Weekly Summary: January 28 – February 3

I know it's almost a week late now. This week should be more interesting, though.     

Monday: 6 miles easy. Shakedown run up and down the Canyon from work. Went to the Rec Center after work for an easy dreadmill jog and 250m swimming.

Tuesday: 7 miles, ~1000’ hill repeats. 4x800m hills up Sanitas valley. I decided to  ut in some shorter, sharper hills this week. I found them unfortunately inconsistent, in that my first and last hills were about 7 seconds longer than my middle two.

Wednesday: off. My left (knee tendon. Figure out what this is) was bothering me more than usual, so I headed home and took an ice bath. It helped more than I anticipated.

Thursday:. 6.5 miles, ~750 feet. Up Sunshine Canyon trail from work.

Friday: 6.5 miles, ~750 feet. Same as Thursday, but I injected a little tempo into the workout along Sunshine. Felt pretty solid.

Saturday: AM: 250m Swimming, climbing at the Rec Center. PM: 4 mile bike ride.

Sunday: 11.5 miles, 1500’. Longinsh run around the Doudy Draw area. Took Flatirons Vista South to Doudy Draw, split off on Spring Brook South. From there I looped Goshawk Ridge back to Spring Brook North and Doudy Draw again. Then took Flatirons Vista North back to the car. I thought about adding more on, since my legs were still feeling pretty good, but this had already been my longest week this year, and I had a Super Bowl Party to prepare for, so I called it short. (And for your information, the Superbowl was not the 49ers versus the Ravens. It was Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw)

Overall the year seems to be shaping up fairly well. My left (knee tendon) is feeling better and better. Running does not seem to exacerbate it. If anything, movement seems to help it loosen up and sitting still with my leg bent (ie working) is what causes me problems. But the rest of me seems to be coping well with the increased mileage and introduction of tempo and hill repeats into my training. I have higher hopes for this year than I have in the past.

I am a nerd. That statement will not surprise those who know me. Those who know me only by this blog may or may not be surprised. I say this because, on my Sunday run, I took a ause to admire some of the more interesting geological features around the North Spring Brook trail. During the late Cretaceous (if I recall correctly) much of this area was underwater: the shore of  ashallow, inland sea.

After a few million years, there was an upthrust that created the Rocky Mountains. In the process, this pushed sedimentary rock, which formed on the bottom of the aforementioned sea, up at a sharp angle. This upthrust created features like Red Rocks, the Flatirons, Garden of the Gods, and Dinosaur Ridge among others.

Along the North Spring Brook trail, there’s a long stretch of exposed yellow sandstone that still shows the ripples laid down then the area was still a sea shore. It reminds me vividly of swimming as a kid in Lake Superior, where the wave action always left similar ripples in the sand. Somehow, in my prior runs in this area, I had completely missed this feature, to my detriment.

I only wish I had taken pictures rather than just continuing on, but such is life.