avondale training journal, starting Dec. 2018 (comments welcome)
- Thread starter avondale
- Start date
nancipants
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So sorry about your kitty.
Good luck on your upcoming race!
Good luck on your upcoming race!
WillRunForPizza
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What a week! I loved your eclipse description. So sorry to hear about Rascal - he sounds like he leaves you with a lot of memories!
superchime
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Rest in peace, Rascal. 
avondale
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@RuntheMouse @garneska @nancipants @Naomeri @WillRunForPizza @superchime @jmasgat Thanks so much for your condolences. It was hard, but it was the right decision. @jmasgat I know you had to deal with this yourself just recently. But the years of companionship are worth it.
We have one of the three kittens left from the litter: the female, who was always distinctly smaller. Her brothers bullied her all her life, so she is living like a queen now. She gets all the attention and doesn't have to worry about her brothers taking over her sleeping spot or toy, etc. Rascal would take anything she had just because she had it! It's amazing how pets have such different personalities.
We have one of the three kittens left from the litter: the female, who was always distinctly smaller. Her brothers bullied her all her life, so she is living like a queen now. She gets all the attention and doesn't have to worry about her brothers taking over her sleeping spot or toy, etc. Rascal would take anything she had just because she had it! It's amazing how pets have such different personalities.
avondale
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Week of Apr. 15 - 19, 2024
This was the last week of my 13-week training plan for the Tour de Dodge 27k on April 20. As I write this, the race is tomorrow! I'll talk about race stuff first and then do my re-cap for the week.
I flew into Milwaukee this morning very early and drove to Dodgeville, where the race will be - it was a 2-hour drive, very easy. When I can, I like to go to the park where the race will be held so that I can find the start area, parking, etc., and then walk some of the course because usually I can't visit it during training.
First, during the drive from Milwaukee to Dodgeville, I stopped by a Subway for lunch and to get on Zoom and answer questions from my students who were in lab (with the TA). They are just starting to analyze their telescope data, so I thought they'd have lots of questions, and I was right, so that was a good move. I also felt guilty for missing lab!
As an aside: when closing up my suitcase in the bedroom in the dark (husband still sleeping at 5am), I forgot to put in my little bag with most of my toiletries! Grrrr. I can obviously pick up most things here, but I am extremely picky about sunscreen that won't make me look like I'm leaking milk out of my skin and will not cause my eyes to sting - and the Biore Watery Essence sunscreen that I prefer is not available in any American stores, let alone Walmart in Dodgeville, population ~5000.
I did get to visit Governor Dodge State Park in the afternoon and found the race start area. I walked about 1.5 miles of the course (and then back). I'll include the photos with the race description tomorrow. The trail surface is mostly packed dirt and really not very technical. It's hilly, as expected, but the hills seem to be more rolling rather than very steep and technical. It's good that it's suppose to be cool for the race, because overall the park is not very wooded, so it will be sunny and not much shade. Of course, this is all based on my experience with a small section of the course, but I drove through more of the park going in and out, and I don't expect dramatic differences in other parts.
One thing that will hopefully not be an issue is course markings. They have different colored flags for the different races (50k, 27k, 10k) and also signs. On my walk going out, I followed them with no problem, but when I reverse course, I missed a turn. Hopefully just because the directions weren't so clear going in reverse! I have a topo-map with the route on my phone, but it would be annoying to have to deal with.
Currently there are 64 people registered for the 27k (starting at 9am), 67 for the 50k (7am), and 62 for the 10k (10:30am). It's going to be so weird to start at the very civilized time of 9am. At 9am, the temperature is supposed to be 35 F with a windchill of 26 F and then 1pm (when I hope to finish by), 42 F with a windchill of 35 F. Dry and partly cloudy. Sound great, even if a tad chilly for my shorts.
Monday after work:
This was the last week of my 13-week training plan for the Tour de Dodge 27k on April 20. As I write this, the race is tomorrow! I'll talk about race stuff first and then do my re-cap for the week.
I flew into Milwaukee this morning very early and drove to Dodgeville, where the race will be - it was a 2-hour drive, very easy. When I can, I like to go to the park where the race will be held so that I can find the start area, parking, etc., and then walk some of the course because usually I can't visit it during training.
First, during the drive from Milwaukee to Dodgeville, I stopped by a Subway for lunch and to get on Zoom and answer questions from my students who were in lab (with the TA). They are just starting to analyze their telescope data, so I thought they'd have lots of questions, and I was right, so that was a good move. I also felt guilty for missing lab!
