Go slow to go fast.

8.5 miles - 2:01 - 2800' - running the bottom half, postholing through windrifts up the top half of Green mountain - super fun running down through the powder.

Ousted Tony K, Geoff R., AND Jurek for the glory of the First Ascent for 2011...they were good sports though...see details here. 

I performed some duct tape surgery on the inside of my green 101's on each shoe by the ball of the foot where the upper was starting to separate from the sole.  It seems to have staved off the impending separation of the upper.

7.5 miles easy with 10 x 10-15 second sprints up the steepest road hill I could find behind Fairview High school.

1:05 - 350' vert. - 8:49 avg - super slow day. 

Decided to forego the Green mountain Tuesday hard effort with Jason, levi and George and join Nan's group for a flat speed workout this morning in preparation for the quicker quaker 5K this weekend in Lafayette.

Glad I did.  It was a really solid workout, with Nan and Simon leading the way on the longer intervals, and me, in usual fashion, attempting to regain my manhood and massage my ego by out sprinting them on the 1 minute intervals.

It was better timing to do that workout today than doing a hard flat workout on Thursday...so I'll have to rejoin the mountain-men next week.

Here were my pace splits...we did a 2 X 1,2,3,2,1 with 60-90 sec. recovery, followed by a 1,2,2,1.  Pretty fast intervals, which suit me better than 4+ minute stuff where I just tend to not have as long of staying power:

• Set 1 - ?, 5:25, 5:41, 5:24, 4:53 (missed the 1st split)
• Set 2 - 5:09, 5:38, 5:41, 5:31, 4:35
• Last set - 5:18, 5:49, 5:37, 5:14

Slow.  Sometimes it seems like my faster runs are getting faster and my slow runs are getting slower.  I guess today I was just feeling extra worked over from the 24 minutes of really fast and hard speed work yesterday so I was running almost 10 min pace on flat sidewalks for 40 minutes.

Track workout with Jason, Marcus, and two other friends of theirs.

Goal today was just to hold back, and do a few repeats at race pace and not below that.

I did pretty decent at that, but my legs weren't feeling all that great.  I hope they feel a lot more fresh and better on Saturday.  They did feel better toward the end.  I was just still kind of worked over from Tuesday I think.

I got a bunch of ART done yesterday though, which I think was really beneficial.

After a warm up I did 4 X 800 at the following times:

2:56, 2:57, 2:53, 2:50 - I was aiming at 2:50's which is a 5:40 race pace goal of mine.  But I think I was still warming up, and also I was trying not to go too fast and I think I overcompensated.  Because normally on our 2-3 minute intervals I have been doing 5:20-25 pace.

Then I jogged around the track while the other guys finished 3 more 600's.  I joined on the last one and did it in 2:14 - a 5:48 pace, which was fine.  Then we finished with 4 X 200.  I did them in: 41, 39, 42, 32 - Kind of broke down and couldn't resist sprinting the last one after about the first 50 meters.

10 miles total:  1:23- 8:19 avg  - Virtually 0 vertical, unless you want to count the 6' to hop the fence to the track.

6 miles - 59 min. - 450' ascent.

Easy, slow, recovery run up around the perimeter of the neighborhoods in south Boulder and back past Fairview.  Feeling pretty decent and ready to see what I can do about my 5K PR in the morning.

Fun race this morning!  Fantastic weather, tons of competition, met and ran with a bunch of cool people.  Great times.

Also I set a 29 second PR which felt good, even with a screwup at the finish line when I accidentally stopped too early.

See my full Race Report here 

Easy, slow run around south west boulder, up lehigh st, up shanahan ridge trails in 8 inches of powder for a mile out and back.

6.25 miles - 1:03:31 - 515' vertical 

Accidentally slept in and missed meeting Jason S. at 6:30 for our weekly Green mtn. jaunt.  So I decided to run up the reverse way up Bear Canyon.  Just over half way up bear canyon I met Jason and decided to cruise back down with him.  Ran back around mesa to the gregory trailhead, and then back home down baseline and up broadway. Finally started feeling warmed up and ready to run in the last few miles...kind of sluggish before that.

