I got ‘invited’ to a training camp the other day. 7 days of riding in the Tucson sunshine, sounds awesome! Excellent coaching staff, room and board, daily rides, and post-ride massages. Count me in – except for the fact that it costs FIVE hundred bucks a DAY. I might as well pay Lance to do the pedaling for me. No thanks.

It got me thinking, though. Lately, as in the past 2 months, I’ve been in some sort of funk that I haven’t been able to shake. I’ve had some good days, but for the most part I’ve been a little down and have been floundering in some sort of post 100-miler depression. Sounds weird, but I guess after you focus on and train for something for so long, there’s bound to be a let down after it’s over. What I need is a challenge. Why not do my own training camp? The fact that I’m 10 pounds heavier than I was at this point last year has me bothered. I went on a huge binge through Halloween and Thanksgiving, eating everything in sight and then some. I’ve made a couple of false starts to get things back on track, the latest lasting all of 4 days. For some reason, just trying to be moderate doesn’t cut it with me. I end up right back where I started. So, it’s time for some good old fashioned brute force.

I decided that for the next 12 days, leading up to the Winter Solstice on 12/22, I would run 10 miles a day and create as large of a calorie deficit as possible. Just to get the momentum turned around. It will also be good for building a strong base to start more serious training in the coming months. For now the goal is to do the miles every day at an easy pace, get plenty of sleep, be super-strict on my eating habits, and let the training do its thing. I have a great 10 mile loop that starts from my office that will make the perfect course for this. It’s 10.11 miles, starts downhill, has a couple of bumps in the middle, then a hard climb back to the finish.

I’ll just keep updating this post as the days go by. Should be interesting to see how I do!

Date	Rest HR	Weight	Caloriesconsumed/burned	Miles	Time	Pace	Avg HR
12/10	50	175.0	1528/2963	10.11	1:33:52	9:17	148
12/11	58	171.4	1475/3127	10.11	1:38:02	9:41	151
12/12	58	170.2	1659/2988	10.11	1:36:04	9:30	156
12/13	59	169.2	1480/3133	10.11	1:29:44	8:52	160
12/14	56	168.6	1564/3046	10.11	1:41:08	10:00	141
12/15	58	170.0	2471/3155	SKI DAY
12/16	53	170.4	1683/3109	10.00	1:26:31	8:39	155
12/17	52	169.4	1502/3290	10.11	1:23:08	8:13	163
12/18	49	168.4	1881/3315	10.11	1:35:16	9:25	150
12/19	50	168.0	1589/3155	10.11	1:25:39	8:28	161
12/20:1	52	167.4	2685/4795	10.00	1:36:00	9:35	142
12/20:2				10.11	1:14:27	7:21	173
12/21	50	166.0	3062/3199	10.11	1:33:12	9:13	144

12/10 – Day One

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Got up on time, good day @ work.

Run was nice, paved paths were dry, dirt was snowpacked. Felt pretty good. 1400 calorie deficit. That’s what I’m talking about!

12/11 – Day Two

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The scale was very generous with me today. I’m probably a bit dehydrated. I thought I drank plenty yesterday, but looking at my food log it only added up to 56oz. Snowing hard this morning. 40 minute commute took 1:10 – bad roads.

Slower pace + higher avg heart rate = more work on the run today. I basically worked harder to go slower than yesterday. It’s tough running through 4-5 inches of snow! Actually the new stuff wasn’t bad, it was the layer of heavily tracked old snow underneath that made things tough. 19 degrees and overcast. Luckily not much wind. Legs tired, but good. Plugged along to GnR, Journey, and Springsteen. Didn’t see another soul…

12/12 – Day Three

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I drank 72oz of water yesterday and woke up feeling parched. Probably shoot for 100 today. Resting heart rate is still a little high. I’ll be looking for that to drop over the next few days as my body adapts to the workload, I get better at hydrating, and hopefully sleep a little better.

Run went ok. Nice weather – sunshine and 30 degrees. Pushed harder, but didn’t go much faster. Footing still really tough for about 5 miles. Sugary snow, slippery, and heavily tracked. Good training for running through the sand and rocks next year.

12/13 – Day Four

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A little tired this morning, but still feeling pretty good. My hydration seems better after taking in 110oz yesterday. The scale keeps cooperating, though I’m not giving it much of a choice. I turned down a plate of homemade peanut butter cookies this morning without even flinching. Focus! Focus! Focus! 🙂

Still looking for the morning heart rate to drop back down, but it could take a few more days. Haven’t been sleeping well. I go to bed before 10:00 and get up at 5:30. That’s perfect time-wise, it’s just that I wake up 4-5 times during the night. Hopefully that will settle down soon.