As an aside: when closing up my suitcase in the bedroom in the dark (husband still sleeping at 5am), I forgot to put in my little bag with most of my toiletries! Grrrr. I can obviously pick up most things here, but I am extremely picky about sunscreen that won't make me look like I'm leaking milk out of my skin and will not cause my eyes to sting - and the Biore Watery Essence sunscreen that I prefer is not available in any American stores, let alone Walmart in Dodgeville, population ~5000.
I did get to visit Governor Dodge State Park in the afternoon and found the race start area. I walked about 1.5 miles of the course (and then back). I'll include the photos with the race description tomorrow. The trail surface is mostly packed dirt and really not very technical. It's hilly, as expected, but the hills seem to be more rolling rather than very steep and technical. It's good that it's suppose to be cool for the race, because overall the park is not very wooded, so it will be sunny and not much shade. Of course, this is all based on my experience with a small section of the course, but I drove through more of the park going in and out, and I don't expect dramatic differences in other parts.
One thing that will hopefully not be an issue is course markings. They have different colored flags for the different races (50k, 27k, 10k) and also signs. On my walk going out, I followed them with no problem, but when I reverse course, I missed a turn. Hopefully just because the directions weren't so clear going in reverse! I have a topo-map with the route on my phone, but it would be annoying to have to deal with.
Currently there are 64 people registered for the 27k (starting at 9am), 67 for the 50k (7am), and 62 for the 10k (10:30am). It's going to be so weird to start at the very civilized time of 9am. At 9am, the temperature is supposed to be 35 F with a windchill of 26 F and then 1pm (when I hope to finish by), 42 F with a windchill of 35 F. Dry and partly cloudy. Sound great, even if a tad chilly for my shorts.
Monday after work:
- Hill repeat HIIT - 13min easy + 3 x [7 x (20sec sprint uphill + 20sec walk downhill) + 4min walk downhill]
- T+D 140, 3% effect, T 82 F
- time: 40:00
- distance: 2.92 mi
- repeat splits: 8:36, 10:56, 9:18, 9:13, 9:45, 9:25, 10:37, 8:00, 10:10, 10:27, 8:35, 9:54, 9:08, 9:45, 9:36, 9:12, 10:17, 8:48, 9:40, 9:45, 11:08
- elevation gain: 201 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.
- 40 min easy on trail
- T+D 114, 1% effect, T 75 F
- time: 40:01
- distance: 3.20 mi
- average pace: 12:31 (GAP ave pace 12:30)
- splits: 12:32, 12:22, 12:37, 12:41
- ave HR: 133 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 213 ft (corrected)
- route: Northwest Branch Trail
- After work: walk outside
- time: 41:44
- distance: 2.0 mi
- ave pace: 20:50
- comments: I needed to make sure I would get all of my steps in.
- In evening: 2-hr tennis doubles round-robin
- 30 min easy
- T+D 129, 2% effect, T 75 F
- time: 30:01
- distance: 2.56 mi
- average pace: 11:43 (GAP ave pace 11:48)
- splits: 11:50, 11:41, 11:37
- ave HR: 134 BPM - within my target range
- elevation gain: 83 ft (corrected)
- route: Sligo Creek Trail
- comments: This trail is paved.
- time: 1:06:08
- distance: 3.6 mi
- ave pace: 18:22
- comments: Governor Dodge State Park
WillRunForPizza
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Hope you have a great time tomorrow!
GollyGadget
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Have fun at your race!
RuntheMouse
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Have a great race! Welcome to Wisconsin!
avondale
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Race Report: Tour de Dodge 27k, April 20, 2024
I'm very happy with how the race went today! Finish time 3:53:56 with 2846 ft of elevation gain!
This trail race was in Governor Dodge State Park, in Dodgeville, WI. Start time for the 27k: 9:00am.
I've said multiple times lately in this training journal about how little sleep I've been getting with work. Last night, I got almost 8.5 hours of sleep and a sleep score of 92, which is pretty amazing for me! My body battery also recharged up to 96. So at least I was reasonably rested. The race was at a very pleasant 9:00am and only about 10 minutes from my hotel, so I got up at 6am to eat and get ready, and got to the race start by 7:30am.
First, the weather: as I said yesterday, it was supposed to get to mid-40s F. Well, that changed overnight. The wind do not die out as forecast and it was overcast and cold. At the time of the race start, it was about 36 F and the windchill was 26 F - it ended up spitting snow for the first hour or so. I had originally been planning shorts and a tank top! LOL I did the shorts but also wore calf sleeves, which I had been debating anyway. I had brought a short sleeve shirt as an alternate to the tank top in case it was colder than expected (!), but I also had a long-sleeve tech shirt that I wore for my walk yesterday, so I layered those. By the end of the race, it had only gotten about a degree warmer and still windy. But honestly, the clothes were fine. I had sweats on for most of pre-race, so it was really only about 20 min before and then the first 10 minutes of the race until I warmed up that I was cold - then the rest of the race was fine.
