Aiden dropped me. Was considering just dropping off and calling it, but the downhills after the up helped and I trotted along. 5:59 for mile 3 (I pushed the end of it so I wouldn't be over 6) then 5:40 for half a mile. About 5:42 average, so overall a solid effort even though I felt terrible and mile 3 was so slow.
Thursday: 8 Miles
Morning run with Andrew, glad to have company instead of being solo. Achilles extremely sore, a pattern that would continue to the rest of the week. Very uncomfortable run, felt tight and tired and had some moments where my Achilles would start to burn.
Friday: 11 Miles
Wednesday Hill with Andrew and Aiden. Achilles felt fine throughout despite being painful walking around before the run. They kept it pretty easy but I felt good and wanted to go faster (I didn't). 10x160 on the track afterwards.
Saturday: 10 Miles
Pudding hill with a bunch of guys and then added on with Dylan to get 10. Pretty okay run, felt neither good nor bad and achilles was uncomfortable but not painful.
Sunday: 14 Miles
Long snell with a group of guys: dylan, andrew, slants, aiden. Broke off after 8 to add on a pudding hill with Aiden. Felt okay, legs tired towards the end but pace was slow, effort light. Glad to get 14 in, longest run since January and actually only my 5th time running 14+. Hope to keep the long runs consistent and do them every Sunday.
Weekly Total: 63
YTD Total: 1,144 Miles
Weekly Highlight: The mileage. 63 miles in 6 days is pretty good, and I'm loving doing 10-11 for just regular runs instead of only on a weekend. I love running higher mileage and am glad to get close to some of my higher weeks.
Weekly Lowlight: The achilles (both of them). Still really injured and can't walk without pain. The friction between the hard end of a shoe and my tender achilles is so uncomfortable. I'm glad I still got through it, but I don't want to run with pain and discomfort, which happened most days this week. I'm also sick of having to take off days to help my injury rather than reserving them for occasional rest days. Additionally, the combination of this achilles injury and my total lack of fitness demonstrated by the tempo has pushed my first race back a while and my goals of getting in a solid Manchester road race has been wiped.
Monday: 0
Tuesday: 9 Miles
Solo morning on Jenkins. Ran pretty slow and felt tight for 3ish miles then put in a surge, started running a lot faster and somehow started to feel much better. Got in the last few sub-6:20 and was mostly cruising then. Got pretty tired towards the end.
Wednesday: 11 Miles
Bennett into a gables w/Aiden. Everyone else was doing speedwork but we had a tempo. Probably would avoid workouts but it didn't seem too hard. We warmed up for 4 miles then ran a 20 minute tempo at target 5:40. I felt pretty okay for a mile in 5:35 then felt really terrible after that. Felt really weak, a little tight and having the route be somewhat hilly didn't help. Stayed in it mile 2 in another 5:35 but completely died on a long uphill in the third mile as Aiden dropped me. Was considering just dropping off and calling it, but the downhills after the up helped and I trotted along. 5:59 for mile 3 (I pushed the end of it so I wouldn't be over 6) then 5:40 for half a mile. About 5:42 average, so overall a solid effort even though I felt terrible and mile 3 was so slow.
Thursday: 8 Miles
Morning run with Andrew, glad to have company instead of being solo. Achilles extremely sore, a pattern that would continue to the rest of the week. Very uncomfortable run, felt tight and tired and had some moments where my Achilles would start to burn.
Friday: 11 Miles
Wednesday Hill with Andrew and Aiden. Achilles felt fine throughout despite being painful walking around before the run. They kept it pretty easy but I felt good and wanted to go faster (I didn't). 10x160 on the track afterwards.
Saturday: 10 Miles
Pudding hill with a bunch of guys and then added on with Dylan to get 10. Pretty okay run, felt neither good nor bad and achilles was uncomfortable but not painful.
Sunday: 14 Miles
Long snell with a group of guys: dylan, andrew, slants, aiden. Broke off after 8 to add on a pudding hill with Aiden. Felt okay, legs tired towards the end but pace was slow, effort light. Glad to get 14 in, longest run since January and actually only my 5th time running 14+. Hope to keep the long runs consistent and do them every Sunday.
Weekly Total: 63
YTD Total: 1,144 Miles
Weekly Highlight: The mileage. 63 miles in 6 days is pretty good, and I'm loving doing 10-11 for just regular runs instead of only on a weekend. I love running higher mileage and am glad to get close to some of my higher weeks.
Weekly Lowlight: The achilles (both of them). Still really injured and can't walk without pain. The friction between the hard end of a shoe and my tender achilles is so uncomfortable. I'm glad I still got through it, but I don't want to run with pain and discomfort, which happened most days this week. I'm also sick of having to take off days to help my injury rather than reserving them for occasional rest days. Additionally, the combination of this achilles injury and my total lack of fitness demonstrated by the tempo has pushed my first race back a while and my goals of getting in a solid Manchester road race has been wiped.
Weekly Log: November 11 to 17
Continuing to try to build mileage, get healthy and get in shape.
Monday: 8 Miles
Mystic run with Dad, mostly grass trails. I originally wanted to do a Sakkonet Greenway LR but after having a really tough time sleeping with body aches, shivering and sweating, I bailed on this. Nearly just bagged the entire run but felt slightly better after ibuprofen and got out there. Felt unsurprisingly pretty weak yet still way better than expected. 5ish miles of grass trails, I honestly hated it as the route felt extremely uncoordinated and every time we encountered uneven terrain I felt anxiety regarding my ankle. Genuinely unsure when/how to get back to trail running but I definitely did not feel comfortable out there on this one. We added on 3 miles on the road after, the pace increased somehow and I got dropped pretty hard on a ridiculously fast downhill mile.
Tuesday: 8 Miles
Jenkins w/some adding on to get 8 w/Tyler McLaughlin. Was expecting to run with a bunch of guys but for some reason Coach had me go just with Tyler. We went pretty fast (sub-6:30) and it was pretty uncomfortable as I felt really tight. Brutally cold headwind the first two miles.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Pretty cold day as the real feel was 11 but the wind was much better so I felt fine. First four with some guys, then they broke off as I went a little longer. Felt better than Tuesday.
