Updates since February 24.

I honestly did not realize that It had been so long since I'd written a normal "Weekly Update" post.

The last month and a half have led to somewhat sporadic training and posting on my part. In the two weeks following my update to February 24, I ran 85 miles and climbed a bit over 10000 feet. Then I headed off to England for a week and a half.

I didn't run a step in England (purposefully). I decided before I left that, rather than worry overly much about running as a workout. Rather, I would only run if I felt it would add to the experience rather than taking away from it. I had hoped to run a fell race the day after I got there, but was far too jet-lagged to even think about it. Through the remainder of the trip, I was walking around and touring enough that I didn't feel the need to run at all. The only running I did the whole trip was sprinting through the Heathrow Airport after almost getting bumped off our transatlantic flight.

Really, how exactly is it legal to overbook a flight across the Atlantic?

In any case, I probably walked 20+ miles that week, so I don't feel like I destroyed my fitness by not running while I was over there.

It's the weeks since that I feel have messed me up. I haven't been able to run much more than 30 miles in a week since I got back. The first week I was back I hit 29 miles and 5600 feet during the 5 weekdays, but then didn't manage a long run on Easter Sunday. The next week I similarly hit 30+ miles on the first 5 days and 6000+ feet of elevation.

The 6000 feet that week came from 4 trips up Mt Sanitas here in Boulder. Early in the week, I had planned to run it 5 times that week. I ended up deciding instead to head to the BRC Wednesday night run that week.

The next week I spent in Massachusetts for work. The hotels I stayed in were not precisely conducive to running outside, in general. However, I did manage to get one good trail run in on the first Tuesday I was out there. I will write that one up over on the 13 project under new run #4. That Sunday I ran 15 miles on the roads around Fall River and Westport. I shocked myself by running 7:15 pace for the full time, with a few sub-7s thrown in for good measure, on an easy run.

Despite my inconsistent training, it seems that I must be doing something correctly in my training for 15 miles to feel that easy.

Monday, April 15, 2013 we will all no doubt be remembering for a very long time. I wrote about it already, but I have no desire to write further on it at the moment.

I got home late Tuesday night. Wednesday I went on the Run for Boston put on by the BRC, and on Friday ran Sanitas again.

Today I felt solid, so I headed out on the Mesa trail for a double crossing.

I had forgotten, though, that it had snowed 2 1/2 feet in the past two weeks, followed by several days of sunny, breezy, warm weather. Simply put: Mesa was a mud trap. I felt good enough at the start that I thought I might be able to pull out a PR, but with the slop and mud, that was not to be. I still managed to hit a PR on Strava, and ran into my friend Chris in the meantime.

While I have not been able to really train like I would prefer, I'm feeling fast. My real concern, though, is that I have not been able to get the mileage in that I really want to. I have had no long runs over 16 miles or so yet this year, and I don't know that I have enough endurance to pull off my first 50k in a matter of weeks.

I hope to get a bit of extra speed work in on May 5th by running the Louisville Half Marathon (assuming of course I recover from my current cold soon enough), and will try to train through it by running the 11 mile Flagstaff loop the following day. Whether or not that works, I'll try and run a 20+ mile run the next weekend. If I can do that, I'll feel significantly more confident about my 50k. If not, well, I'll get through the 50k and treat it as a fun, long, supported training run.