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.

Where did that come from?  After last Saturday’s 50K race, I figured this would be a down/recovery week.  I didn’t have any set plans, but let each day unfold on its own.  Turned out to be a pretty good week of training.  Probably my best in terms of how I felt since last September.

Sights are set on the Buffalo Run 100 at the end of next month.  I’ll start shooting for multiple (2-3) 20 milers in a week, while keeping the weekly mileage around 80’ish.

Monday
7 miles
Mizuno Ronin

Very good run. Quite possibly the best I’ve ever had for the first one back after racing an ultra. The outside edges of my calves are SMOKED. All the stabilization required running through the rock-hard ruts and hoof prints during Saturday’s race really worked them over. Everything else feels fine.

Tuesday
10 miles
Saucony Kinvara

Felt good again. Was planning on 7, but stretched it to 10. Hilly route, 8:44 pace with 136 heart rate. Legs are still a little tired from the race, but feel remarkably good considering.

Wednesday
5 miles
Saucony Kinvara

Short on time, pushed the pace a little.

Thursday
10.2 miles
Saucony Peregrine

Wow tough run. Chose a very snowy route, it was slow going. I felt super tired and bonky, and don’t really remember much of the second half. It was total auto-pilot. A really bad feeling.

Friday
11.2 miles
Saucony Kinvara

Had energy right from the first step. Went from one of the worst runs of the year yesterday, to one of the best today. The key? Sugar. I had been cutting my calories to try and drop a few pounds and it caught up with me yesterday. After that run I doubled my food intake, including some very healthy meals – but also had 2 snickers bars, a ding dong, 1/2 kit kat, a small bowl of ice cream, and a handful of kisses. I felt awesome today doing 10 miles of strong tempo with a mile cool-down. Zoom zoom.

Saturday
21.3 miles
Saucony Kinvara

Did two convoluted 10 mile laps around the neighborhood. Felt strong througout. This is one of the best paced long runs I’ve had in a long time. Very even from start to finish. 146 heart rate.

Sunday
5.1 miles
Nike Free

Wanted to do around 5, but nothing too extreme. I chose the ‘ketchup’ level on my Powerline simulator for the treadmill.

Total: 70.2 miles / 10:15 / 732 TSS

Pic of the week:

So as we’re sitting down to dinner early in the week, my youngest daughter looks at the window and spots a frying pan.  20′ up in our tree…

Typical taper week.  Felt like cr@p every run only to have the legs feel light and snappy for the race.  Good timing!  Ran great the first 80% of the race, then pretty bad the last 20%.  Fair result considering where I’m at in my training.  Work to do!

Monday
5 miles
Saucony Peregrine

Hildebrand Ranch after work. Packed snow, but it was soft and I sunk 2-6 inches every step. Tough run.

Tuesday
7.4 miles
Saucony Peregrine

Very snowy. Easy tempo.

Also set a new best on my TRX. When I started I could only do 3 rounds with 5 reps of my exercises. This time I did 7 rounds of 7 reps. Definitely getting stronger. Feels good!

Wednesday

OFF

Thursday
6 miles
Saucony Peregrine

Easy final run before race day.

Friday

OFF

Saturday
31 miles
New Balance MT110

Psycho Wyco 50k. 5:09. 15th out of 120. 3rd master. 4,500′ climbing.

Sunday

OFF

Total: 50 miles / 8:07 / 490 TSS

Pic of the week.  Long drive to KC.