Category Archives: training
Rolling Again
It’s been a long few months, but things are finally starting to look up again. After training through a seemingly endless string of injuries over the past two years, my body (and frankly my mind as well) finally had enough and shut me down hard. With my left foot on the verge of snapping in two, I finally stopped running for a while. I had a hit-and-miss period of about a month, then 6 weeks off, then have been very slowly building back up over the last month. So a grand total of 364 miles run since September 1st.
The foot is feeling a lot better, though still not 100%. It was pretty bad – and I’m sure very close to cracking a metatarsal. Thankfully, I didn’t need any boot time and have been able to ride my bikes – which I’ve been doing a fair amount of. Not enough to offset the fistfuls of candy and gallons of soda I’ve been shoveling in, but it has at least kept my legs from withering away.
So, 14 pounds. That’s the damage. Ouch. I really took some ‘liberty’ with my down time and now have some extra work to do.
The good news is my head is finally in a good spot again, and I’m feeling the spark. My body is following close behind. The time off had the benefit of finally allowing my problematic heel to get better. Two years of limping hopefully behind me now. The achilles and calf area are still a lot tighter than they should be, but the heel itself is doing much better. I ran a hilly 10 miler today, and the only time I thought about my heel was at around mile 8.5 when I thought to myself – hey, I haven’t thought about my heel for this whole run so far… That was it, no pain at all. Quite a difference from flinching with every step all this time.
While I am fat and sucking wind, I feel really strong. I’ve been doing a lot of long pushes on the bike (around an hour to 90 minutes) in a harder gear than I would normally ride so I end up averaging about 80 rpm. It’s tough work, but I feel it’s much more effective than the normal spin-type rides I used to do, or just doing shorter intervals.
So, what else has been going on?
We spent an afternoon down at the lake throwing rocks into the water. It was actually a lot of fun. The ice was just starting to form along the edges of the inlet river and we would shove off these huge ice barges downstream and bomb them into oblivion with huge rocks. None of us could move our throwing arms the next day.
Bombs away.
I got my picture in Trail Runner magazine.
About 30 seconds into a 28 hour day…
I have been working a fair number of nights and weekends, so I took a Friday off and rode my mountain bike 70 miles. It was a great day (just a jersey and shorts in December!), but with the warm temps came the WIND. HUGE WIND. I think I had some hearing loss after the fact from it roaring in my ears for so long.
Mile High city from mile 40 of my ride.
Geese on the glassy ice.
Look Ma, no hands.
Messing around with the morning light at my back.
Had some fun editing this goose pic, the ice it was sitting on was like a mirror.
I got out for a nice 3 hour run from my house. I took the opportunity to get up Goat Peak for the first time, something that took me way too long – after 12 years of living here. I went on the day Waterton Canyon opened up for the first time since August, and there were tons of folks out and about. They’ll be shutting it down at the end of January for the rest of 2011. The run was great and my legs held up really well. Although my quads were incredibly tender for 5 days after.
Goat Peak (center left)
We’ve been eating really well…
Malcolm’s mashed potato volcano.
Lindsey had a birthday.
14!
Jessica got new wheels. She gets around really well with braces on her lower legs, and even goes without them around the house, but long distances are tough on her. She’s too big for me to carry very far anymore, so we thought a wheelchair would be a good thing to look into. It’ll be a big help in a few years in middle school and above where you need to pack your heavy books with you from class to class. She’s really gotten the hang of it and is looking forward to playing some sports next year.
Super cool wheels. Even came with an elf hat and a small stocking filled with candy!
I don’t know if I was a very good boy, but Santa made a stop at Backcountry.com and picked up a sweet set of snowshoes for my Christmas present. Denver snowfall total so far for the 2010-2011 winter is <1 inch… Time to head for the mountains!
MSR Ascents with removable tails + Back Diamond poles.
Wild Life
I’ve been on a typical taper roller coaster over the past several days. Felt absolutely awful on a 13 mile run Saturday, but have been getting progressively better since then. Washing my hands every 30 seconds to avoid catching my daughter’s 2nd-week-of-school cold. Scrambling to get drop bags packed, lists made and checked off, etc. – but seemingly not making any progress at all. My lower calves feel like shredded beef. My knee hurts. I have to shuffle along the carpet when I get out of bed, and can’t walk normally for about 10-15 minutes.
