Go slow to go fast.

Easy mountain bike ride out to Marshall mesa trail and back...about 8-9 miles, just to move the body somewhat, but taking it easy.

Interested to see how the running felt today.  Bummed that the leg started hurting after less than 1/2 mile.  I stretched, and ran the half mile home.  It doesn't hurt initially after stretching but then tightens up as I run.

Did Core work, pushups, pullups, stretch, etc.

Incredibly gorgeous morning.  Sunny and calm.  45 degrees.

I got out on my trusty fuji 29er for a cruise on the trails in south Boulder and was not disappointed.

I actually found myself feeling really grateful and glad that I couldn't run because I wouldn't have gone on a mt. bike ride if I was running.  And it was a super enjoyable ride.  I can't say that mt. biking is as addicting or good feeling as trail running or running in general.  But it is close.  And to be able to be out for 90 minutes moving my body through the mountains in the sun was incredibly refreshing and rejuvenating.

I don't feel any leg pain when I ride, its just the running motion.  So that's nice. 

Pearl Izumi hooked Nan and I up with some goods yesterday.  That was cool.  They sent her a bunch of shoes and clothing to test out.  And they sent me two pairs of shoes, which was pretty cool. 

I tried out the Streak II this morning, and felt like its a pretty good road racing shoe.  Its relatively low profile and thin, and very flexible which I like.  I would prefer the heel to toe drop to be zero, but it's close enough.  Its pretty similar to the MT101 in heel to toe drop, but overall its got a slightly thicker sole.  Very comfortable uppers though.

I rode my bike to Kitt field to run around the turf there.  Soft surface, plus I could bail at any point if my leg started hurting.  And it did start to hurt after only 1/4 mile, which was lame.  I thought it was feeling better, but I can't tell until I run on it consistently.

So I stopped and stretched etc.  Then I ran again.  This time it didn't start bothering me until 1/2 mile.  Cool, that's progress I guess.  I stopped and did more dynamic stretching and static stretching and pushups.

Then I started running with Patrick Hunt (runs with Hartmann and Rizzo in the Boulder express group) who was also cruising around the field.  This time it didn't start hurting until almost a mile.  Nice.  I like where this is going.

I stopped and stretched etc. again.  Then got up and ran another 1.25 with Patrick before it started acting up again, and this time it was acting up only very mildly.  

That was a good sign this morning.  I'm going to see Richey again today, and I'm guessing he'll tell me to keep running easy on it like this morning and it will keep progressing through active recovery.  

In the meanwhile, I'm pretty stoked to go get my harder exercise fix through a sweet mt. bike ride tomorrow!

Another ART treatment Friday AM with Dr. Richey.  He is such a great resource, very fortunate to know him.  He said to not run until Sunday, then do Tues/Wed.  

Well, I waited until Saturday night.  Sundays I don't run, and I couldn't wait until Monday.  I ran a super slow mile, then stopped to stretch a bit.  Was running really slow and was feeling OK, except that I wasn't sure if my heart was beating at all since I was going so slow.  I had to check my pulse a couple times to make sure I was still alive.  That got old.  So I just figured I'd try running normal 7 min. pace.  

Voila...felt fantastic.  Cruised for a couple more miles at about 7 min. pace or under feeling great.  The leg never hurt at all.  Its clear that the tightness in the glut/hammy/calf has largely subsided.

Cool.  It's great to see the immediate progress and result from rest and ART.  I'll take it pretty easy this week, but fortunately it looks like I'll be back to running again after only a week off.  

The week off felt surprisingly good though.

I enjoyed getting out on my bike a couple times on the trails, and I also enjoyed hitting the pool this morning for a miles worth of laps in about 25 min of swimming - because Richey mandated NO biking :( Darn, I like biking and it didn't hurt my leg.  But he's the expert, and I decided I would rather cover faster so I followed his advice this time and hit the pool (unlike I did earlier in the week)

Also I got consistent this week on core work 3 times and pushups and pullups.  Which I have greatly missed and which really makes a body feel good.  

It now feels kind of like I pushed restart on my computer.  Now once I fully reboot after an easy week or so I think I'll be ready to start another enjoyable 4 month training block.

Running on periodic sheets of black ice this morning.

Leg felt fine.  stopped to stretch a couple times when I started to feel minor tightness.

