Today's run was what its all about for me. Here's the one sentence description: Nearly 3 hours of running through the mountains in the crisp, calm, spring sunshine; my body and soul feeling fantastic the entire time, enjoying great conversation, some great time alone in my thoughts, a breathtaking sunrise and awesome flatirons views. OK, that probably should have been multiple sentences. But I could have kept that thing running on. Words don't really do that run justice this morning. It was just a really nice run. I was out the door running at 6:28 in order to meet up with Johnny Tribbia at the bear canyon trail. I didn't need to be home until 10 or 10:30 which was way more time than I planned to be out running, so I was in no rush at all, and that alone contributes largely to an awesome run. To be able to just go out and run, with a healthy body, plenty of water and calories packed, and no time commitment, is a very liberating and great thing. Its a nice contrast to my daily runs during the week, where I generally keep a pretty tight schedule because I pack my days pretty full. It was great meeting Johnny in person. He's a cool dude, and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and running with him for about 90 minutes as we ran up bear canyon to mesa, then south on mesa to the south end and back to NCAR. Fun to chat with him about his 2:50 marathon at Catalina a week ago and how he missed first by 20 seconds. 2:50 for 26.2 miles that includes 4K' of vertical is a super impressive run. He bailed to get to work then, and I continued to the North end of the mesa trail until I got to the gregory trailhead. As I headed back toward home, I was going to finish in about 2 and a half hours with 15 miles, but just before turning downhill on skunk canyon I crossed paths with Tony K as he was coming the other way. We stopped and talked for a few seconds, then I just turned around and ran down the other way with him to chat some more heading down enchanted and mcclintock. The detour at the end chatting with Tony added on 2.5 miles or so, which was great. It was nice to just go with the flow today and run and have good conversation. It's good to see Tony out and about again and starting to run consistently again after a rough month and a half of recovery time from Rocky Raccoon. That felt like one of the easiest 17.5 mile runs I've done. Obviously because I was going slow and easy, but times flies when the conditions are so perfect and with good conversation. I'm happy with how well my body seems to have recovered after a nice and slow ramp back up over the last month. Today: 17.5 Miles - 2:52 - 9:49 avg - 3400' vertical. The vertical really adds up on the mesa trail because it is constantly going up or down as the single track winds between the canyons across the front of the flatirons. Weekly Summary: 49.5 Miles - 7 hrs 13 min - 6730' vertical - One interval/hill workout, one long run Last week: 28 Miles - 3 hrs 26 min - 1100' vertical Next week: I'm ready now to get back into 2 harder runs per week, one flatter speed session, and one harder hill or tempo run. I'm going to go after a sub 17 min. 5K at the end of April. May be a stretch, but I think my speed is as good or better now than it ever has been and I want to see what I can do. I'm doing all my training and racing for the next 3-4 months without a heart rate monitor. I'm interested to see how that goes in comparison. I wore it religiously and watched my HR in workouts and races for the previous cycle. People told me it was holding me back, and I think they are right. But we'll see I guess. I am enjoying not wearing the strap though, and enjoying being more in tune with how I feel rather than letting a number on a screen tell me how hard I'm working.
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