11 Miles -  1:57:29 - 1800' vertical

Kind of not into running at sunrise in 10 degree weather for the 3rd morning in a row, so I waited to run until the afternoon.

Really sunny, even though it was 26 degrees, it felt nice out.

6 miles - 46:53 - 7:49 avg - 800' vertical - HR: avg 136

Between easy to very light side of moderate pace.  Ran up table mesa to NCAR and back on the roads.  I was pleased with how low my HR was going up the hill and down for the pace I was holding.  

Really good speed work track session with Schlarb this morning.

It was balmy outside at about 30 degrees this am, compared to the 10 degrees the past few days.  But the trails and paths and outdoor tracks are are still snow and cruddy.  Fortunately, Jason has access to an indoor 200m track which came in really handy this morning.

After an abnormally long warmup we got going and did 8 X 600 Meters, w/400 meter jog between.  Then finished with 4 X 200 Meters with 400 meter jog.

Splits for the 600's:  1:59, 1:59, 2:00, 2:01, 2:02, 1:59, 1:59, 1:47

Did all 4 of the 200 Meters right at 30.5 seconds.

Jason was hitting 1:52's consistently on the 600's.  I commented that I thought it was odd that my HR up through the 7th 600 was never getting into the 170's, while in the 5K last week I averaged 172 for 18 minutes, meaning, much of the time in the race it was 175-180.  So I decided to stay with him on the last interval and was surprised by having a lot left in the tank even on the last lap and finished 2 seconds faster than Jason, and 12 seconds faster than any other split.  My HR capped out at 176 on that interval, compared to 169 on the hardest of the others.  

I'm sure I could not have done sub 150's for 8 of those in a row, at least for sure without WAY overexerting myself...but I'm wondering if I was taking it too easy at 1:59 - 2:00 pace at first.  I guess it doesn't really matter that much since I'm training for longer stuff mainly.  And I think I should err on the side of slower out of concern for not over-doing it and injuring myself and keeping it enjoyable.  But it made me wonder. 

Ran the track intervals in my five fingers and enjoyed the feeling of being right on the ground.  I haven't run in them as much lately with all the snow and trails, and it feels good to get everything working hard, including the feet. 

14 miles for the morning - 1:59 running time. - mostly flat - ~300' total incline during warmup and cool down.

Easy, sunny, shorts/t-shirt run up to NCAR and back on the road.  Same run as Wednesday.  Couldn't resist doing it again, its a really nice run for a road run.  Very scenic and peaceful, no traffic, wide running path the whole way, and a solid amount of vertical, but not too steep to make it difficult or slow.   Did it slower today, really casual pace up and down.

6 miles - 54:18 - 9:03 avg - 800' vert - HR: 130 avg

Kind of a blah feeling to end my biggest mileage week ever.

I was looking forward to a fun long run incorporating the mesa trail and flatirons vista this morning...but from the moment I woke up I felt off.  I finally got out the door at 7:30 instead of 7:00, noticeably not motivated.  Kind of weird.

And I just felt slow.  I couldn't find the motivation to push my heart rate even higher than 120 for any sustained periods for the first hour.  Seriously weird.  I didn't feel labored or anything, I just felt tired, and off, and not motivated.  Nan thinks it was because I got 5 hours of sleep Thursday night.  Perhaps so.  Perhaps it is just that combined with a big workout Thursday.  I don't know...its probably just one of those days, and I just need to take it easy for a day or two.