One thing I appreciate about time off of running is it that it refreshes the perspective and makes running feel even that much better when you do it again. 

4 easy - about 31 minutes - mostly flat. 

Easy run with my neighbor Steve Young.

Stopped to stretch out the legs after 1.5.  Noticed that everything feels better if I run closer to 7 min. pace than if I run slower.  So I just ran at that pace after the first couple miles.  Mostly my legs and heart are just raring to go, feeling antsy about not running as much as they would like.  But the left leg problem area is also feeling better and better each day, I'm hardly noticing anything there now.  I think after this week of just slowly increasing the easy run distance I may be ready to jump back into a workout or two next week.

5 miles - ~37 min - flat.

Swam for a mile or so in the morning.  Felt like going running, but want to be smart about jumping right back in and make sure I'm fully healing.

35 MPH winds this morning with 50-60mph gusts in Boulder.  Yeah...it was kind of breezy out there this morning.  Fortunately it was almost 60 degrees, which was nice.

4 miles - 28:35 - pretty flat.  Just stuck to the bear creek bike path in the flat lands to avoid the most wind possible.  Was pretty glad I was running and not biking in that.  Biking in the wind just sucks in my opinion. 

Totally proud of and happy for Nan today, she nailed a solid race once again today...and kicked the 3rd place rut!  2nd place at the usatf 15K championship in 5:21 pace!  Read more here.

I'm also stoked to report that I'm almost back to 100% again after 3 weeks of recovery from the Moab 55K.

Today I got out to the track to run over at Fairview. It was a really nice morning in the calm, sunny weather to be out there and feeling good again.

After a warmup with Brent Vaughn, Kenyon Neumann, Dr. Richey, and his whole high school team, I continued the light workout with the high schoolers.  6 hill strides

Then as Brent and Kenyon were doing their hard workout, I did 5 x 400 fast with 200 Meter recoveries at a steady 6:10 pace. It was interesting to test out a workout with the 200 recovery staying at a moderate pace. It felt good. The workout was pretty easy and light effort, except for one of the 400's in which I tried to hang on to Brent and Kenyon.

Ummmmm.....not happening.

They had already done a 2 mile, 1 mile, 800m, 400m. And they were finishing on the 400m when I jumped in with them. I hung with them on a 31 second 200 but then it felt like they took off (in reality I hit the wall). They finished in 61.5 and I gasped in for I think a 67 second split. And they did that after running a 9:04 2 mile, then a low 4 minute 1 mile, a 2:06 800m. Yeah...different league altogether. But it was fun running with them. And oh yeah...I was totally hanging with them on the warm up and cool down...;)

I'm excited to hear about Brent's upcoming race at world XC championships in Spain. He's racing there next Sunday.

My run for the day: 9 miles - 1:07:30 - 7:30 avg - a few hundred fee vertical tops. 

Feeling groovy today.  Ran Skunk canyon to Mesa and down bear at a mostly easy feeling, but steady pace.  I was really pleased with how well everything feels.  That 3 weeks of recovery seems to have done the job nicely.  Looking forward to a hard hill workout effort tomorrow with Nan.

6.5 miles - 53:30 (8:14) - 1100' vert

Solid workout today with Nan and the Running Republic of Boulder group.

After a 2.5 mile warm up we stretched, then did 4 up hill strides to get things moving.

Then it was right into a solid hill workout consisting of:

5 x 2 min steady up/2 min steady down.  I was right with or just ahead of Nan on these repeats (she's recovering from the weekend) and we were doing them just over 6 min/mile pace gaining about 70' of vertical over 1/3 mile for 2 min and 5 sec.  Then holding close to 5:00 pace on the down hill for 1:55.  We kept these pretty even at that pace for all 5 sets.  We were running up Lehigh street just off table mesa.

Then we moved over to Table mesa for a:

5 x 60 sec hard up/60 sec quick turnover down.

I accidentally took the first one of these out extremely hard, more like a 30 second/200 meter interval pace, and after 60 seconds it cooked me.  I couldn't run down nearly as fast as I had just run up.  Oops!  I backed off (not that I had the choice at that point) after that, and just tried to hang on to Dan, who was leading all the 2 min. intervals.

After the last 60 second uphill interval, we ran down for 4/5 of a mile keeping the hard pace.  My last mile which was .2 uphill and .8 down hill I did in 5:20.  It felt pretty solid.

