Week of Apr. 8 - 14, 2024
This was the twelfth week of my 13-week training plan for the Tour de Dodge 27k on April 20. It was the second week of my taper. We're up to 60 runners registered for the 27k! As I write this a week before the race, the weather forecast looks great!
This week was another very, very busy for me at work, so I had no time for any of my usual morning activities. I have students using telescopes in Utah and Australia, so I'm up at midnight to help them get started on the Utah telescope and then 6am to help them to get started on the Australia telescope - not helpful for sleep! But it's only for two weeks in the semester.
This week was also the total solar eclipse on Monday! As I said in my prior log entry, my husband and I ended up going to Greenfield, IN to see the eclipse. We were lucky that the sky turned out to be mostly clear! I'm not at all a photographer and I wanted to enjoy the eclipse, so I didn't try to take photos.
This is the description of totality that I wrote up for my tennis team:
The eclipse was SO AMAZING! About 10 min before totality, it was getting darker of course, but the light also turns this sharp blue-gray color that is really weird. We were near farms, and the roosters were crowing and dogs barking. We could see the shadow of the Moon moving toward us from the southwest as this ominous dark area. When totality started, the corona was magnificent - it is named "crown" in Latin for a reason! It is this amazing flame circling the Moon in front of the Sun. We got a great diamond ring effect, and we could see some pink prominences right the edge of the Moon. The night side of the Moon is one of the darkest, blackest things I have ever seen - it really looked like this deep pit into nothing. We could see Venus and Jupiter prominently on either side of the Sun, but no other stars. We had some thin cirrus clouds that probably interfered. Totality was only four minutes, but still long enough to really breathe it all in. It was totally worth all the planning and changing of plans!
Unfortunately the week went from the high of the eclipse to a sad event. We had to put one of our cats, Rascal, to sleep because of kidney failure. He was about 16.5 years old, so certainly not young, but we still weren't ready for it. As his name might hint, he was trouble from the moment we met him in foster care as a kitten.
He once got into a bag of bran muffins on the kitchen counter while we weren't home, ate a bunch, and then puked magnificently across the living room. Another time he was scratching at the roof of the litter box to bury his business (this made sense to him), somehow got his collar hooked to the litter box roof, and panicked and sprinted around the house, dragging the roof around attached to his neck! Just a few of the dumb-a$$ things he did. He was also a sweetheart for attention. The white spot on his head appeared when he was about 2 years old. He will be missed. We adopted three kittens from the same litter, and now only one remains.
Monday - total solar eclipse day! Before lunch:
- Walk 1
- time: 1:05:02
- distance: 3.09 mi
- ave pace: 21:04
- route: Pennsy Rail Trail in Greenfield
- Walk 2
- time: 35:07
- distance: 1.48 mi
- ave pace: 23:40
- route: downtown Greenfield
Tuesday after work:
- 40 min easy on trail
- T+D 123, 1.5% effect, T 74 F
- time: 40:00
- distance: 3.17 mi
- average pace: 12:38 (GAP ave pace 12:29)
- splits: 12:41, 12:24, 12:49, 12:34
- ave HR: 134 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 183 ft (corrected)
- route: Northwest Branch Trail
Wednesday after work:
- Hill repeat HIIT - 13min easy + 3 x [7 x (20sec sprint uphill + 20sec walk downhill) + 4min walk downhill]
- T+D 132, 2.5% effect, T 75 F
- time: 40:00
- distance: 3.01 mi
- repeat splits: 8:16, 8:27, 9:28, 8:54, 8:58, 8:58, 9:41, 8:17, 8:44, 8:57, 9:08, 8:38, 9:05, 9:39, 8:01, 8:42, 8:57, 8:52, 9:24, 9:23
- elevation gain: 202 ft (corrected)
- route: neighborhood loop 1
- comments: I take these splits with a huge grain of salt! I think they were too short for the GPS to necessarily track well. The point was to be going all-out. I was sprinting uphill, then turning and walking downhill for about 15 sec before using the last 5 sec of walking to get turned around uphill again. It takes me 7 intervals to get to the top of the hill, and so that's when I have the 4-min walk back down to the bottom.
Thursday evening: walking hills on treadmill
- time: 43:46
- distance: 2.16 mi
- ave pace: 20:16
- comments:
- 5 min at 3.0 mph with 4% incline
- 30 min at 3.1 mph with 15% incline
- 5 min at 3.0 mph with 14% incline
- rest of time at 2.5 mph with 4% incline
Friday after dinner: walk on treadmill
- time: 1:25:44
- distance: 4.75 mi
- ave pace: 18:03
- incline: 2%
Saturday
- Before lunch:
- 60 min easy on trail
- T+D 89, no effect, T 57 F, windy!
- time: 1:00:00
- distance: 4.52 mi
- average pace: 13:16 (GAP ave pace 12:28)
- splits: 13:00, 13:51, 12:50, 13:58, 12:06
- ave HR: 133 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 590 ft (corrected)
- route: Western Ridge Trail, Rock Creek National Park
- Evening: 2-hr tennis doubles match - my partner and I lost 6-1, 6-3.
Sunday before dinner:
- 105 min LR on trail
- T+D 123, 1.5% effect, T 80 F
- time: 1:45:01
- distance: 7.78 mi
- average pace: 13:30 (GAP ave pace 13:05)
- splits: 12:24, 12:03, 13:31, 15:16, 15:56, 13:23, 13:04, 12:05
- ave HR: 141 BPM - below my target range
- elevation gain: 528 ft (corrected)
- route: Valley Trail, Rock Creek National Park
- comments: I took 1.5L of water + Nuun and drank most of it. I ate two Honey Stinger waffles.
- comments: This was the highest T+D for a long run for me in this whole training block. The leaf canopy hasn't filled in yet, so there was also quite a bit of direct sun. I was worried about pushing this run too hard in the T+D and wearing myself out before the race, so I deliberately pulled back a bit on it.
Health
The real issue right now is my knees, especially the left one. They are doing ok. Should make it for the race. I've only been taping them during long runs because they are generally better/ok at other times.
He looks like trouble in all the best ways!