Thursday: 10 Miles
Wanted to do a longer run but had planned to do some speedwork with a teammate Friday, so hoping to go easy. Literally everyone else was doing a fartlek, so I decided I'd rather do it then run alone. Fast warmup at 6:30 pace had me feeling really tight and felt similar in the workout. The workout wasn't especially difficult but I felt increasingly tighter which made it pretty unpleasant for me. Did a 30s on/60s off for 4ish miles. Felt more comfortable on the cooldown but right achilles (the one I injured in the summer) was feeling weak and tight and I was somewhat concerned I might tear/reinjure it at any point. Fortunately, I finished out the run just fine but a pretty terrible run overall. Difficulty: 4/5.
Friday: 0 Miles
Really disappointed to take a 0 and have to bail on a workout I was excited for but achilles felt beat up and I didn't want to take a risk with it.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill with Andrew, we went really slow which I think was good for me. About 7:20 average, felt faster than that. I felt tight but my achilles felt fine after a very tight/uncomfortable 2 miles.
Sunday: 12 Miles
J-Lab with Andrew and Aiden, achilles felt similar to saturday but discomfort lasted longer. Felt tight again, but glad to complete 12 miles.
Weekly Total: 55 Miles
YTD Total: 1,079 Miles
Weekly Highlight: 55 miles in 6 days isn't too bad and a good sign in building mileage. Would like to continue a minimum of 8 miles per day with some longer midweek runs in there.
Weekly Lowlight: Thursday's run was just a real disaster. I don't think the workout was too much for me, but the combination of me being tight and doing the workout didn't go. It's pretty annoying to finally be back in the 50s and yet still have discomfort and pain popping up in unexpected areas.
Monday: 8 Miles
Mystic run with Dad, mostly grass trails. I originally wanted to do a Sakkonet Greenway LR but after having a really tough time sleeping with body aches, shivering and sweating, I bailed on this. Nearly just bagged the entire run but felt slightly better after ibuprofen and got out there. Felt unsurprisingly pretty weak yet still way better than expected. 5ish miles of grass trails, I honestly hated it as the route felt extremely uncoordinated and every time we encountered uneven terrain I felt anxiety regarding my ankle. Genuinely unsure when/how to get back to trail running but I definitely did not feel comfortable out there on this one. We added on 3 miles on the road after, the pace increased somehow and I got dropped pretty hard on a ridiculously fast downhill mile.
Tuesday: 8 Miles
Jenkins w/some adding on to get 8 w/Tyler McLaughlin. Was expecting to run with a bunch of guys but for some reason Coach had me go just with Tyler. We went pretty fast (sub-6:30) and it was pretty uncomfortable as I felt really tight. Brutally cold headwind the first two miles.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Pretty cold day as the real feel was 11 but the wind was much better so I felt fine. First four with some guys, then they broke off as I went a little longer. Felt better than Tuesday.
Thursday: 10 Miles
Wanted to do a longer run but had planned to do some speedwork with a teammate Friday, so hoping to go easy. Literally everyone else was doing a fartlek, so I decided I'd rather do it then run alone. Fast warmup at 6:30 pace had me feeling really tight and felt similar in the workout. The workout wasn't especially difficult but I felt increasingly tighter which made it pretty unpleasant for me. Did a 30s on/60s off for 4ish miles. Felt more comfortable on the cooldown but right achilles (the one I injured in the summer) was feeling weak and tight and I was somewhat concerned I might tear/reinjure it at any point. Fortunately, I finished out the run just fine but a pretty terrible run overall. Difficulty: 4/5.
Friday: 0 Miles
Really disappointed to take a 0 and have to bail on a workout I was excited for but achilles felt beat up and I didn't want to take a risk with it.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill with Andrew, we went really slow which I think was good for me. About 7:20 average, felt faster than that. I felt tight but my achilles felt fine after a very tight/uncomfortable 2 miles.
Sunday: 12 Miles
J-Lab with Andrew and Aiden, achilles felt similar to saturday but discomfort lasted longer. Felt tight again, but glad to complete 12 miles.
Weekly Total: 55 Miles
YTD Total: 1,079 Miles
Weekly Highlight: 55 miles in 6 days isn't too bad and a good sign in building mileage. Would like to continue a minimum of 8 miles per day with some longer midweek runs in there.
Weekly Lowlight: Thursday's run was just a real disaster. I don't think the workout was too much for me, but the combination of me being tight and doing the workout didn't go. It's pretty annoying to finally be back in the 50s and yet still have discomfort and pain popping up in unexpected areas.
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Weekly Log: November 4 to 10
Trying to capitalize off a good last week and begin to incorporate workouts in my routine.
Monday: 0
Tuesday: 8 Miles
Jenkins w/o adding on to get 8 (so actually 7.5). Other than I ran solo in the morning, I don't remember this run at all.
Wednesday: 6 Miles
Coach had me jump into the workout the XC guys were doing. They were doing 3x1600 @5:00/4:55/4:50 on 200m jog/walk rest. I initially thought doing even part of this (I was to do through 1200) was way too tough but it ended up being just right. Ran 1200/800/1200, pace felt fast and somewhat of a shock but I held on. 3:47/2:29/3:41. They were pretty difficult but never brutal. 3 mile faculty cooldown, only warmed up for .7 miles or so, not much mileage overall on the day. Difficulty: 3/5.
Thursday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill solo. Don't remember this run at all either.
Friday: 8 Miles
W/Dad from the Mystic Y after taking the train home. Didn't realize how dark it would be so had to wear a headlamp. Did a pretty usual Hewitt-Mistuxet-Cove loop (return rt 1) and felt surprisingly great despite pretty much skipping lunch (due to class/train schedule). Real feel was around 20, much lower than usual but felt fine except for waiting for satellites to load.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Ninigret in the morning w/Dad. Pretty cold out, around 18 or so at the start. Bundled up for this one and felt much tighter than Friday. Had considered doing 10 but bailed on that since the wildlife refuge was closed and doing the same loops over and over again got pretty boring.
