Anyone can start strong . ~ me Thurs 13 May: 1:40, 7.03 miles, Boulder Creek/Sanitas run/hike Sat 15 May: 00:50, 5.77 miles, Peak-to-Peak surges Sun 16 May: 3:45, 19.01 miles, Boulder Creek, Flag, Green Mon 17 May: 00:20, 2.16 miles, Mtn Meadows barefoot Tues 18 May: 00:49, 5.02 miles, Casa trails to Beaver Creek surges Wed 19 May: 1:50, 10.86 miles, GGCSP Raccoon to Thorne Lake tempo Thurs 20 May: 2:11, 9.3 miles, Mesa to Saddle Rock to Green to Gregory run/hike One would think, that with my abundance of free time, I’d be posting more. Well you thought wrong, my friend as apparently the last 10 days got away from me. Now it’s catch-up time and you better get ready. Or not, your call. Decent week of training/recovery. Lower mileage than I would have liked but moving to trails definitely slows things up, I am working in more hiking into my routine and I am still not 100% recovered. Getting there, however and starting to feel a lot better, thank you. I guess the highlight of the week was just getting out on trails that weren’t completely packed with snow. Refreshing, to say the least. Yesterday’s run/hike found Green to be completely snow-free – a marked change even from last Sunday. Things are opening up in the high(er) country as well with trails east of the P2P getting more and more thawed out. Springtime in the Rockies… gotta love it. I’m off today for a little rest then back at it Saturday and Sunday. Looking forward to a good weekend of training then another solid week to finish up a fairly weak May then ready to really open it up in June. Three months until the LT100. Getting pretty psyched.
What is that, yoga? ~ The Dude Sat 22 May: 1:32, 8.95 miles, Casa Trails Sun 23 May: 4:40, 26.5 miles, South Boulder/Mesa variation Mon 24 May: 00:30, 2.5 miles, Secret trail barefoot Tues 25 May: 00:55, 5.5 miles, Casa Trails surges Wed 26 May: 2:10, 15.5 miles, Gunbarrel tempo Thurs 27 May: 2:20, 9.6 miles, Green Mtn. run/hike Great week of training thus far. Ended last week with 11.5 hours and 63 miles and am on target for more than that this week. Really pretty happy about how my fitness is shaping up and tacking on additional time each week. Training is an interesting beast. One is certainly trying to get one’s body to perform at a certain level but there is also a lot of mental fitness that is being fine-tuned as well. Working on focus, rolling through checks, even conditioning oneself to drink at regular intervals… it’s all part of that big picture. As fit as I am getting, there is lots of room for improvement and I work on my overall fitness on every run. Currently, I am at a bit of a cross-roads. I’d like to figure out ways to pare down my approach. To break running down to its core elements and be able to do more with less. Tony Krupicka ‘s approach is incredibly appealing to me: Minimalist shoes, shorts and maybe a water bottle and some gels is all he needs on most days to complete incredible feats of athletics. But each person is different and has his or her own needs to which to attend. I am heavier than Tony, so (currently, at least) I rely on beefier shoes. I also sweat like some sort of nuclear-powered sweating machine so I tend to need more water on any given run. Plus, when you cover as much distance as quickly as Tony does, you can get away with carrying less. I’d like to get there and am working toward that goal but know it will take awhile. I am starting to discover that those goals which take the most time to achieve are often the most satisfying. So the remainder of this week will be rest today, 1.5 hours on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. Hoping to finish the week up with ~70 miles and a solid sense of forward progress.
If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. Sat 29 May: 1:36, 9.5 miles, Big Casa loop Sun 30 May: 5:54, 33.25 miles, Heil/Hall Saturday featured another fun trail run near my house. Essentially the same loop I ran the prior week with a section tacked on and reversed direction. Really great to be back on familiar ground and running well. During most of this session, things just “clicked”. Felt really great. Smooth. Efficient. Capped the week off with a solid long run (33+ miles) in north Boulder/Lyons. Felt really strong throughout and finished the week with 76 miles total. Definitely a high mark for me this year. Started in north Boulder and spun a lap on dirt roads then moved on to the Heil/Hall network of trails. I had never dropped down from Heil to Hall before. The new connector section is super cool and makes for a nice way to hook up these two classic trail sections. Once I jumped onto the Nighthawk trail at Hall, I was able to make my way up far enough in my allotted run-time to get a really awesome view of Longs Peak. Made it totally worth the long climb. Totally runnable trail with a big pay off at the top. On a cool day (like yesterday), this one is well worth a peek. This run finished up a week that saw three really strong efforts (and great training all around). Wednesday’s tempo run kicked things off. Saturday’s trail run was a definite breakthrough in the comfort department. Sunday just moved things to a new level for which I have been clamoring for quite some time now. Onward and upward.
