Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Week Ending January 26

I went into this week thinking that, after upping the miles quickly, I should take it back or at least hold it steady. With my travel plans, I figured it might be a bit hard to get as much time running in as usual in any case. I ended up holding the mileage steady and increasing the vertical.

Monday: 5.5 miles, ~1000', 50 minutes. I discovered a new trail through the Mississippi River Gorge. I will write this up on the 14 project page later. The short version is that I did not expect to move from Colorado to Minnesota only to be worried about the exposure on my first trail run.

Tuesday/Wednesday:  Off. Wednesday this was somewhat unintentional. After traveling all day, I ended up standing around talking to my brother in law rather than running during the only time I had. Well worth it.

Thursday: 5 miles, 600', 43 minutes. Went up Viewpoint from the Boulder office. I was glad to find that I didn't really feel the altitude at all. It was, however 15 degrees out and I found it warm.

Friday: 5.5 miles, 500', 45 minutes. Ran up Sunshine from work. Managed to keep my footing on all of the icy spots only to fall on my ass in the mud at the trailhead. This resulted, somehow, in several splinters embedded in my right forefinger. It took an hour with tweezers to get them out on Saturday night.

Saturday: 8.5 miles, 200'. 1:08. Ran Davidson Mesa with Knud. This run reminded me that, bar none, going for a run is the best way to catch up with somebody. We certainly didn't push the pace at all as we meandered

Sunday:  off.

I hope to kick things into a little higher gear this week if I can. I still have ample time to get ready for the 50k, and plenty of fitness. I'm trying really hard not to overdo it.

Fortunately, Nature seems to be cooperating with me in this goal. Yesterday it was 10 below with winds of 20mph. We attempted to go to our Parkour gym, only to find out when we got there that it was closed due to the cold. So one unintentional day off down.

Today it should be a tiny bit warmer and a good deal less windy. I hope to be able to go for a short run today, and then get a real workout (hill repeats!) in tomorrow.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Week Ending January 19

Suffice to say this was a much more interesting running week than the prior one. I feel like I am getting back into my groove, progressing towards my goal.

Which I now know: I have signed up for the Superior Spring 50k on May 17. I have long wanted to race on the Superior Hiking Trail, and this will give me a chance to do so while racing my second Ultra. With a total of 4200' of elevation gain, and a top elevation of 2000', this should be a little easier (I hope) than my first.

Of course that also means that in four short months I'll be hauling myself over more miles in one day than I did this whole week. And with that, the summary:

Monday: 4 miles, 30 minutes from home.

Tuesday: 9.5 miles, 1:09 from Run'n'Fun. I took the opportunity to run with the Run'n'Fun folks. Turns out it was their race team, so they ran fast. You can read about it here.

Wednesday: Off. After the unexpected tempo run the night before (we came in at about 7:15 pace. Not terribly fast in general, but with 3 inches of new snow on the ground that's pretty quick), I opted to take a day to recover.

Thursday: 3 miles, 24 minutes. Easy from home. Still feeling Tuesday a bit.

Friday: 4 miles, 30 minutes. Easy from home. I actually felt pretty good on this one and maybe could have gone farther, but I was already looking at 10 miles over last week and decided to take it slow.

Saturday: 4 miles, 32 minutes. Easy(ish) from home. There is no "easy" in four inches of fresh snow.

Sunday: No running. 3+ miles and 1+ hours of snowshoeing. Wandered around the U of M Arboretum with some friends in the sun for an hour or two. Even at a wandering pace, snowshoeing an be some effort.

Totals: 24.5 miles, 3:06 running. 27.5 miles, 4:26 or so total.

The run on Tuesday showed me that I'm not in as bad of shape as I had thought. The mere fact that I could run that far was encouraging. The fact that I could run it at a decent clip in rather difficult conditions made me feel that much better.

I suffered for it for a few days, but that doesn't surprise me in the least. I just hope I didn't push it too hard, too soon. I have been doing a lot of running on pavement lately (well, all of it really), and my legs can tell. I had planned to run a trail Saturday morning, but the snow foiled those plans. Since I didn't know the trail at all in any case, I decided not to try it in fresh snow.

Since I have tomorrow off from work, I will try and hit the trail then. With any luck, I'll bring my phone along and grab some pictures on the way.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Week Ending January 12

Recently, I have been forced to remind myself often that 1) I am easing back into training after a significant break 2) I am in a new place, training on pavement far more than I am used to and 3) that I have also started working 8 hours a day at a standing desk. So of course I am more tired off of fewer miles than usual and need more breaks.

That said, things are moving the right direction, but are decidedly not there yet. 

Without further ado: 

Monday: Rest. Also, it was -15 with a -50 windchill. 