Sunday: 9 Miles
Headed over to the Avondale 5K (technically Setting the Pace for Conservation), a race that I ran up until I had conflicts with HS meets, culminating in a win and PR in 2014. It's a fun local race with a nice course and the specific conditions of my training (not racing cross but starting to take on harder efforts) allowed me to return this year. Of course, I'm in absolutely terrible shape and would be nowhere near my PR, but it'd be fun to get in a hard workout regardless. My plan was just to run an aggressive tempo between 5:20-5:40 depending on how it felt, but not to race it. When I learned Chris Garvin was racing, I was tempted just to race it but fortunately was able to resist.
I secretly wanted to break Tom's CR of 16:44 from 2012 and kept that in the back of my head. About 3 mile WU. Felt cold waiting around but the warm-up truly warmed me up. When the gun went off I was instantly in 5th or so and felt that most people ahead of me were going out really fast. Then it occurred to me that this was only because they were racing while I was trying to keep an even pace. I passed Dad about halfway through the loop and Tom towards the end, who stayed close for a little bit. Shortly after leaving the preserve, the pace began to feel pretty difficult and I pretty much grinded out the rest of the race. Things were mostly uneventful after that as I slowly opened my lead on Tom while Chris opened up an already large gap due to a strong 3rd mile. I was pushing pretty hard yet running very consistent splits until getting to the preserve. My body/soul pretty much gave out in the last quarter mile, the only part of the race where I felt terrible. I also suddenly had to use the bathroom right before the end which prevented a kick and actually slowed me down a little. 5:19/5:18/5:16 (last .1 the slowest at 5:30 pace).
I finished 2nd in 16:41, so I was happy to break Tom's old CR. Chris really destroyed it running 16:06, and Tom wasn't far back in 17:08. The effort felt nearly all-out. I won't call it a race since I wasn't intending on racing it and I think I could taken 5-15 seconds off by going a little harder. I'm disappointed it felt so difficult especially when I wasn't intending it to be too close to race pace. It just shows that I have a lot of work to do, but hopefully I'll be in sub-9 and sub-16 shape soon enough.
I compiled a list of sub-19 performances, so see below for a top performance lists and list of winners.
Weekly Total: 47 Miles
YTD Total: 1,024 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Mostly continued the success of last week and got in my first workouts since March. I'm obviously not in great shape, but my running seems to be going in a positive direction.
Weekly Lowlight: Starting to feel the effects of harder workouts, including feeling tighter than I'd like on certain runs.
Monday: 0
Tuesday: 8 Miles
Jenkins w/o adding on to get 8 (so actually 7.5). Other than I ran solo in the morning, I don't remember this run at all.
Wednesday: 6 Miles
Coach had me jump into the workout the XC guys were doing. They were doing 3x1600 @5:00/4:55/4:50 on 200m jog/walk rest. I initially thought doing even part of this (I was to do through 1200) was way too tough but it ended up being just right. Ran 1200/800/1200, pace felt fast and somewhat of a shock but I held on. 3:47/2:29/3:41. They were pretty difficult but never brutal. 3 mile faculty cooldown, only warmed up for .7 miles or so, not much mileage overall on the day. Difficulty: 3/5.
Thursday: 8 Miles
Pudding Hill solo. Don't remember this run at all either.
Friday: 8 Miles
W/Dad from the Mystic Y after taking the train home. Didn't realize how dark it would be so had to wear a headlamp. Did a pretty usual Hewitt-Mistuxet-Cove loop (return rt 1) and felt surprisingly great despite pretty much skipping lunch (due to class/train schedule). Real feel was around 20, much lower than usual but felt fine except for waiting for satellites to load.
Saturday: 8 Miles
Ninigret in the morning w/Dad. Pretty cold out, around 18 or so at the start. Bundled up for this one and felt much tighter than Friday. Had considered doing 10 but bailed on that since the wildlife refuge was closed and doing the same loops over and over again got pretty boring.
Sunday: 9 Miles
Headed over to the Avondale 5K (technically Setting the Pace for Conservation), a race that I ran up until I had conflicts with HS meets, culminating in a win and PR in 2014. It's a fun local race with a nice course and the specific conditions of my training (not racing cross but starting to take on harder efforts) allowed me to return this year. Of course, I'm in absolutely terrible shape and would be nowhere near my PR, but it'd be fun to get in a hard workout regardless. My plan was just to run an aggressive tempo between 5:20-5:40 depending on how it felt, but not to race it. When I learned Chris Garvin was racing, I was tempted just to race it but fortunately was able to resist.
I secretly wanted to break Tom's CR of 16:44 from 2012 and kept that in the back of my head. About 3 mile WU. Felt cold waiting around but the warm-up truly warmed me up. When the gun went off I was instantly in 5th or so and felt that most people ahead of me were going out really fast. Then it occurred to me that this was only because they were racing while I was trying to keep an even pace. I passed Dad about halfway through the loop and Tom towards the end, who stayed close for a little bit. Shortly after leaving the preserve, the pace began to feel pretty difficult and I pretty much grinded out the rest of the race. Things were mostly uneventful after that as I slowly opened my lead on Tom while Chris opened up an already large gap due to a strong 3rd mile. I was pushing pretty hard yet running very consistent splits until getting to the preserve. My body/soul pretty much gave out in the last quarter mile, the only part of the race where I felt terrible. I also suddenly had to use the bathroom right before the end which prevented a kick and actually slowed me down a little. 5:19/5:18/5:16 (last .1 the slowest at 5:30 pace).
I finished 2nd in 16:41, so I was happy to break Tom's old CR. Chris really destroyed it running 16:06, and Tom wasn't far back in 17:08. The effort felt nearly all-out. I won't call it a race since I wasn't intending on racing it and I think I could taken 5-15 seconds off by going a little harder. I'm disappointed it felt so difficult especially when I wasn't intending it to be too close to race pace. It just shows that I have a lot of work to do, but hopefully I'll be in sub-9 and sub-16 shape soon enough.
I compiled a list of sub-19 performances, so see below for a top performance lists and list of winners.
 |
| Avondale all-time performance list (w/repeats) |
 |
| Avondale all time performance list (w/o repeats) |
 |
| Avondale Winners (2012-2019) |
Weekly Total: 47 Miles
YTD Total: 1,024 Miles
Weekly Highlight: Mostly continued the success of last week and got in my first workouts since March. I'm obviously not in great shape, but my running seems to be going in a positive direction.