Great run today! Kind of a surprise given how calorie deficient I am becoming. Guess it shows I’m still packing plenty of fuel… The first half felt easy, and I could tell I was going faster than yesterday, so I pushed hard to see if I could break 1:30. Made it with 16 seconds to spare.

Footing still tricky, but improving. I’m also getting a lot better at running on the packed/slick/uneven snow. You have to keep a neutral to slightly forward center of gravity and create forward motion without relying on your toes and the balls of your feet to dig in and push. It’s been a good lesson in technique.

12/14 – Day Five

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Holy Groundhog Day. That’s a good thing, what I needed was some solid consistency. Even if it does feel like I’m living the same day over and over. Eat basically the same food, get up, drive to work in the dark, etc. I even had the same sleep pattern as the night before – woke up at 2:20, 4:20, then 5:20. I did have huge, cinema quality dreams last night which is rare. Feeling good, everything’s on track.

I occasionally get asked – how can you train for running 100 miles without running 100 miles? Today was a great example of how to do that. Accumulate several days worth of fatigue by running long every day, mix in some calorie depravation, and lack of sleep. Make conditions really tough. Then go run!

It was 18 degrees and snowing hard, with about 1/2 inch of new snow when I started. Just enough to cover up all the icy spots and keep you on your toes. It was very slippery, and I resigned myself to taking it easy. I tried to run fast enough to stay warm, but slow enough to avoid overheating. I still ended up sweating buckets by then end.

12/15 – Day Six

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I took Malcolm skiing at Copper Mountain today. We were up at 5:20 and got home around 8:00, making for a long one. It was VERY cold!! -14 when we pulled into the lot. We got in some good runs and had a memorable day together. It had been a couple of years since we last went, so it was nice to do that again. I was really happy with how he did.

12/16 – Day Seven

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Did my run on the treadmill today. Started slower and finished faster. Watched golf. Felt good.

12/17 – Day Eight

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Awesome awesome awesome run today. 35 degrees and sunshine felt like a heat wave. I went with shorts and a long sleeve top and that was perfect. Quite a change from the March of the Penguins weather last week, it felt so good! I held back for the first 5 miles with my legs constantly begging for more. Finally I let ’em have it and started pouring on the coals. My route had seen a lot of traffic over the weekend, so the snow was all packed down. There was still a little bit of an icy glaze on the surface that kept my attention. I averaged 7:50 miles for the last 5. Three of those were on snow, and then the last two were clear – but climbed a couple hundred feet. It’s a tough way to finish, but my legs felt just as good at mile 10 as they did at mile 1. My lungs were the limiting factor today.

I can’t believe I was able to run like that without crashing and burning considering I’ve only taken in ~1600 calories a day for the last week. My body is adapting well. It’s 9:02 PM right now and my food diary website tells me I can still eat 2100 calories today to maintain my weight. Better get some ice cream! Not.

Note to self for tomorrow: slow down!!

12/18 – Day Nine

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Feeling good today. Woke up at 5:00 and couldn’t go back to sleep. Nice to see my heart rate coming back down, especially after yesterday’s effort. I’m recovering well.

Nothing glamorous about today’s run, yesterday’s magic was gone. I expected that, and just planned on running easy. Even though I was a lot slower than yesterday, it felt like twice as much work. Running slower was causing me to plant my foot more, and I was constantly slipping, spinning out, and knocking my knees together on the slick/uneven surface. Much easier to run on when I’m up to speed and just skimming over the top.

12/19 – Day Ten

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Tired this morning. It was the first time since I started this that I didn’t get up before my alarm went off.

Ended up with a pretty good run, just a couple of minutes off my best time. Wasn’t pushing that hard, just let my legs do what they wanted while the rest of me went along for the ride. I did start to feel pretty fatigued at the end, I think I’ve finally burned off whatever reserves I had been reliant on and am now more dependent on my day-to-day calorie intake. I pressed through the feeling and finished strong.

12/20 – Day Eleven

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With bad weather predicted for tomorrow, I knew today would be my last chance to give an all-out effort during my training camp. I had also been wanting to do a make-up run, to take care of the one I missed while skiing. Since I had a work lunch to go to, and wouldn’t be able to do my normal routine, it seemed like a perfect time to try a double.

Run #1: I was on the treadmill before six this morning and kept it nice and easy knowing I would be running again after work.