It felt great to be back to running fast and hard for some good intervals.  The weather was really nice.  It was fun and motivating to be running with a big group.  Everything felt pretty good with the legs/body.  My left hamstring I can tell is still recovering a bit as its still tighter than my right, but I never had any pain running.  Its coming along pretty nicely.

Total: 12.5 Miles - 1:35:30 - 7:35 avg - 900' vertical 

That workout yesterday took it out of me.  I felt wiped out all day and took over an hour nap during the day.  I hope my boss doesn't fire me.  Just 3 easy miles to shake out the legs in the short time I had since I slept in.

Felt better today, though I still felt a bit tired and recovering from Tuesday's hard effort though.

6 miles - ~52 min. - 1000' vert.

Ran up skunk canyon, behind NCAR on the mesa trail, down bear canyon road.  One of my favorite 6 mile loops.

4 miles - ~32 min - 100'  - easy flat run, not much time this am. 

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.

A muscle in my foot started feeling constricted and tight in the first mile this morning, and my hands were slightly chilled without gloves.

So I took my shoes off, and put my socks and shoes on my hands.

Presto, foot and hands felt better instantly!

Then I ran over to Fairview and did a couple miles around the track so I didn't have to hold my shoes on my hands the whole time.

So glad its spring so I can ditch the shoes more often.  It feels so good to run bare foot.

The best though, was as I was running home, a 75+ year old lady out for her walk saw me with my shoes on hands and bare feet trotting down the sidewalk and instantly started laughing hysterically.  It was awesome.  Most people just give you weird looks and look at you like you're an idiot or crazy or something.  This lady just laughed hysterically, and kept on laughing as I ran past.  I'm glad I made her day.  And she nearly made mine, although the barefoot freedom topped her reaction just slightly.

Solid workout with Nan and the RRB group this morning.

Started with 2.5 minutes steady uphill and 2.5 steady back down.

Then we did 4 X 2.5 min steady rolly terrain. - 90 sec rest.

Then 2 min hard up hill and 2 min hard back down.

Then 4 X 90 Seconds hard - 60 sec rest 

The paces varied based on going up and down hill.  But I averaged exactly 5:30/mile for the 4.6 miles of speed intervals.  So I feel pretty good about where I am fitness-wise.

My current goal is to do a sub 17 minute 5K on April 30th.  The pace I need to hit is 5:28/mile to do a 16:59.  So I've got my work cut out for me.  But I'm pretty confident that I can get there with 6 weeks of focused workouts based on where I am currently.  I think if I can do 5 to 6 one mile repeats in 5:20 pace or below on the track, then I should be able to hit my goal.  Last time I did 4 x mile my splits were 5:33, 5:36, 5:26, 5:36 - but that was a couple months ago now.  I think I can get those down to the 5:20 mark within another 4 weeks or so. 

5 miles really easy - ~50 min.  440' vert.  Glad the 50 mph wind from yesterday was not there this morning.  Gorgeous spring morning.

I got lost in some of the Shanahan cow fields trying out a new trail that ended and I bushwacked for half mile to get back to the road.  Slow going.

Did pushups, pullups, and 15 minutes of core exercise after.  That has become my mon/wed/fri routine.  Easy run with core work.  It's feeling good. 

Nice run up Flagstaff from EGF park on canyon road in Boulder with Schlarb and Levi.

It was my first sustained uphill run since Moab over a month ago and I was quickly shown that I had lost something there, as Jason and Levi casually, chatting the whole way bounced up the mountain while I huffed and puffed and lost them half way up.  

I definitely lost some uphill fitness.  But that's OK, it will come back as I ramp back into it this month.  My flat speed I haven't lost at all, which is nice.  Also, I those two guys are crazy fit and so I can't really even judge whether I lost anything when running with them up hill because I'm not even in their league...especially if they were trying.  We're going to start hitting weekly green mtn. ascents soon again and Jason will beat me up that thing by 7 or 8 minutes or more when he's trying.

After getting down, I ran back up 1.5 miles and back down again because I had some more time to kill. 

11 Miles - 1:53 - 10:15 pace - 2700' vertical

Looking at the profile of Flagstaff from that side, it was 1531' vertical over 2.73 miles.  560' per mile or about 10.5% avg grade.  Which is a really nice grade in my opinion.  I really enjoy that grade.  I can keep up a pace that is much more 'run' like than the 1000' per mile stuff, but still get pretty solid vertical.