Weekly Lowlight: Starting to feel the effects of harder workouts, including feeling tighter than I'd like on certain runs.
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Weekly Log: October 27 to November 3 (w/Injury Recap)
Been a long time since I posted a weekly log, going through injury this Spring and Fall. I started to write them in April when I thought I was on the road to recovery, but due to repeated failures I never wrote anymore. Trying to return has been a scary process. It seems so simple- take the time off needed to recover then come back slowly. Yet I tried this many times and every time I came back, I either had to back way off because of shin pain or badly injured another body part (Achilles, Ankle). This return in school had been no different, until finally this week the pain mostly went away and I was not only able to enjoy runs, but to get over 50 miles without any issues. The combination of rolling my shin muscles and icing post-runs has proved to be a winning one, and based on how good this week was, I am confident I can continue to build mileage and return to regular training from here on out. It took longer than I ever could have imagined (7 months) but I truly feel I am back now. There's a chance I could screw up and re-injure something but I'm going to try hard to avoid that.
To recap since my last real week of mileage (March 18-24), here's a complete timeline from injury to now (w/weekly mileage). This is a pretty lengthy write-up so feel free to scroll to the bottom if you just wanted to see the weekly log (which is brief).
End of March
After feeling sick and out-of-shape for the majority of the month, I was starting to feel a lot stronger on runs and felt I was getting into shape. We did a lot of hard workouts the first week back (hills monday, tempo tuesday, track intervals thursday and sunday). Normally, this would just be a tough week but it ended up taking a toll on me because I was sick/out of shape and the guys ran the easy runs way too hard so I never properly recovered. This was the last week I ran over 30 miles until recently.
The following week, I had planned to take Monday off as last week had been really tough, it had been a while since I had taken a day off and Monday is usually an easy (skippable) day anyway. It ended up being a really nice day and a lot of the distance guys were doing a longer run, so I decided tag along and push back my off day a week. This was the first run where I felt the injury. We ran 11 miles at 6:30 and while I felt very comfortable, I had a nagging discomfort in my shin the entire time. It didn't seem like a huge deal, so I was just hoping it would go away soon. The next day was 9 miles, at a fast 6:22 (not comfortable) and my shin hurt quite a bit. The increase in pain was alarming and I made sure to ice well post-run. Woke up the next day with even more shin pain and knew it was time to take a few days off. Shin hardly improved so I ended up taking Wednesday-Saturday off and going out for an easy 3 Sunday which felt pretty terrible. Attempt #1 fail.
It's pretty clear I got injured because of a really hard week when I simply wasn't ready for it. But my shin felt fine all week, and it makes me wonder- would I be injured if I had taken that Monday instead of running 11 miles? Would I be injured if I had iced Monday instead of Tuesday? Would I be injured if I took Tuesday off? It's hard to answer these questions because I have no idea, but I think Monday did the damage and taking it off would have avoided that.
March 25-31: 24 miles
April
April was a month where I constantly pondered the same questions. When can I start running again? How slow will I have to start up? Is my outdoor season salvageable? I actually did a fairly decent job of cross training. I say decent because I was on the stationary bike every day somehow doing 45-60 minutes with the occasional pool run of similar length. I realize more of this is required to keep up with the calorie burn of running but its a trade off between how much fitness I want versus how much boredom/suffering I'll put up. I usually not even this disciplined, and I certainly wasn't through the rest of the injury.
Anyway, I took a lot of time off post the 3 mile run (11 days) and began running slowly on the turf. It felt good enough that I slowly increased mileage and moved to the trails the next weeks. Things felt decent for a while but it slowly caught up to me and eventually the shin pain returned. Went too fast on some runs, but it's hard to be disciplined on the flat turf. Attempt #2 fail.
April 1-7: 0 Miles
April 8-14: 9 Miles
April 15-21: 25 Miles
April 22-28: 7 Miles
May
May was a month that only saw me run three times. This was frustrating as I finished out the semester and came home still unable to run in my free time. After 9 days off, I began to run again, this time on the roads because I was so frustrated just doing laps on the turf. Had an okay run then a pretty bad one so shut things down again. Attempt #3 fail. After another 10 days off, I tried running again, this time at home for the summer. Another failure, couldn't even make it 2 miles without pain. Attempt #4 fail. It was around this time that I starting going to physical therapy and started biking. I was pretty lazy on the bike as I basically only did it when I felt I had been lazy. I still got in a couple of decent rides and hikes but injury-wise, this was not going to the right direction.
April 29-May 5: 10 Miles
May 6-May 12: 0 Miles
May 13-May 19: 3 Miles
May 20-May 26: 0 Miles
June
After a lot of days in physical therapy, I was finally cleared to run again (16 days between runs). The big difference this time (besides getting treatment) was wearing stability shoes. They were uncomfortable at first but since then have felt like they helped a lot. I got to slowly come back, all while feeling much better than the prior attempts. Things went very smoothly for a week and felt promising until I injured/pulled my Achilles doing a faster run. There were several aspects of this run that were warning signs (going from 7:30+ easy pace to 6:30, no warm-up) that I overlooked but also frustrating as I was literally just following the plan given to me. Attempt #5 fail. The Achilles injury was really tough as I basically couldn't walk for 3 weeks, let alone think about returning to running. Not being able to run is incredibly frustrating but not being able to walk is pretty much devastating. As an athlete who wants to perform at a high level, it's difficult to be unable to complete the simplest of tasks while others do so with ease (walking, driving, etc.). This was major loss for me as I basically lost all shot at having some decent summer races and hiking would have to be put on a long delay.
