It has indeed been an interesting week so far, both in running and in the rest of my life, and it's only just Wednesday.
Let's begin at the beginning. As was my plan, I ran High Lonesome again this week, to acclimatize further for my race in Leadville in a week and a half. This time, though, I got the pleasure of running with another Boulder Trail Runner. He had emailed the BTR group earlier in the week, and on a whim I responded saying I was going to run it on Sunday if he wanted to come. So I picked him up and off we went.
It turns out he was a little tired from running 9000' so far that week. I was feeling pretty decent, so I ended up waiting more than usual. But that was fine with me, since I was not interested in pushing too hard in any case. Once we got up to the divide, though, there was no option but to push hard. The wind was blowing at a good 20mph constantly with much stronger gusts, and it was an effort just to keep going and not fall over. King Lake trail was still a bit of a mess, but somebody had been up with an axe and taken care of some of the trees that had been across the trail last time. And even with the slow pace, the wind, and the trees, we hit the bridge at 3:12, a full 12 minutes faster than last week.
With that run behind me, I planned on a short run Monday, followed by a run up Flagstaff on Tuesday morning. The high for both days was in the upper 90s, so I hit the trail early on Monday and put in 4 miles. At the end, though, I was dismayed to look down at my shoes and find that I had busted through the sidewalls. I had only put 220 miles on them, but off to the BRC I went. There, of course, I ran into a couple friends who were heading for Flagstaff from the store.
Naturally, I opted to go with them on Monday rather than by myself on Tuesday. These two particular runners are fast (one was an Olympic Marathon alternate four years ago) so it ended up being a bit of a tempo run for me. Nonetheless, I set the pace on the way up, and kept up the whole run, for a good 10 mile, 80+ min, 1500'+ run.
With that, I opted to take Tuesday off, knowing that I would get a good run in on Wednesday. And sure enough, when I showed up today, there were Jason Hartmann and Tyler McCandless, along with the regular crowd. We had a group of 25 or so go out at 6:45, and negative split the whole way.
To my astonishment, not only did I keep up the whole distance, but I didn't even feel like I was pushing hard. For comparison, I went at a 6:50 pace last week and felt like I was pushing it. I think I've arrived at just the right time.
Now, for the not so fun bit. My home town of Duluth, MN, home of Grandma's Marathon was hit by severe flooding today. They got upwards of 9 inches of rain in a 24 hour period. Flash floods took out part of a hotel, caused streets to drop by 4 feet plus, and causes sinkholes to open up. My parents' house was spared any damage, thankfully. The zoo was not so lucky, however. Two seals got out and ended up flopping and swimming down a nearby (busy) street. One of the polar bears made a (short) dash for freedom. And sadly, 11 of their animals drowned.
More info is here. I am considering going back to volunteer and help clean up. Even more info here.
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