Week Ending March 29

This was a recovery week, as intended, so there wasn't much in the way of running or workouts for the week. After some consideration, I also decided, once again, to abandon my plan of a running streak. I don't know why I keep going back to the idea of running everyday when I've had much luck doing so. Perhaps is just the elegance of running every day. Nonetheless, with even one rest day a week, I feel a thousand times better than I do if I run even a mile on that off day.

Given my goals for the year, taking a rest day ever week just makes sense.

Weekly Summary:  ~23 miles, ~3 hours.

I did manage to get one good workout in this week, however. On Friday, I was feeling all out of sorts, mentally and physically. My legs were not feeling great, despite several days of short and easy runs. Mentally, I was feeling down, and worn out after a hard week of work (without enough running to offset it).

So Friday morning, I opted to head out mid-morning for a run from the River Gorge down to, and possibly around, Pike Island in Snelling State Park.

Feeling good on the first section of trail, I ended up hitting a decent pace even on the difficult trail section. Across the bridge, my route ran along bike paths and sidewalks, and I found myself hitting sub-7 pace without breathing hard on the slight downhill. I cruised though the off-leash dog park (sorry if I startled anybody), hitting 6:30s on the downhill trail, and finally (after a slight bushwhack) down into Snelling proper on the bike path.

By this point, I was over 5 miles into my run. A lap of Pike Island would have made the whole run over 13 miles, but I didn't feel that was a good idea. Rather, I decided to make the second half a good tempo run, pushing myself to the uncomfortable stage.

Retracing my route back up the slight slope to my car, I hit a fairly steady effort, with paces ranging from 8 minutes on the steeper hills to low 6-minutes on the flats and shallow grades. All in all, I hit 10.5 miles in about 1:15, for a decent outing.

And now, since I forgot these last week: pictures!

Morning shot of St Paul from Battle Creek.

Cobbler flavor gel . . .

. . .at Pi

I have an obsession with odd trees.

And finally, good running advice from Old Navy

Fortnight Ending 3/22/2015

These two weeks gave me a massive mental boost over where I had been. In the first two months of the year, despite having a better fitness base coming in and feeling like I was doing plenty, I realized that I was in fact doing less mileage than the corresponding time in 2014. I am quite sure that I was doing the corresponding mileage faster and with less fatigue over all, but it was discouraging nonetheless.

This fortnight left me feeling like I got a solid bit of training under my belt. I also started exploring a new place to run (Battle Creek Park, site of the Night Lights half last fall), which provides a bit more vertical than my standard River Gorge route.

Summaries: 

Week ending March 15: 37 miles, 5 hours, 1800' of elevation gained.

I managed two solid workouts during this period. The first happened by chance: I was running along the hillier of my two routes from home, and saw up and to my left a pair of bald eagles kettling. I ran with them for a few blocks, looking up as much as I could, and found they were moving at about 5:30 pace.

Feeling surprisingly good, I turned my planned easy loop into more of a tempo run, and ended up running about 10k in just over 41 minutes. Not a stellar time, but not bad for legs that had run 14 miles two days earlier, on a hilly course.

The second was a more standard fartlek down Summit. I tried a 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off program, but this was quickly interrupted by the stoplights (spaced every 1/2 or 1/4 mile down the entire route). Nevertheless, I got a good workout in.

Saturday's long run I headed out to Battle Creek, where I proceeded to explore for a while. After a week of warm weather, it was starting to cool off a bit, and I got some stunning visions of the meadows, frosted over, sparkling in the first rays of the sun.

As I remembered, Battle Creek consists of a lot of double track, groomed for skiing in the winter. However, it also has a large amount of single track (mostly for mountain bikes) that provides a good counterpoint. Best of all, at the end, I found another, steeper, gnarlier singletrack section on the far side of the creek from the main park. Since I was meeting friends for a Saint Patricks Day/Pi day combo lunch, I had to save exploring that further for the next week.

Week Ending March 22: 42 miles, 6:16, 4800' elevation.

I hope this week marks a turning point physically as well as mentally. After exploring Battle Creek on Saturday, I realized if I wanted to train properly for the races I have planned, I need to actively seek out steep, technical trails to train on properly.

So this week I did just that. Tuesday, I headed down to the River Gorge. Keeping to the east bank,  I ran south, and every time I saw a trail down to the river, I took it down to the bank, and tempoed back up. Eventually, I found three trails within about half a mile. Two were steep, nearly a 50% grade as far as I can tell from Strava. The third was one I'd done before, shallower but longer. I did a full 18 total hill reps, for about 1500 feet.