May 27- June 2: 3 Miles
June 3-June 9: 10 Miles
June 10-16: 0 Miles
June 17-23: 0 Miles
June 24-30: 0 Miles
July
Towards the end of June, I was finally able to walk and began cross training again. In addition to physical therapy, I was also spending time talking/consulting with a podiatrist. I got a little more into biking than usual and set a PR for longest ride at 33.5, breaking the 30 mile barrier I hadn't done before. The more I biked, however, the more bored of it I became and I ended up only exercising 2-3 times a week. I finally started to run again, and once again, running was encouraging. Lots of days off, but I got up to higher distances (7) pretty quickly and without much pain. My achilles would bother me at the beginning of the runs but overall feel mostly fine. I got in my first hard effort at a Westerly fun run (6:00 pace) feeling pretty good. My shin pain was nonexistent and had almost completely disappeared. I was all set to hit a 30 mile week and officially come back, be ready for cross country, when... my shin was suddenly really painful during a trail run. It wasn't a slight pain that came on slowly but rather a sudden sharp pain that never left and only got worse as I went on. Attempt #6 fail. Since this wasn't a complete blowout injury like my achilles, I could still do exercises just fine and not have to take ridiculously long breaks between runs. I tried to keep it going a couple times but after having pain on easy 3 and 2 miles runs, I knew it was again time to call it.
July 1-7: 0 Miles
July 8-14: 18 Miles
July 15-21: 23 Miles
July 22-28: 3 Miles
August
After further talking to the podiatrist (pretty much done with PT at this point), I began adding in a thick orthotic into my stability shoes. Unlike the stability shoes which I quickly adjusted to and felt comfortable, the orthotics are extremely uncomfortable and I absolutely hate them. I resumed the 3-mile easy run attempts on a family trip to Canada and while the results weren't great, I was finally able to get something consistent going. I was basically tolerating the maximum pain/discomfort allowed to continue but I still felt barely good enough that I could keep going. I got in a couple of decent longer runs (5 and 6) miles that were uncomfortable. Even after a much worse than usual run towards the end where I had a significant cut-down in distance, I still got out there the next day and was feeling great. I sure wasn't going to be fit for XC but could definitely still make something out of the season. And then...during a rainy run in Barn Island, I landed awkwardly on a rock and sprained my ankle badly. The irony of this is that I tried hard to stay on wide non-technical trails and ended up spraining my ankle on pretty much the only (and very brief) section of single-track. I walked a little, attempted to resume running and failed. That was honestly one of the worst/least enjoyable days of my life. I had to walk 3 miles out of there on a badly injured ankle while being absolutely swarmed by mosquitoes and deer flies, constantly enduring bites and hitting myself like a madman. This was right before a work shift and I decided to go anyway (I would have had to call out minutes before starting the shift). Felt okay at first, but pain worsened dramatically throughout the night and had I not caught a break and been able to go home early, I probably would collapsed on the floor at some point. Pain became excruciating and unbearable. It was promising that a doctor said I could be back to running in 1-2 weeks, but he was very wrong. Went back to school not only walking awkwardly but unable to exercise at all. Attempt #7 fail.
July 29-August 4: 5 Miles
August 5-11: 20 Miles
August 12-18: 3 Miles
August 19-25: 0 Miles
August 26-September 1: 0 Miles
September
September was a really tough month as while I had dramatic improvement in my ankle immediately (walking became normal), it was extremely inflexible and took a long time to regain enough flexibility to run. I went pretty hard on the bike for a few weeks, doing 2 45 mile bike rides and exercising most days of the week. I had some unexpected issues with my bikes and due to growing boredom of biking and these issues (a lot of resistance in pedaling), I called it quits for biking on the year. I still did some stationary biking and elliptigo but absolutely hated both and was burning no more than 200 calories from exercise a day. This was definitely a low point, but eventually Coach gave me a bunch of ankle exercises to do and had me run in place on a trampoline. I stuck to this routine daily and in just a few weeks I was running a mile on the turf.
September 2-8: 0 Miles
September 9-15: 0 Miles
September 16-22: 0 Miles
September 23-29: 4 Miles
October
October was finally a return to running and mostly a good one at that. I slowly built mileage, running barefoot miles on the turf and eventually transitioning to the track and roads. This was a long and slow buildup, the slowest/lowest I've ever started and slowest I've built mileage. This was necessary due to my ankle and generally, I was pushing things pretty far as my ankle would bother me just at the end of runs. My ankle issues (and some achilles tightness) went away pretty quickly but the further I went I was presented with a new issue: return of the shin pain. Shin pain was generally pretty bad but I got away with a surprising amount of running despite having a lot of painful runs. I decided to start rolling out my shin out of curiosity this past week and upon feeling much, much better to the point where I forget I'm even injured, I think I'm finally on the path to healthiness. Attempt #8 success (so far).
September 30- October 6: 13 Miles
October 7-13: 22 Miles
October 14-20: 31 Miles
October 21-27: 34 Miles
I'm not completely out the clear yet as my shin still has some discomfort and my ankle is definitely not 100%, but as I said before, this was a big week for me and I definitely feel like I'm getting healthy and able to train again. To see how much this injury affected my mileage wise, see the chart below.
While still far off my March/February (which were somewhat of a tapering month followed by a rebuilding month), October has been well over any other of the injury months. If mileage goes to plan in November, I should at least match my March mileage, if not exceed it (and hopefully match my January mileage in December). I likely won't run more than 1500 miles on the year but even that would be a remarkable turnaround considering I basically did nothing from April-September.
2019 has absolutely been a year of struggles for me and it got me thinking about the mental challenge of coping with an injury. Injury are tough because you're completely removed from the sport and are forced to find tedious ways to come back. But is being unable to run worse than racing consistently terrible or feeling consistently flat during a long training block? For a casual runner the answer is no. But for me, I honestly would have rather been injured during outdoor than race terrible most of the time. I've experienced all three of these now- feeling flat during training, racing terribly and being injured. While being injured is the worst from a trying to stay fit/burn calories perspective, the other two are sometimes harder to deal with. Running is no longer fun when every run is miserable due to extremely tight/heavy/sore legs (or other part) without said problem ever leaving (I know this isn't common but I weirdly experienced this last fall) and it's definitely disappointing to train hard an entire season for a couple goal races and totally bombing them. All three of these are tough (and somewhat interrelated) but my point is there are running-related problems that are just as bad as injury.