Run #2: This one was to be my training camp final exam. I went hard right from the start to see what I could do with my time. I was hoping to break 1:20, but didn’t think I would after I got halfway. Traction was horrible. With it being late in the day, I spent a 6 mile stretch flailing through deep slush, over ice, and quicksand-like mud. It wasn’t pretty. I figured I would end up with a 1:21 or 1:22. Still good enough to break my record, but not the time I really wanted.

My legs were totally up to the task, despite doing 10 on the treadmill this morning. My stomach was having major problems dealing with the greasy pizza I had a lunch, and was really bothering me. My body didn’t like that at all. I only had 2 slices, but it was quite a change from what I’ve been eating lately. I pressed on and didn’t give up, once I got back on pavement for the 2 mile climb to the finish I really hammered – enjoying the solid footing. I was very happy to finish with a 1:14:27. Wow, where did that come from!?! I just knocked over 8 minutes off my time (but this was the first time I’d gone all-out). I kept playing the run over in my head trying to think of where I had taken a shortcut… What a great improvement, I was very happy with that result!

12/21 – Day Twelve

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After yesterday’s runs, it was nice to dial back the effort level today and just go easy. I treated it as a parade lap to celebrate the successful end of my training camp. I hit a cool milestone in the process. Todays run put me at 2002.5 miles for the year. Nice!

12/22 – Conclusion

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I couldn’t be happier with how things went. I took in an average of 1881 calories per day, and ended up with a deficit of 16,696. That equates to a solid 5 pound loss. More importantly, I did it while keeping a very heavy training load, and making great improvements in my speed and efficiency. Total success!

For the past month I have adopted a new training strategy. All of my running this year has been geared towards one thing – going the distance. Now that I have a really good base built up, I thought it would be a good time to start adding some speed. I also wanted to toughen up my legs some more and just get them used to running a lot more frequently. Even though I have put in some big miles, my typical week only consists of 3-5 runs. I wanted to up that total to 6/week, and shoot for having one hard speedwork session, one tempo run, and one long run. The rest would be slower 5-8 mile recovery runs.

I picked out a half marathon coming up in December to give me something to focus on and got to work. After quite a bit of searching, I found a training plan that fit my ideas and plugged the workouts into my training calendar. Some of them were a little complicated and tough to do:

Standard warm up. Run 2 x .5/.75/2 mi supersets. Run .5 @ 7:15, .75 @ 7:30, and 2 mi @ 7:45. Do not rest between the distances. Recover between the sets with .5 mi at an easy pace. Cool down with .5 mi at an easy pace.

Standard warm up. Run 30 minutes alternating between 30 seconds at 20 seconds per mile faster than 5K pace and 30 seconds at an easy pace. Cool down with 5 minutes at an easy pace. 6:50/easy

I started out well and nailed the workouts as planned. I struggled through some bad shin pain for a couple of weeks, and still got it done. Then the wheels started coming off. I started bailing out on some of the workouts, which is something I hadn’t done before. I would have to cut them short because I just couldn’t do all of the specified repeats or mileage at the prescribed pace. At first it was just once in a while, and I chalked it up to being fatigued, but then it started happening on every key workout. The training plan cracked me physically and mentally. I was beat down with failure, my legs were shot, and my attitude in general had taken a turn for the worse.

I hopped on the treadmill Monday to do a challenging workout (considering my condition) with 3 miles easy followed by 7 miles at my planned half-marathon pace. I did the first 3, then ramped it up and started going faster. At 3.91 miles I pulled the plug and got off the treadmill. It just wasn’t happening. I hardly ever quit anything, but I was in a real rut here and started to question my running in general. With that, I made a decision to take some time off and wait until I actually wanted to run again.

That only lasted 4 days. It was a much needed break, though.

Today I laced up my trusty trail shoes (which was nice because I’d been running roads all this time) and got back to my roots – or rocks as the case may be… I’ve had my eye on Carpenter Peak for a while and have wanted to run to the top and back from my house. It’s one of the dominant features above our subdivision, and I hadn’t ever been up to the top despite living here for almost ten years.

I took off under an overcast sky, 49 degrees, in shorts, t-shirt, and gloves. Perfect. I had no idea how many miles it would be, but kind of had 2 hours as a time goal to get to the top.

My calves complained mightily under the strain of the first climbs. My right one burned with a steady fire for a couple of miles, and my left caused my foot to go numb for a while. Need to get those puppies loosened up! Once I hit some rolling terrain I was feeling much better. Even though I was working, I could tell that I felt pretty good in general and would be able to hold my pace for a long time. I also didn’t want to stop or take any walk breaks (which is pretty standard practice on a mountainous trail run).

