Nothing too flashy workout-wise this week, but I did get to the climbing gym, had a few TRX workouts, and had a couple of good long jogs.  Looking for another 80 miles this coming week, with hopefully two more 20+ long runs.

Monday
10 miles
Nike Free

Lots going on, hopped on the treadmill for this one.

Tuesday
11.4 miles
Mizuno Ronin

Good run. Pushed a hard tempo for the middle 6 miles on hilly terrain.

Wednesday
6.2 miles
Saucony Kinvara

Short on time, easy jog. 130 avg HR.

Thursday
10 miles
Saucony Peregrine

What a strange day. Huge unexpected storm came through last night and buried us in snow. In almost 14 years of driving the same route, I had one my top 5 worst commutes.

Later that afternoon, my run consisted of a huge amount of dry pavement where the paths had been plowed before the sun came out. Probably only 10% of it was through snow. Something about Tuesday’s run really set off my calves. They were super tight today.

Friday
21 miles
Saucony Peregrine

Getting creative with the long run(s) this week. I have to be in the office on Saturday, but not until late morning. So I arranged to run home from work on Friday, then will turn around and run back in the morning.

This run started out awful. My calves were so tight that any incline at all had them balling up. I had to stop and shake them out several times. It took 7 miles for them to finally get the message and relax a bit. I thought I was past most of these calf/heel issues, but I guess Tuesday’s hilly tempo must have uncovered some latent soreness from the 50k I did two weeks ago or something like that.

I about froze solid just as the sun was going down, then warmed back up after it set and the wind went away.

Saturday
23 miles
Saucony Peregrine

Finished last night’s run at around 7:30 and was out the door by 6:30 this morning to do it again. Thankfully it actually warmed up overnight from 22 when I went to bed, to 34 when I left. Huge wind, though.

After the first mile or two I rolled along nicely, and even tacked on a couple extra. I finished the equivalent of last night’s run 10 minutes faster than yesterday. Definitely feeling better. The heels were very tender from tight calves pulling on them, but other than that no complaints. Was wearing a hydration pack and tuned in some Pandora playing through the speaker of my phone while it rode in the chest pocket.

There was about 5 miles of very slow going each way.

Surprisingly, no one had been on this path since I left my footprints the night before…

I spent a few hours at the office, then battled even bigger winds driving home. I was in the right lane and spotted a car way up ahead with a mattress and a box spring on the roof. Doing about 50mph straight into the wind.

Just as I was moving into the left lane, still some distance from the car, POP! The bedding took off into the sky. The mattress was on the bottom and didn’t do much. The box spring went crazy-high up into the sky spinning like a sattelite in orbit. As it started dropping corner-down, I could tell it was headed right for me. I had a brief second to consider if taking the hit would be better than risking extreme evasive action. I opted to at least try to get out of the way and fishtailed slightly down the highway as the thing came crashing to the ground, just brushing my left front fender as I Tokyo drifted on by.

Sunday

OFF

Total: 81.7 miles / 12:53 / 788 TSS

Pic of the week:

I took the kids with me to the climbing gym, we all had a great time.  I hadn’t been there since they installed the auto-belay devices.  Cool contraptions, now I can go solo and just burn laps.

I’m not normally too bothered by heights, but have to admit to being a little freaked out the first time on the AB.  It’s the spool-looking thing with the yellow straps above me in the photo.  Kind of like a huge version of a badge reel you might wear at the office.  Only it has some sort of clutch mechanism so it only takes up slack when there is no weight on the line.  This makes it so it doesn’t drag you up the wall, and also prevents you from hangdogging to work out a hard move.  You are on your own.

That’s all fine, but when you top out and it’s time to get back down, you can’t just sag your weight onto it like you would a top rope.  If you try and put a little of your weight on it, you’ll just get slack payed out in response.  The only option?  Jump.  You just have to bail off the wall and hope that clutch thingamajig kicks in and slows your butt down before you crater.  Good times.