On a different note, I injured three different things during this entire block. In the past, I had only had three major injuries- achilles/tibial tendon, back (minor issue but really messed up my season), and a dislocated wrist/broken arm (not running-related but still required time off). I know exactly why I injured each but still am unsure why two of them took so long to resolve (achilles responded pretty normally and was never reinjured while the others did not). It's interesting how the shin injury was by far my biggest ever and generally the reason I didn't run most of the year, yet the least painful. When my shin hurt, I knew it was time to stop running but it generally never got bad and I never had a period of time when I limped or had trouble walking. The achilles, on the other hand was incredibly painful the few days after injury and walking was near impossible. Yet this injury healed the quickest and I had the quickest turnaround to start running again. My ankle was also very painful although nowhere near as bad as the achilles but took much longer to heal. My worst pain of the year was actually getting sick/stomach bug in Florida, however, which hardly affected my running. More pain usually correlates to a worse injury, but its interesting how in my case, it's been the opposite.
While I feel I'm in a pretty good spot now, there are several aspects of these injuries that worry me for the future. I don't know if my shin pain will resurface, but I'm fairly confident that my achilles won't (unless a separate injury). My biggest concern is my sprained ankle. I have yet to return to the trails, and I genuinely don't know what the procedure is on how to start running trails again. While I mostly run roads, I do enjoy my easy days on trails and it'd be depressing if I had to completely give them up for an extended period of time. But between not running trails and respraining my ankle, I'll definitely pick the former. Another problem, if this even is a problem, if that I used stability shoes for the first time this year and now currently am only training in them. Is there a point where I can switch back to neutral shoes or will I simply be running in stability shoes for life? I also don't know whether it's a injury risk to race because I'll be racing in flats/spikes which have minimal cushioning.
Anyway, that's the end of my ramble of thoughts. I hopefully wrapped up my injury-filled year and can now talk about training in the future. Here's my weekly log:
Monday: 6 Miles
Ran 3 with Dylan and Tyler who were also running easy due to injury recovery, then added on 2.5 solo. Tried rolling out my shin pre-run and had virtually shin pain and minimal discomfort, and that trend fortunately has continued since.
Tuesday: 7 Miles
Weak solo morning run. Generally feel a lot worse on morning runs then afternoon because of less fuel and less sleep. This was the case today but got through it without any issues. Shin felt good. Short rose into faculty, a route I definitely like.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Short snell, first proper run with the team since March. Considering I have virtually no fitness right now, I was glad everyone wanted to run easy otherwise I may been dropped or struggled. A ton of guys on this run.
Thursday: 7 Miles
Was considering taking the day off but ran to complete the October distance challenge on strava. Explored a new road. Steady pouring rain the whole. Thursday is another morning run day for me but I felt a lot better than Tuesday, at least energy wise. Tight at the beginning.
Friday: 8 Miles
Pudding hill with a couple of guys, enjoyable run as we kept it easy and I felt really good. Nice weather too.
Saturday: 7 Miles
Did the same route as Tuesday yet felt ready good and progressed from a 6:50 to a 5:50. Encouraging that this felt like a pretty relaxed effort despite running my first sub-6 mile since injury. Had to run solo since everyone else was doing trails but still enjoyable.
Sunday: 11 Miles
Wednesday Hill, first run over 10 miles since injury. Had to go solo since everyone else was running trails (again!) but didn't especially enjoy this one. Felt pretty tight throughout and just wanted the run to be done with. Shin starting to worsen as well.
Weekly Total: 54 Miles
YTD Total: 977 Miles
Weekly Highlight: This was a really great week as I started to feel an improvement in shin pain/discomfort and ran a much higher mileage than any week since March. Definitely a massive step in the right direction, although there's certainly some tests still to come.
Weekly Lowlight: It's hard to have any specific complaints with this week, but I guess I felt a little tighter on certain runs than I would have liked.
To recap since my last real week of mileage (March 18-24), here's a complete timeline from injury to now (w/weekly mileage). This is a pretty lengthy write-up so feel free to scroll to the bottom if you just wanted to see the weekly log (which is brief).
End of March
After feeling sick and out-of-shape for the majority of the month, I was starting to feel a lot stronger on runs and felt I was getting into shape. We did a lot of hard workouts the first week back (hills monday, tempo tuesday, track intervals thursday and sunday). Normally, this would just be a tough week but it ended up taking a toll on me because I was sick/out of shape and the guys ran the easy runs way too hard so I never properly recovered. This was the last week I ran over 30 miles until recently.
The following week, I had planned to take Monday off as last week had been really tough, it had been a while since I had taken a day off and Monday is usually an easy (skippable) day anyway. It ended up being a really nice day and a lot of the distance guys were doing a longer run, so I decided tag along and push back my off day a week. This was the first run where I felt the injury. We ran 11 miles at 6:30 and while I felt very comfortable, I had a nagging discomfort in my shin the entire time. It didn't seem like a huge deal, so I was just hoping it would go away soon. The next day was 9 miles, at a fast 6:22 (not comfortable) and my shin hurt quite a bit. The increase in pain was alarming and I made sure to ice well post-run. Woke up the next day with even more shin pain and knew it was time to take a few days off. Shin hardly improved so I ended up taking Wednesday-Saturday off and going out for an easy 3 Sunday which felt pretty terrible. Attempt #1 fail.
It's pretty clear I got injured because of a really hard week when I simply wasn't ready for it. But my shin felt fine all week, and it makes me wonder- would I be injured if I had taken that Monday instead of running 11 miles? Would I be injured if I had iced Monday instead of Tuesday? Would I be injured if I took Tuesday off? It's hard to answer these questions because I have no idea, but I think Monday did the damage and taking it off would have avoided that.
March 25-31: 24 miles
April
April was a month where I constantly pondered the same questions. When can I start running again? How slow will I have to start up? Is my outdoor season salvageable? I actually did a fairly decent job of cross training. I say decent because I was on the stationary bike every day somehow doing 45-60 minutes with the occasional pool run of similar length. I realize more of this is required to keep up with the calorie burn of running but its a trade off between how much fitness I want versus how much boredom/suffering I'll put up. I usually not even this disciplined, and I certainly wasn't through the rest of the injury.
Anyway, I took a lot of time off post the 3 mile run (11 days) and began running slowly on the turf. It felt good enough that I slowly increased mileage and moved to the trails the next weeks. Things felt decent for a while but it slowly caught up to me and eventually the shin pain returned. Went too fast on some runs, but it's hard to be disciplined on the flat turf. Attempt #2 fail.