But anyway, by the time I got to mile 15 at the bottom of Dowdy Draw, while I was enjoying myself and feeling fine, I didn't have any desire or motivation to run the 1000' ascent up the Mesa trail on icy/muddy trails like I normally would have.  So I went down the road on Eldorado canyon and back home on Marshall.  Capping off exactly 20 miles at my doorstep in a pathetically slow 3:10:00 even.  9:30/mile average??  with only 1300' of total climbing.  Yeah...I was definitely dragging.  And my groin started to feel some twinges toward the end, I've noticed some knots building up in my right groin area that I need to have Richey target on Monday with some ART (not really looking forward to that, but it should be done).

And accentuating my slowness, I got home to find out that Nan ran 18 miles in under 2 hours...6:41 avg pace!  And I'm truthfully very glad it was me that was feeling off today and not her, because she's got the Houston Half coming up in 2 weeks, and it's awesome to see her so fit and ready to rock it there.  She's on track for some major butt kicking there from the looks of things.

 So, while I was planning to do 2500-3000' of climbing and go out and rock a solid 20-22 miles, I settled for a more plain version of 20 miles.  Some days its there, some days its not.  No big deal.  I still enjoyed the run.  Met a couple of the assistant RD's for the san juan solstice and chatted for a while on marshall mesa.  And got 3 hours of good education as I was listening to 'Parenting with Love and Logic' the entire time.  It has been 3 years since I first read that and I noticed my parenting effectiveness slipping.  The principles in that book work wonders if applied properly I've found.

For the week I ended up with:

63.25 miles - 9:51:11 - 5500' vertical - HR 133 avg

Took 2 days off after feeling kind of crappy Saturday and got ART on Monday.  Felt a lot better and ready to run today.  Was the first time I've missed a day of running (other than Sundays which I always take off) since a sick day back in mid-november...felt kind of odd not to run since it is such a habit now.  But it felt good also.

Did green mtn. today with Schlarb, back to the regular Tuesday hard green effort.

Except for me today, it was brutally slow and painful.  My calves turned to rocks after the first 5 minutes up the steep front side and I suffered for another 20 until the tightness started to subside with the grade decrease.  It slowed me down considerably and it took me over 45 min. to get up, compared to 39:30 something the last time I hit that route.

Beautiful out there though, and the top half was really fun running with solid snow and Ice pack making for a really smooth and fun run with the microspikes.

Jason is running Green mtn. now as fast as Tony K, which is incredibly impressive.  In fact he beat Tony's best time up the back side on Saturday by 11 seconds.  Today he did mid 32 min.  Crazy fast.  He is going to start giving the Ultra scene a run for its money this year.

10.5 miles - 2:10:00 - 3100' vert - Amazing how quick I can lose my steep climbing legs if I don't use them regularly.  It was 3 weeks since I hit green, with focusing more on flat speed work, and I could feel it for sure, in the calves mostly.

4 miles mostly flat, super slow and easy.  Not feeling all that great in the leg region, just still feeling a bit tired.

Great workout this morning.  First day I actually felt somewhat solid again on my warm up in about a week, felt recovered finally from last weeks workout I guess.

This week we bumped up the distance while attempting to maintain the pace.  I nailed it with very even splits and still felt good enough to do some fast 200's at the end.  It was one of those mornings that just worked, and felt smooth...I like those mornings.  That's not to say it wasn't a butt kicking workout, my HR was close to 180 on many of the sets, but the easy/rest days definitely paid off to get me back to feeling better today.

George joined Jason and I this morning at the indoor track, which was a perfect venue with yesterday's 4 inches of fresh snow...the outdoor tracks were definitely not an option.

Here were my splits for the 8 X 800 Meters:   2:38, 2:39, 2:39, 2:40, 2:38, 2:39, 2:40, 2:39

Jason was running between 2:29-2:33 on his sets.  GZ was just barely behind me on most of them.  We only did 2 X 200 M to finish off instead of the 4 we did in the past, and I did those in 29 and then 28.  Felt good to do a 28 at the end...first time I've ever seen that number on a 200M that I can recall. 

11.5 miles for the morning with 4 miles of just under 5:20 pace and .25 at sub 4 min. 