I got to the base of the mountain proper in about an hour and started up the singletrack trail that switchbacked its way up the slope. Man, I was really feeling good here! I ran the whole thing without ever going over my anaerobic threshold. When my heart rate hits 172, that is the point where I start producing lactic acid faster than my muscles can clear it. After that, it’s only a matter of time before performance really declines. I was able to keep a steady effort with my heart rate at 165 and the legs felt great. Hmmm, this is new. Even with all of the miles I’ve done, a climb like this would normally have me crossing the line into the red zone if I tried to run it.

I think all of the training I had been doing (even though it wiped me out) really boosted my ability to work more efficiently below my threshold, and also to continue working well when I was near my threshold. I guess that’s what spending all of that time running at that point will do for you. Anyway, it was great to be able to run that mountain strongly. I think I will definitely stick with this type of training, but I need to make sure I’m recovered from one hard run before doing another. Can’t just blindly follow a plan anymore.

It was 9 miles and 2,000 feet of climbing to the top and I made it there very comfortably in 1:52. Nice.

Great view all the way to downtown Denver

With the forecast for a beautiful fall day in the 70’s on Saturday, followed by a big snowstorm on Sunday, the time was right to get out and go for a long run. I had ideas to follow the tradition of running the number of miles to match my age (38), but bagged that after spending about an hour trying to map out a route that would work. What I really wanted to do was a destination run. Start from home, end up somewhere interesting. I’ve always done my long runs as loops or out-and-backs, and wanted to make this one a point-to-point adventure.

The route I chose would loosely follow one of my old stand-by training routes on the bike, ending up at the top of Lookout Mountain above the city of Golden (CO). I was a little nervous about this one. I knew the distance would be between 30-35 miles, which I felt I could handle. The part that had me worried is that I would be finishing with a 5 mile climb at an average grade of over 5%. Would it break me? I really didn’t want to end up walking that thing, but wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep a run going or not with so many miles to get there.

Google Earth view of Lookout Mountain

My goals were pretty simple. Finish. Run without taking any extended walk breaks. Make the climb in under an hour. My best time on the bike was 23 minutes, so it would be interesting to see how I would compare on foot.

I started running at 8:00am under a dusty blue sky with a gentle tailwind. This was nice! The miles passed steadily and I was feeling good. I ran all the hills I normally would walk on a long run and just kept a good pace going. I started to drag a bit after 15 miles and was startled by some cyclists that came up close behind me and started shouting at me to get out of the way. It was my buddies from my old cycling team – Tim, Rich, and Marty out for a ride. We had some good laughs and they rode along with me for about a half mile so we could shoot the bull for a bit before they took off. That really gave me a lift and I felt much better after that point. Interesting how a mental boost can have such a physical impact.

I stopped at a gas station in the town of Morrison (mile 18) to refill my pack with water. I also made short work of a king size package of peanut butter cups. That got me ready for the hard climb up through Red Rocks park. I left the road in favor of the rugged single track and was pleased at how well I climbed the steep parts. No stopping, no walking, just steady running.

After topping out, I crossed under I-70 and had a long descent to recover on. Things took a turn for the worse when my planned water stop at a park ended up with a dry fountain. I guess they’re already turned off for the winter. I didn’t like the idea of diverting from my route in search of water, and would just have to make do with what little I had left.

Shortly after that I came across a bull elk on the side of the path. He was munching some leaves on a fallen branch and wasn’t about to move for me. I got close and tried to shoo him away a bit for a lady waiting behind me with her dogs. When it stopped chewing, stared at me, and flared its nostrils – I took that as a sign to back up nice and slow… I finally just had to ease past it, coming within 15 feet, and go on my way.

I took one walk break at the base of the climb to ready myself for the final push. While I was walking, I saw another friend ride by. Dennis was out on his bike enjoying the day and we had a good chat. We would end up seeing each other a couple of times on the climb and finishing not too far apart.

I made a call to my wife to let her know I was about an hour from finishing, and hit the lap timer on my watch as I started the climb. It was hard, but thankfully I was feeling ok and knew I was going to make it alright. I watched my heart rate climb and tried to keep it under 170. The wind was pretty brutal in a few spots, slowing me down to a 14 minute pace. I knew I had to keep it under 13.5 to break an hour, so tried to make up time wherever I could. I started feeling better and better as I got closer to the top, and really sped up for the last mile with some Def Leppard blasting in my ears. It was a great way to finish!

I hit the top in 55 minutes for a 12:10 average. I’ll take it. Just a few minutes later my wife and girls showed up and it was so great to see them. I got cleaned up and we went out for a nice birthday dinner. Doesn’t get any better than that!

 

I took a picture every mile of the run and then put it together in a 30 second slide show.