April 1-7: 0 Miles
April 8-14: 9 Miles
April 15-21: 25 Miles
April 22-28: 7 Miles
May
May was a month that only saw me run three times. This was frustrating as I finished out the semester and came home still unable to run in my free time. After 9 days off, I began to run again, this time on the roads because I was so frustrated just doing laps on the turf. Had an okay run then a pretty bad one so shut things down again. Attempt #3 fail. After another 10 days off, I tried running again, this time at home for the summer. Another failure, couldn't even make it 2 miles without pain. Attempt #4 fail. It was around this time that I starting going to physical therapy and started biking. I was pretty lazy on the bike as I basically only did it when I felt I had been lazy. I still got in a couple of decent rides and hikes but injury-wise, this was not going to the right direction.
April 29-May 5: 10 Miles
May 6-May 12: 0 Miles
May 13-May 19: 3 Miles
May 20-May 26: 0 Miles
June
After a lot of days in physical therapy, I was finally cleared to run again (16 days between runs). The big difference this time (besides getting treatment) was wearing stability shoes. They were uncomfortable at first but since then have felt like they helped a lot. I got to slowly come back, all while feeling much better than the prior attempts. Things went very smoothly for a week and felt promising until I injured/pulled my Achilles doing a faster run. There were several aspects of this run that were warning signs (going from 7:30+ easy pace to 6:30, no warm-up) that I overlooked but also frustrating as I was literally just following the plan given to me. Attempt #5 fail. The Achilles injury was really tough as I basically couldn't walk for 3 weeks, let alone think about returning to running. Not being able to run is incredibly frustrating but not being able to walk is pretty much devastating. As an athlete who wants to perform at a high level, it's difficult to be unable to complete the simplest of tasks while others do so with ease (walking, driving, etc.). This was major loss for me as I basically lost all shot at having some decent summer races and hiking would have to be put on a long delay.
May 27- June 2: 3 Miles
June 3-June 9: 10 Miles
June 10-16: 0 Miles
June 17-23: 0 Miles
June 24-30: 0 Miles
July
Towards the end of June, I was finally able to walk and began cross training again. In addition to physical therapy, I was also spending time talking/consulting with a podiatrist. I got a little more into biking than usual and set a PR for longest ride at 33.5, breaking the 30 mile barrier I hadn't done before. The more I biked, however, the more bored of it I became and I ended up only exercising 2-3 times a week. I finally started to run again, and once again, running was encouraging. Lots of days off, but I got up to higher distances (7) pretty quickly and without much pain. My achilles would bother me at the beginning of the runs but overall feel mostly fine. I got in my first hard effort at a Westerly fun run (6:00 pace) feeling pretty good. My shin pain was nonexistent and had almost completely disappeared. I was all set to hit a 30 mile week and officially come back, be ready for cross country, when... my shin was suddenly really painful during a trail run. It wasn't a slight pain that came on slowly but rather a sudden sharp pain that never left and only got worse as I went on. Attempt #6 fail. Since this wasn't a complete blowout injury like my achilles, I could still do exercises just fine and not have to take ridiculously long breaks between runs. I tried to keep it going a couple times but after having pain on easy 3 and 2 miles runs, I knew it was again time to call it.
July 1-7: 0 Miles
July 8-14: 18 Miles
July 15-21: 23 Miles
July 22-28: 3 Miles
August
After further talking to the podiatrist (pretty much done with PT at this point), I began adding in a thick orthotic into my stability shoes. Unlike the stability shoes which I quickly adjusted to and felt comfortable, the orthotics are extremely uncomfortable and I absolutely hate them. I resumed the 3-mile easy run attempts on a family trip to Canada and while the results weren't great, I was finally able to get something consistent going. I was basically tolerating the maximum pain/discomfort allowed to continue but I still felt barely good enough that I could keep going. I got in a couple of decent longer runs (5 and 6) miles that were uncomfortable. Even after a much worse than usual run towards the end where I had a significant cut-down in distance, I still got out there the next day and was feeling great. I sure wasn't going to be fit for XC but could definitely still make something out of the season. And then...during a rainy run in Barn Island, I landed awkwardly on a rock and sprained my ankle badly. The irony of this is that I tried hard to stay on wide non-technical trails and ended up spraining my ankle on pretty much the only (and very brief) section of single-track. I walked a little, attempted to resume running and failed. That was honestly one of the worst/least enjoyable days of my life. I had to walk 3 miles out of there on a badly injured ankle while being absolutely swarmed by mosquitoes and deer flies, constantly enduring bites and hitting myself like a madman. This was right before a work shift and I decided to go anyway (I would have had to call out minutes before starting the shift). Felt okay at first, but pain worsened dramatically throughout the night and had I not caught a break and been able to go home early, I probably would collapsed on the floor at some point. Pain became excruciating and unbearable. It was promising that a doctor said I could be back to running in 1-2 weeks, but he was very wrong. Went back to school not only walking awkwardly but unable to exercise at all. Attempt #7 fail.
July 29-August 4: 5 Miles
August 5-11: 20 Miles
August 12-18: 3 Miles
August 19-25: 0 Miles
August 26-September 1: 0 Miles
September
September was a really tough month as while I had dramatic improvement in my ankle immediately (walking became normal), it was extremely inflexible and took a long time to regain enough flexibility to run. I went pretty hard on the bike for a few weeks, doing 2 45 mile bike rides and exercising most days of the week. I had some unexpected issues with my bikes and due to growing boredom of biking and these issues (a lot of resistance in pedaling), I called it quits for biking on the year. I still did some stationary biking and elliptigo but absolutely hated both and was burning no more than 200 calories from exercise a day. This was definitely a low point, but eventually Coach gave me a bunch of ankle exercises to do and had me run in place on a trampoline. I stuck to this routine daily and in just a few weeks I was running a mile on the turf.
September 2-8: 0 Miles
September 9-15: 0 Miles
September 16-22: 0 Miles
September 23-29: 4 Miles
October
October was finally a return to running and mostly a good one at that. I slowly built mileage, running barefoot miles on the turf and eventually transitioning to the track and roads. This was a long and slow buildup, the slowest/lowest I've ever started and slowest I've built mileage. This was necessary due to my ankle and generally, I was pushing things pretty far as my ankle would bother me just at the end of runs. My ankle issues (and some achilles tightness) went away pretty quickly but the further I went I was presented with a new issue: return of the shin pain. Shin pain was generally pretty bad but I got away with a surprising amount of running despite having a lot of painful runs. I decided to start rolling out my shin out of curiosity this past week and upon feeling much, much better to the point where I forget I'm even injured, I think I'm finally on the path to healthiness. Attempt #8 success (so far).