I did almost 15 minutes of brisk walking around the parking lot as a warm-up. Hit the toilets a couple of times.
We had the pre-race briefing from the race directors about 10 min before the start and started right on time. They had an inflatable upside-down U arch for us to start/end at with the chip-timing mats, but it kept blowing over. Fortunately it was up when we started so we didn't have to climb over it.
For me, the challenge of this race was going to be the elevation gain: about 2400 ft of gain in 17.5 miles. My 50k in January had about that much elevation gain, so this course was a lot hillier. I had trained for it! As my scouting from yesterday hinted, the trail wasn't very technical. The surface was about 80% packed dirt and there weren't even that many roots or rocks involved - the other 20% was more technical, but not at all challenging in that sense. The trails I trained on were definitely more technical.
The course was very interesting: https://driftlesstrailcollective.com/course-map-27k/ It joined together a bunch of trails in the park so that we covered a lot of the park. The really interesting thing was how the course partly ran with the 50k and then sometimes did not. Here's the 50k map: https://driftlesstrailcollective.com/course-map-50k/ (There was also a 10k.) For a lot of the time, the 27k and 50k were together, but then the 50k would jaunt off for an extra loop and then join back in. So when I encountered 50k runners, I had no idea how far along they were. The last 2 miles or so were the same. I was worried about missing turns and following the 50k flags instead of 27k, but I did ok with that.
I was hoping to finish in 4 hours, and I knew that if I kept up a 4.5 mph speed (about 13:20 pace), I'd be able to do that. So I was aiming to try for miles around 13 minutes and see how that went. The question would be the hills.
Well, it mostly went very well! While there were some steep hills, most were more gradual and eminently runnable, both up and down - although I suspect that the downhill trashed my quads.
Around mile 6, I got passed by a couple of guys doing the 50k - when I asked, they said they were already about 18 miles in. And they trotted by like they were fresh as anything.
After that, I didn't see too many runners for awhile. At around mile 10 or so, I caught up to a man and woman who were running the 50k together. He seemed to be struggling. I asked how many miles they had left, and his response was, "Too many." I did pass them and managed to keep them behind me.
A few miles later, I got passed by another man and woman running the 50k together and a single woman 50k runner. Never saw the single woman again - she was kicking it. I leapfrogged with the other pair for maybe a mile and then when we came to an aid station, they stopped for stuff. They caught up to me maybe a mile from the end - amazing - and passed me. In between, I had done my trip and fall, and just a minute or two after that, a 50k guy passed me and told me I was doing well - I told him he hadn't seen me fall! LOL But then he was struggling shortly later, and I passed him for good.
Of course, did I notice anyone's bibs so that I could see how they finished? Of course not!
The last mile was getting pretty tough. There was a lot of uphill - I kept hoping the uphill would end, but logically I could tell we hadn't gotten back up to the starting elevation yet. We passed by a parking lot that I knew was "next" to the start area, so I knew we were close - but then we got to the super-steep 16% grade hill! Ooooff! Right at the top of that hill was just a 20-foot section and then up about 10 stairs to the starting area parking lot, across the lot to the finish line!
According to my Epix dual-band GPS, my distance was 17.76 mi (distance from their map was 17.5 mi, but I suppose that my "tangents" would add extra). My official finish time was 3:53:56. I was hoping to finish in about 4 hours, so I crushed that! At the halfway point, I was thinking that 3:50 might be possible, but the back half was definitely steeper. If we do an official distance of 17.5 mi, then my average pace was 13:22. With my Garmin distance, Garmin calculates it as 13:11. My corrected Garmin elevation gain comes to 2846 ft!!!
I finished 38th out of 57 people completing the 27k. I was 17th out of 28 women. I was 4th in my age group (50-59), which had 7 women.
Pre-pandemic, I was involved in an international collaboration of astronomers (that also had various US partners) and one of the partners was from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In an unexpected coincident, he and his wife ran the 27k trail race also! He had seen my name on the list (hadn't thought to look for his) and found me to say hello. They are both tall, thin, and fast. He finished in 10th place overall (2:40) and 3rd place for 40-49 men. She finished 21st overall and 1st place for 50-59 women (3:12)! They nicely stuck around to congratulate me after my finish.