HR avg 152, with it topping out at 179 on each of the last four 800's 

4 Miles - 28:15 - 7:04/mi avg - 410' vertical

Wanted to get out for a quick 5-6 easy today at some point, but was too caught up in knocking out a bunch of effective time on work tasks to break away until 5:30pm, at which point I only had 30 minutes.  So it forced me to go a little faster than I normally would on an easy day to still get at least 4 miles in.

Ran up Table Mesa toward NCAR, and turned around at 2 miles.  Still felt like a relatively easy effort, although I'm guessing my HR was in the 150-60 range at some points. Mentally I am just eager and ready to run.  Really looking forward to a fast long run tomorrow, I'm a lot more into it this week than last, I can already tell.

~9 miles - 1:40 - 11:10/mile - 2150' vertical

Matt is in town visiting his Dad (also our stake president) and he came by my place to join me for a run this morning.  Thanks for the company Matt, that was a nice run. 

We ran from my house, up skunk canyon, down mesa trail toward chataqua and then up the royal arch trail.  I hadn't been up royal arch before, its a cool trail.  It was steep.  about 800' vertical over .8 miles until we hit sentinel pass.  We didn't finish the 1/4 mile to royal arch because I needed to head home.  

Nice easy cruise on the trails, very enjoyable.  And it was nice to check out a new trail. 

OK, all you 'ultra runners' out there, picture this hypothetical scenario.  I'm kind of curious how this would make you feel:

 You're cruising along the mesa trail in Boulder on your easy recovery day.  Your heart rate is very relaxed in the mid 130's, just trotting down a downhill section enjoying the mountain air, running through pine tree single track.  Then you turn a corner and notice a runner on a switch back below you out of the corner of your eye, and you just keep cruising down.  Then you do a double take since your brain has now processed the long hair, the beard, the smooth stride, and you realize you're catching up to Tony Krupicka...and yet you're barely breathing from lack of effort.  What the?!?  Then by the time you get down the switch back he's out of site like a deer that pranced off into the woods, and you're back to reality, realizing he must surely have just barely jumped on the trail in front of you and was then bounding off up the nearest mountain at some ludicrous speed.  But your curiosity is still peaked, so you pick up the pace a little, and around the next bend, just behind NCAR by the mallory trail he's still just ahead of you, much closer now.  Weird!  So you catch up to him and then slow the pace down to run and chat for ten minutes or so as you cruise up the mesa trail past bear canyon and up the steeper Fern canyon trail for a little while.

OK, so how does that make you feel/think?   

Alright, you may have guessed that there was a little too much detail there for me to be making that up by now, so I'll tell you what I felt...Heck Yeah!! I'm in awesome shape right now!  I was hardly breathing and I was catching up to Tony on my easy day!  Wahoooo!  I'm going to win Western States this year! (OK, that very last line was fabricated just now, I didn't actually feel/think that at any point)

Amazing what a little 'positive mental attitude' can cover up isn't it?  And hey, maybe if you lie to yourself long enough eventually it may turn to the truth?

The good news is, our subconscious mind can't seem to differentiate all the time.  While in reality, my logical mind is well aware that I most likely just happened to hop on the mesa trail from the skunk canyon trail a couple hundred yards after Tony had just run by and we were most likely running a similar easy pace.  Then once I saw him, I definitely picked up the pace a lot in order to catch up and run with him for a bit.  Then I slowed back down to the pace I was at before so I could run and chat with him.

But even though I know all that, my conscious knowledge of that still isn't taking away the really cool feeling that occured when I noticed myself catching up to Tony even though I was running really easy.  That event told my sub-conscious in no uncertain terms that I must be in good shape, and that I can run with fast guys.  And it embedded that in my belief set for now.  And it increased my confidence to some degree, despite all the logical explanations my mind can come up with for why that may or may not be the case.  Interesting stuff.....