And then, I found THIS in the basement this morning.
Wildlife, indeed. 14″ Prarie Rattlesnake. As in, rah-tulll-snayk!
I ran downstairs in the pre-dawn darkness to grab my iPod off the desk where it had been charging. I started to flip on the light and then blew right past it remembering that I had already unplugged the iPod last night and it was just sitting there for me to grab and go. Got back upstairs and finished getting ready for work, but still had 10 minutes to kill before taking Malcolm to school. Busted downstairs again to kick off a movie download so it could run while I was at work, flipped on the light, took three steps…
You have GOT to be joking.
Okay, where’s the hidden camera. Ha, ha.
No such luck, it was the real-freaking-deal.
After successfully channeling my inner Steve Irwin and capturing it, I was faced with a dilemma of mind-blowing proportions. My brain very nearly blew a gasket just thinking about it. Do I tell anyone??? Unleash the drama? The questions? The FEAR? Or… Do I just keep it to myself, and figure out what to do later?
I decided to keep it to myself, just for now, until I could assess the situation better. I carefully carried the box up the stairs and stopped at the landing to scope things out. Everyone busy in the kitchen, go. I turned to pick up the box and got two steps up before my wife’s eyes met mine transmitting the message (loud and clear), what in the hell is that!?! I shot back an emphatic glance (the kids were still oblivious), you don’t want to know… as I hurried past and out the front door.
Ultimately, reason won over and we showed the kids and had a good talk about being careful. They weren’t as freaked out as I expected, and took it pretty well. Jessica’s elementary school mascot is The Roxborough Rattler, so not that big of deal to her.
After surviving this week, running 100 miles on Saturday is going to be a walk in the park.
Leadville Night Run
Partook in the annual tradition of running the last 23 miles of the LT100 course at night a couple of weeks before race-time. This year we had a group of about a dozen or so show up. The spectacularly clear night of last year was replaced with clouds and rain. We all got totally soaked, but at least it didn’t really get too cold.
I came out of this run with a good feel for where my fitness is at. I’m pretty happy with where things are, and could definitely feel the big mile weeks of July kicking in. I only wish I could be/stay healthy enough to string 4-5 months like that together. Getting there…
Here are some highlights:
Getting into town early and running the 8 miles out to the meeting spot. I gave myself plenty of time, took it very easy, and enjoyed cruising along to some tunes watching the storms gather around the valley.
Meeting Brandon (of 2:59 Boston fame), and Brownie (multi-time Hardrocker and on his way to a Rocky Mountain Slam). I’ve followed their blogs for a while and it was great to meet in person and get a good run in together.
Blazing up Powerline. Despite doing essentially zero climbing in training, I hung with the lead group and ascended Sugarloaf 10 minutes faster than last year. I felt really strong on the running portions, but sucked bad on the hiking sections – that fast/efficient hiking stride is something I need to work on.
Running in the rain. It had been a while, and I was soaked to the bone, but stayed warm and comfortable. Good practice anyway.
Shot bloks. I had just popped 3 in my mouth when Brandon took off leading the group down the Colorado Trail. It was wet and slick, and I was concentrating hard on my foot placement. I was so focused that I think I just ran with that huge mouthful of bloks for 5+ minutes without ever getting them down. I finally gave up and just sprayed them into the trees.
Night train. I love running at night at a good clip on a trail with a good group like that. Just hang on.
Footwork. Plenty of opportunity for trouble, but no slips or trips. A+. Even felt good enough to blast down the final hill full of chunky rocks and blow past the group. Really happy to have survived that, a fall would have been ugly.
The group. Man, what a solid bunch of runners! Brownie, Brandon, Leila, Ryan, Greek, Patrick, and Woody. Really worked me over. That is one strong crew and are all looking super-good for race day.
Race numbers are assigned, time to start tagging the drop bags.
See you in 2 weeks!
The Scene Begins 