After I finished, I knew I was going to get very cold very fast, since the temperature and windchill had not improved. I got my medal (horseshoe!) and some hot pasta with marinara - best after-race food ever for a cold race - then I got my sweats back on and warmed up a bit in my car before driving back to my hotel. Best things about my own hotel room (no husband) after a race: unlimited very hot water in the shower and I can blast the room heater as warm as I want!
For completeness: I took 1.5L of water + Nuun and 1 L of water. With it being so cold, I only drank about 3/4 of the water + Nuun and a little over half of the plain water. I took three Honey Stinger waffles, one serving of M&Ms, and a sleeve of GU Chews, which is what I would eat with my normal schedule if I took 4 hours. But my stomach was a bit bloated about 2/3 of the way through, so I ended up stringing out the M&Ms and not eating the GU Chews at all. Seems like that all went ok.
Some photos below; the selfie is pre-race. (The sunny photo is from my walk yesterday.) It was not the prettiest or most scenic course, even taking into account that spring has barely gotten here, but it was nice enough.
I'm very happy with how the race went today! Finish time 3:53:56 with 2846 ft of elevation gain!
This trail race was in Governor Dodge State Park, in Dodgeville, WI. Start time for the 27k: 9:00am.
I've said multiple times lately in this training journal about how little sleep I've been getting with work. Last night, I got almost 8.5 hours of sleep and a sleep score of 92, which is pretty amazing for me! My body battery also recharged up to 96. So at least I was reasonably rested. The race was at a very pleasant 9:00am and only about 10 minutes from my hotel, so I got up at 6am to eat and get ready, and got to the race start by 7:30am.
First, the weather: as I said yesterday, it was supposed to get to mid-40s F. Well, that changed overnight. The wind do not die out as forecast and it was overcast and cold. At the time of the race start, it was about 36 F and the windchill was 26 F - it ended up spitting snow for the first hour or so. I had originally been planning shorts and a tank top! LOL I did the shorts but also wore calf sleeves, which I had been debating anyway. I had brought a short sleeve shirt as an alternate to the tank top in case it was colder than expected (!), but I also had a long-sleeve tech shirt that I wore for my walk yesterday, so I layered those. By the end of the race, it had only gotten about a degree warmer and still windy. But honestly, the clothes were fine. I had sweats on for most of pre-race, so it was really only about 20 min before and then the first 10 minutes of the race until I warmed up that I was cold - then the rest of the race was fine.
I did almost 15 minutes of brisk walking around the parking lot as a warm-up. Hit the toilets a couple of times.
We had the pre-race briefing from the race directors about 10 min before the start and started right on time. They had an inflatable upside-down U arch for us to start/end at with the chip-timing mats, but it kept blowing over. Fortunately it was up when we started so we didn't have to climb over it.
For me, the challenge of this race was going to be the elevation gain: about 2400 ft of gain in 17.5 miles. My 50k in January had about that much elevation gain, so this course was a lot hillier. I had trained for it! As my scouting from yesterday hinted, the trail wasn't very technical. The surface was about 80% packed dirt and there weren't even that many roots or rocks involved - the other 20% was more technical, but not at all challenging in that sense. The trails I trained on were definitely more technical.
The course was very interesting: https://driftlesstrailcollective.com/course-map-27k/ It joined together a bunch of trails in the park so that we covered a lot of the park. The really interesting thing was how the course partly ran with the 50k and then sometimes did not. Here's the 50k map: https://driftlesstrailcollective.com/course-map-50k/ (There was also a 10k.) For a lot of the time, the 27k and 50k were together, but then the 50k would jaunt off for an extra loop and then join back in. So when I encountered 50k runners, I had no idea how far along they were. The last 2 miles or so were the same. I was worried about missing turns and following the 50k flags instead of 27k, but I did ok with that.
I was hoping to finish in 4 hours, and I knew that if I kept up a 4.5 mph speed (about 13:20 pace), I'd be able to do that. So I was aiming to try for miles around 13 minutes and see how that went. The question would be the hills.
Well, it mostly went very well! While there were some steep hills, most were more gradual and eminently runnable, both up and down - although I suspect that the downhill trashed my quads.
- Mile 1: 12:57 (GAP 12:28)
- Mile 2: 13:00 (GAP 12:27)
- Mile 3: 12:18 (GAP 12:03)
- Mile 4: 13:21 (GAP 12:21)
- Mile 5: 12:17 (GAP 11:49)
- Mile 6: 12:15 (GAP 12:19)
- Mile 7: 12:16 (GAP 12:05)
- Mile 8: 14:13 (GAP 12:24) - The first really long, grueling uphill.
- Mile 9: 12:29 (GAP 12:03)
- Mile 10: 13:37 (GAP 12:21)
- Mile 11: 14:29 (GAP 13:46) - I stopped behind a log for a pee break.