Easy run up Skunk Canyon and back

5.35 miles - 47:48 - 8:58 avg - 800' vert 

Pretty epic point to point run this afternoon.  I'll post pics and more later...but I just went out running for 15 miles planned on an out and back, but couldn't resist the urge to explore a new peak I had never been too once I got out there.  Don't even know what peak it was, but it was at 8350' and 11 miles away from my house.  I descended the other side of the peak and called Nan half way down to come pick me up since I was now 20+ miles away from home and didn't want to run all the way home into the evening so much.

In the morning I rode my bike for about 20 miles, the last half of which was supporting Nan on her 20 mile long run. 

15.3 Miles - 2:48:00 - 10:59 avg - 4050' ascent - 3000' descent

 Weekly Summary:  50.85 Miles - 8 hrs 18 min - 8500' vertical.

4 miles easy.  Right ankle kind of bothering me since last Friday, minor but sure what's up in there.

Solid workout today with Nan and her group.  Nan was dealing with some left leg pain today so it wasn't the best workout for her.  She is just off her heaviest training weeks ever so far, and the mileage and work has been adding up.  Now she just needs to recover and taper in order to have an awesome race in Boston.

Here was the workout today:

Warmup 20 min, stretch, then strides.

4 X 2 Min hard, with 60 sec. rest.  All of these were uphill on the boulder creek path.  Split paces: 5:50, 5:57, 5:54, ? missed the last.

4 X 30 sec. really hard, 60 sec. rest.  Some of these were up hill slightly and some were down.  Split paces: 4:46, 4:20, 4:46, 4:32

3 X 4 min hard, with 2 min rest.  Paces: 5:44, 5:55, 5:44.  The middle one was all down hill and I was going easier because my ankle was bugging a bit.

4 X 60 sec hard, 60 sec. rest:  Paces:  5:03, 5:20, 5:10, 4:53.   The 5:20 one was slower because we had to navigate a bunch of ice.  The last one was straight up a big hill and I kind of went all out on that one because I like doing that on short hill sprints.  I'm surprised to see my pace fastest on that split since the others were all flat.

Cool down for 10 minutes.  

Every week the workouts are feeling better and better.  I'm liking that. 

 11 Miles  - 1:29 - 250-300' total vertical.

Didn't feel like running this morning, so I didn't.  Instead I threw on the biking gear and explored some trails on the mountain bike I hadn't been on before around the marshall mesa area.  Nice morning.  15 ish miles on the bike.

We started back up our weekly Green Mtn. morning time trials this week.  It was great to be back out there doing it.  Today it was me, Schlarb, Levi.  I was eager to run this morning, which was nice.  That tends to happen if I take a day off from running.  And I was feeling decent during the warmup.  But I knew I would be solo from the moment we started the climb.  And I was.  Which was fine.  I threw on the headphones and enjoyed the climb quite thoroughly.

I took it pretty conservatively the first mile, and was surprised to look at the watch and see it still in the 14 min. range at that point, because I wasn't pushing hard at all.  That was encouraging, because its about 850 feet of ascent for that mile and in the past it generally has felt pretty taxing to do it in that pace.

I tried to maintain a fast effort through the middle flatter 1.2 mile section, and I really love that section.  Because i can run between 8-10 minute mile pace on smooth forest single track, still gaining vertical, but not so much, and the views are just awesome in there.

The last mile is another ~880 foot ascent and I just plowed through that at a steady effort.  Not killing myself like I sometimes like to to finish strong.

Hit the peak in 45:06 after walking some of the last few switch backs due to some off-camber ice on the trail I didn't want to slip on.

Jason did it in 35 and change, and Levi topped out in 39:55.  Jason is just a crazy climbing fool.  That dude has some serious capacity when it comes to running up steep mountains.  I guess that's why he is capable of winning national championship 50 milers.

I'll be stoked when I get my time to sub 40 minutes on that route.  That is the longest of the routes from that side of green.  It's about 3.2 miles.  I've been up green in under 40 minutes a few times, but it has been on the Ampitheater route, which is only 2.2 miles.  The routes start from the same place, the one is just more direct obviously.

We ran easy down bear canyon and around mesa, always a great way to go.

For the morning: 11.25 miles - 1:59:00 - 10:35 avg - 3150' vertical