Tuesday: 3.2 miles, 24 minutes on roads from home. I also added in an hour and a half or so of climbing at Vertical Endeavors. Temperature 2 degrees.

Wednesday: 3.2 miles, 24 minutes on roads from home. Added 1 hour of Parkour at Fight or Flight Academy. Temperature 0 degrees. 

Thursday: 3.2 miles, 24 minutes on roads from home. I'm beginning to sense a pattern. Temperature ~12 degrees. Managed to avoid getting hit by a Cadillac 

Friday: Off. I ended up super stressed out by work, and had to run to the post office to grab the remainder of my deposit from the apartment we just left. 

Saturday: No running. I instead helped a friend I've known since first grade move. Later at night did about 1.5 hours of ice skating in downtown Saint Paul. Not an off day by any means. 

Sunday: 7 miles, 54 minutes. Ran from my door down Summit to the Mississippi and back. This will likely be a staple run for me. 

Total: 16.5 miles and 2:07 running, 7:37 total workout time. 

I have not managed yet to get into a very good routine. But I am heading that direction. The Polar Vortex that descended on the country didn't help. While I rarely avoid running due to the cold, Monday was too much even for me. Add to that the cold that's been lingering for the past week and a half, and I feel like I'm starting the year fairly well. 

Monday, January 6, 2014

2014: New Beginnings

2013 was an interesting year for me. I ran less than I had the year before, by about 300 miles or so, yet still managed to run almost as much vertical and averaged significantly more vertical per mile than I ever have before. I ran my first Ultra, and subsequently wrote what I personally think is my best-ever race report about the experience. I lowered (again) my half marathon time, and still have never run one on roads. I added Parkour into my training regimen, which at times both helped and hindered my trail running.

November and December were tough months for me. I finished 9th in my age group in the USATF trail half marathon national championship at the beginning of November, and subsequently pretty much stopped recording my running for the rest of the year. There were two reasons for that. First, there was an incident in the Parkour gym where another athlete took me out in a bit of a douchebag move. That kept me off the trail for several weeks. Second, I was in the midst of a move across the country, and while I didn't run anywhere near as much as I would have liked, I feel I got plenty of exercise simply moving my stuff out to the POD, and then back in from the POD. I still ran some number of miles in there, but did not bother to record my workouts any further.

Looking ahead to 2014 now, a lot of things are changing.

The most obvious of these, of course, is that I'm in a new state. Or rather, I have moved back to my home state of Minnesota. There are some obvious and not as obvious results of this fact. First, it will undoubtedly be more difficult to run trails every day. Second, it will be difficult to get in as much vertical, and I will have to search hard for proper hills on which to do repeats (recommendations are accepted and indeed encouraged). However, and thirdly, since I now work from home, I have no commuting time to deal with. This means I have an extra 2 hours or so every day in which I might be able to fit in either more running or more sleep. And a side affect of numbers 1-3 is that I will hopefully be running more miles in 2014 than I did last year.

In the interest of a fresh start, and in acknowledgment of a new situation, I changed a few things around my blog as well. For some time, I have considered changing the name of my blog from the "Racing Through the Wilderness" and "Shamelessrunner" titles it has had the past decade or so. This year I finally decided to do so.

I have often adopted the "Falcon" moniker, primarily because that's where my last name originates. I went back and forth for a long time between "Running Falcon" and "Racing Falcon," but the image of a running falcon was too hilarious to cast aside. So Running Falcon it is. That is also my Twitter handle (@runningfalcon), though I have yet to tweet anything. So let this serve as the introduction to the new title of the blog: The Running Falcon. The address has also changed to runningfalcon.blogspot.com, which so far decreased the readership significantly, but I hope that will change soon.

Enough of all that: to the actual running. My main focus at the moment has just been getting some consistency back into my running again. That led to three days of short (20-30 minutes) runs in a row. This was followed by the realization that this is more road running than I normally do in two to three weeks. It is definitely taking some adjustment.

Of course, the -20 temperatures, with -50 windchills, that hit the area today have put a bit of a damper on my consistency. But with highs above 0 again tomorrow, I will be back out and running again, rested and ready to add time and distance on to my workouts.

And that's much needed, because I have ambitious hopes for this year. I recently became a member of the Upper Midwest Trail Runners and hope to participate in at least one of their series. I also continued my 13 Project, advancing it by one year and making it the 14 project. I added some new items, and took off some old ones, but one that stayed the same was the desire to do 14 races this year. I'f I'm going to do that, I need a) motivation and b) fitness. Since this is the Midwest, none of the races start until April, so I have a good 3 months to get some solid base miles in. As long as I don't get over-enthusiastic and mess it up (always a possibility), I should be good to go.

I hope to have one other piece of exciting news soon, but I am waiting for word.

So on that ambiguous note, I am off.