The second workout, I headed over to Battle Creek for a hill I found promising. This time I did 10 steep reps, and 5 shallower, longer hills with more vert.

Saturday I hit Battle Creek again. Exploring to the west side of the creek, I came upon what I think is a trail in progress. It was cleared, and blazed, but the trail itself was not yet cut into the ground at all. And, eventually, it just dead-ended. We'll see if the trail-making progresses.

I got lucky on this run. Coming down a hill, the same switchbacking slope I did repeats on earlier in the week, I startled a coyote. It proceeded to bounce (not bound, but bounce on all four legs) down the hill just quickly enough to evade my camera. Later on, I struggled up a different hill to see what I think was a pair of red tailed hawks courting ahead of me. Naturally, they also flew off before I could snap a picture.

All in all, though, it was a good run, coming in at 14 miles. And after a 4 mile run the next day, I started a much-needed recovery week.

Week Ending 3/8/2015

Weekly Totals: 36 miles. About 5 hours.

It was only about 40 degrees warmer than the last time I took a picture from this spot. 

Looking west from the opposite bank. For some reason I really liked this broken stool, sitting out on the ice. 

As a runner, I have never been big on the phenomenon known as "streaking." (Well, depends on the type of streaking, but that's a long story from a while ago now). I know some people who have kept their mile-a-day streak up for a very long time. One is on day 250 or so.

I kept one going for almost two weeks once . . .

But I've been thinking. I'm in good shape, injury-free at the moment, and I'm curious about this. I also happen to be coming up on my 32nd birthday. So I think I might combine the two, and try a short streak, running the 32 days preceding my birthday.

Seems appropriate.

Some rules and guidelines:

1. Each run must be a mile, documented. Unless my GPS breaks down, in which case I will do 10 minutes.
2. It has to be a run, where I change into running clothes and shoes. 
3. If I think that running that mile, or ten minutes, will affect me negatively, I can bail: no harm, no foul. 

That's all. I will start no later than March 18. 

(Did I mention I have two races during that period?)

Fortnight Ending March 1st.

Week Ending February 22: 29 miles,  about four hours. 

This was the week that winter finally caught up to me. The past week had already been cold, with single digits above and below zero common, and 10+ mph winds consistent. Nonetheless, I managed to get out and increase my mileage that week. 

This week not so much. I ran longish Tuesday, and was all set to head out for a similarly long run on Wednesday. Less than a mile in, though, heading down Summit and into the wind, my fingertips were already getting frost nip and I couldn’t feel  my cheeks. I decided enough was enough, and turned back. 

The rest of the week was a little better, culminating in a 12.5 mile run on Saturday.  I opted for a full River Gorge loop, starting at home, which conveniently made for my planned 12.5 miles. Northbound from Ford Bridge (which I took at a low 5-minute pace) I glanced back to see a couple other runners clearly looking for the drop-down point to the trail. 

This led to me showing them the “ledges:” the portion of the River Gorge north of Ford and south of Lake. Through this section, the trail often has an 80+ foot drop to the left, and no escape up the bank to the right. It’s a place where, even after running in Colorado for so many years, I occasionally worry about the exposure and bad footing. 

One wrong step and you’re in the river, or, since it is winter after all, a red mark on the ice. 

Even so, it was nice to have some company on my run for once. I dropped my pace a bit to run with them, but not too significantly, and it was fun to meet some new people. 

So thank you, David and Terrence. It was a pleasure. 

Sunday was again below zero with a strong wind, and I gave in to the elements. 

I’m not proud, but I have all my digits!

Week Ending March 1: 20 miles. Just over 2.5 hours. 

As should be clear, this was my rest week. I focused on keeping mileage up during the week, knowing that I would likely not get any running in on the weekend. 

The reason for that was that G and I headed up to Lutsen, Minnesota (starting and ending location for the Spring Superior races, and finish of the Superior 50 and 100 in the fall) to chaperone a ski trip for my mother’s church. Since she doesn’t ski, we were the designated on the slope adults. 

Since I telemark, I wasn’t too worried about missing a longish run. 6 or so hours of tele skiing is a phenomenal eccentric strength workout for your legs, which is a great way to train your legs for the downhills in races without the accompanying pounding on your joints that running downhill entails. 

Compared to Colorado skiing, Lutsen is not all that impressive, but it’s as good as it gets in Minnesota, and a more than suitably enjoyable way to spend a day.