September 30- October 6: 13 Miles
October 7-13: 22 Miles
October 14-20: 31 Miles
October 21-27: 34 Miles
I'm not completely out the clear yet as my shin still has some discomfort and my ankle is definitely not 100%, but as I said before, this was a big week for me and I definitely feel like I'm getting healthy and able to train again. To see how much this injury affected my mileage wise, see the chart below.
| Month | Mileage | Percent of Yearly Mileage |
| January | 271 | 28% |
| February | 193 | 20% |
| March | 216 | 23% |
| April | 41 | 4% |
| May | 13 | 1% |
| June | 13 | 1% |
| July | 46 | 5% |
| August | 26 | 3% |
| September | 4 | 0% |
| October | 128 | 13% |
| Total | 951 |
While still far off my March/February (which were somewhat of a tapering month followed by a rebuilding month), October has been well over any other of the injury months. If mileage goes to plan in November, I should at least match my March mileage, if not exceed it (and hopefully match my January mileage in December). I likely won't run more than 1500 miles on the year but even that would be a remarkable turnaround considering I basically did nothing from April-September.
2019 has absolutely been a year of struggles for me and it got me thinking about the mental challenge of coping with an injury. Injury are tough because you're completely removed from the sport and are forced to find tedious ways to come back. But is being unable to run worse than racing consistently terrible or feeling consistently flat during a long training block? For a casual runner the answer is no. But for me, I honestly would have rather been injured during outdoor than race terrible most of the time. I've experienced all three of these now- feeling flat during training, racing terribly and being injured. While being injured is the worst from a trying to stay fit/burn calories perspective, the other two are sometimes harder to deal with. Running is no longer fun when every run is miserable due to extremely tight/heavy/sore legs (or other part) without said problem ever leaving (I know this isn't common but I weirdly experienced this last fall) and it's definitely disappointing to train hard an entire season for a couple goal races and totally bombing them. All three of these are tough (and somewhat interrelated) but my point is there are running-related problems that are just as bad as injury.
On a different note, I injured three different things during this entire block. In the past, I had only had three major injuries- achilles/tibial tendon, back (minor issue but really messed up my season), and a dislocated wrist/broken arm (not running-related but still required time off). I know exactly why I injured each but still am unsure why two of them took so long to resolve (achilles responded pretty normally and was never reinjured while the others did not). It's interesting how the shin injury was by far my biggest ever and generally the reason I didn't run most of the year, yet the least painful. When my shin hurt, I knew it was time to stop running but it generally never got bad and I never had a period of time when I limped or had trouble walking. The achilles, on the other hand was incredibly painful the few days after injury and walking was near impossible. Yet this injury healed the quickest and I had the quickest turnaround to start running again. My ankle was also very painful although nowhere near as bad as the achilles but took much longer to heal. My worst pain of the year was actually getting sick/stomach bug in Florida, however, which hardly affected my running. More pain usually correlates to a worse injury, but its interesting how in my case, it's been the opposite.
While I feel I'm in a pretty good spot now, there are several aspects of these injuries that worry me for the future. I don't know if my shin pain will resurface, but I'm fairly confident that my achilles won't (unless a separate injury). My biggest concern is my sprained ankle. I have yet to return to the trails, and I genuinely don't know what the procedure is on how to start running trails again. While I mostly run roads, I do enjoy my easy days on trails and it'd be depressing if I had to completely give them up for an extended period of time. But between not running trails and respraining my ankle, I'll definitely pick the former. Another problem, if this even is a problem, if that I used stability shoes for the first time this year and now currently am only training in them. Is there a point where I can switch back to neutral shoes or will I simply be running in stability shoes for life? I also don't know whether it's a injury risk to race because I'll be racing in flats/spikes which have minimal cushioning.
Anyway, that's the end of my ramble of thoughts. I hopefully wrapped up my injury-filled year and can now talk about training in the future. Here's my weekly log:
Monday: 6 Miles
Ran 3 with Dylan and Tyler who were also running easy due to injury recovery, then added on 2.5 solo. Tried rolling out my shin pre-run and had virtually shin pain and minimal discomfort, and that trend fortunately has continued since.
Tuesday: 7 Miles
Weak solo morning run. Generally feel a lot worse on morning runs then afternoon because of less fuel and less sleep. This was the case today but got through it without any issues. Shin felt good. Short rose into faculty, a route I definitely like.
Wednesday: 8 Miles
Short snell, first proper run with the team since March. Considering I have virtually no fitness right now, I was glad everyone wanted to run easy otherwise I may been dropped or struggled. A ton of guys on this run.
Thursday: 7 Miles
Was considering taking the day off but ran to complete the October distance challenge on strava. Explored a new road. Steady pouring rain the whole. Thursday is another morning run day for me but I felt a lot better than Tuesday, at least energy wise. Tight at the beginning.
Friday: 8 Miles
Pudding hill with a couple of guys, enjoyable run as we kept it easy and I felt really good. Nice weather too.
Saturday: 7 Miles
Did the same route as Tuesday yet felt ready good and progressed from a 6:50 to a 5:50. Encouraging that this felt like a pretty relaxed effort despite running my first sub-6 mile since injury. Had to run solo since everyone else was doing trails but still enjoyable.
Sunday: 11 Miles
Wednesday Hill, first run over 10 miles since injury. Had to go solo since everyone else was running trails (again!) but didn't especially enjoy this one. Felt pretty tight throughout and just wanted the run to be done with. Shin starting to worsen as well.
Weekly Total: 54 Miles
YTD Total: 977 Miles
Weekly Highlight: This was a really great week as I started to feel an improvement in shin pain/discomfort and ran a much higher mileage than any week since March. Definitely a massive step in the right direction, although there's certainly some tests still to come.
Weekly Lowlight: It's hard to have any specific complaints with this week, but I guess I felt a little tighter on certain runs than I would have liked.
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