- Mile 12: 13:38 (GAP 12:39)
- Mile 13: 11:46 (GAP 12:07) - even though I knew this mile was mostly downhill, I was so happy to see < 12 min/mi when I was 13 miles into the race!
- Mile 14: 14:18 (GAP 12:46) - and here's going back up!
- Mile 15: 13:28 (GAP 13:00)
- Mile 16: 13:46 (GAP 12:27) - I had a trip and fall toward the bottom of one of the hills. It's all packed dirt, though, so no harm done except to my pride.
- Mile 17: 12:57 (GAP 12:17) - I was getting pretty worn out, so I was really happy to get this mile done under 13 minutes!
- Mile 17.76: 14:33 (GAP 12:03) - The last 0.25 mi had the steepest part of the whole course, with a 16% grade! Talk about punishment at the end!
Around mile 6, I got passed by a couple of guys doing the 50k - when I asked, they said they were already about 18 miles in. And they trotted by like they were fresh as anything.
After that, I didn't see too many runners for awhile. At around mile 10 or so, I caught up to a man and woman who were running the 50k together. He seemed to be struggling. I asked how many miles they had left, and his response was, "Too many." I did pass them and managed to keep them behind me.
A few miles later, I got passed by another man and woman running the 50k together and a single woman 50k runner. Never saw the single woman again - she was kicking it. I leapfrogged with the other pair for maybe a mile and then when we came to an aid station, they stopped for stuff. They caught up to me maybe a mile from the end - amazing - and passed me. In between, I had done my trip and fall, and just a minute or two after that, a 50k guy passed me and told me I was doing well - I told him he hadn't seen me fall! LOL But then he was struggling shortly later, and I passed him for good.
Of course, did I notice anyone's bibs so that I could see how they finished? Of course not!
The last mile was getting pretty tough. There was a lot of uphill - I kept hoping the uphill would end, but logically I could tell we hadn't gotten back up to the starting elevation yet. We passed by a parking lot that I knew was "next" to the start area, so I knew we were close - but then we got to the super-steep 16% grade hill! Ooooff! Right at the top of that hill was just a 20-foot section and then up about 10 stairs to the starting area parking lot, across the lot to the finish line!
According to my Epix dual-band GPS, my distance was 17.76 mi (distance from their map was 17.5 mi, but I suppose that my "tangents" would add extra). My official finish time was 3:53:56. I was hoping to finish in about 4 hours, so I crushed that! At the halfway point, I was thinking that 3:50 might be possible, but the back half was definitely steeper. If we do an official distance of 17.5 mi, then my average pace was 13:22. With my Garmin distance, Garmin calculates it as 13:11. My corrected Garmin elevation gain comes to 2846 ft!!!
I finished 38th out of 57 people completing the 27k. I was 17th out of 28 women. I was 4th in my age group (50-59), which had 7 women.
Pre-pandemic, I was involved in an international collaboration of astronomers (that also had various US partners) and one of the partners was from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In an unexpected coincident, he and his wife ran the 27k trail race also! He had seen my name on the list (hadn't thought to look for his) and found me to say hello. They are both tall, thin, and fast. He finished in 10th place overall (2:40) and 3rd place for 40-49 men. She finished 21st overall and 1st place for 50-59 women (3:12)! They nicely stuck around to congratulate me after my finish.
After I finished, I knew I was going to get very cold very fast, since the temperature and windchill had not improved. I got my medal (horseshoe!) and some hot pasta with marinara - best after-race food ever for a cold race - then I got my sweats back on and warmed up a bit in my car before driving back to my hotel. Best things about my own hotel room (no husband) after a race: unlimited very hot water in the shower and I can blast the room heater as warm as I want!
For completeness: I took 1.5L of water + Nuun and 1 L of water. With it being so cold, I only drank about 3/4 of the water + Nuun and a little over half of the plain water. I took three Honey Stinger waffles, one serving of M&Ms, and a sleeve of GU Chews, which is what I would eat with my normal schedule if I took 4 hours. But my stomach was a bit bloated about 2/3 of the way through, so I ended up stringing out the M&Ms and not eating the GU Chews at all. Seems like that all went ok.
Some photos below; the selfie is pre-race. (The sunny photo is from my walk yesterday.) It was not the prettiest or most scenic course, even taking into account that spring has barely gotten here, but it was nice enough.
Last edited:
RuntheMouse
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Congratulations, way to smash your goal! All that hill training paid off!
WillRunForPizza
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Awesome job! Wow that's a lot of hills 
GollyGadget
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Wowowow! Great job!
nancipants
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Congrats on a great race!
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