Thanks Tony...for going slow sometimes so I can feel fast! 

It was nice chatting with Tony for a while about his upcoming race at Rocky Raccoon and other stuff.  Also, I appreciated him asking about my upcoming race and giving me some beta on the Moab Red Hot course.  He took 2nd place there to Kyle Skaggs by only 1 second in 4:03:03 in 2008. 

For the morning: 7.55 Miles - 1:06:35 - 8:51avg - HR: 138avg - 1300' vertical - I am pleased that 5:30-6:00 pace is feeling like easy recovery pace coming down from the mesa trail and my HR is not getting even into the 140's for that section/pace

Met up with George and Justin Mock this am at the Fairview track at 6:30.

George warmed up, but is nursing a calf strain and was not in a position to do a workout.  Turns out Justin wasn't feeling too motivated since he ran a hard 13 yesterday in like 6:13 pace avg.  And I wasn't jumping out of my skin to start running 5:30 pace this morning either, so we just jogged.  Then George stopped and Justin and I kept jogging, and then after 4 miles or so we decided to throw in a few 'strides' of 200 meters.  And I can't resist opening it up on a 200 meter, so, much to Justin's surprise I passed him on the first one and did it in 30 sec.  Then we did 200 m jog, then 3 more 200's on/off.  Did them in 30, 31, 32, 31.  That 3rd one I was already starting feel it.

Ouch.  That was a shock to the system.  Going from 7 ish pace to 4 min. pace right away like that shocked my heart/lungs.  It took me a good mile of jogging after those before the nausea went completely away and I felt normal again.  I like doing those after I have eased into them by doing a bunch of 5:30 pace stuff.  That was too quick too early for my liking.

So, kind of a wimpy workout today, but whatever.  It was nice running with George and Justin.  I'm glad I got at least about 6K of vertical in this week already, and another solid speed workout on Tuesday so I can chill this weekend in flat Houston. 

5 miles easy in houston with Nan.  Just a shake out run for her for the half marathon on Saturday.

We did 4 strides, then 4 x 45 sec at 5:15 pace which felt really easy at sea level and for such short intervals.

Oops, didn't get time to squeeze a run in today.  Too busy watching Nan run, and traveling back home.  That's alright though.  I am itching to run though with such a relatively light week of mileage this week and last week only being in the mid 40's. I was half-tempted to go out tonight at 9 when we got home, but I'm kind of tired because I couldn't sleep past 3:00 am this morning since I was so excited to watch Nan race from the pace truck.  Oh well, it will probably be good for me to take 2 rest days, and then I'll be really fresh for hitting one more solid 60 ish mile week next week before tapering down over the next two weeks for Moab. 

Check out Nan's race report here

and more photos here 

Felt great to be out running again after 2 days off.  The roads were an entire sheet of ice this morning, which was really unique.  Luckily, I was only on the road for 3/4 mile before hitting the connector to skunk canyon.  Ran up skunk to mesa, up bear canyon to the green/bear junction which was just over 6 miles.  Then came back the same way.

By the time I was coming down a couple of inches of fresh sticky powder was already on the ground which made coming down work fine without spikes.  Until I got to skunk canyon, then it was really slick so I slipped them on.

12.5 miles - 10:06 avg - 2:06:31 - HR: 139 avg - 2500' vertical

This morning was a pretty easy/leisurely cruise.  Not total recovery pace the whole time, because I was feeling so fresh and rested, but I wasn't ever pushing the pace either.  One of those runs that just feel really good and really enjoyable.  No pains.  No need to push too hard.  Just running smooth and feeling great to be out in the mountains on a calm wintery day.  Huge flakes of snow were falling all around and making a nice 2-3 inch pad of powder to cruise around on.

January Summary:  227 Miles - 34 hrs 39 min.- 25,100' vertical.

I thought I might be closer to 250 miles for January with more vertical.  But with missing 2 days I wasn't quite there, and I did a lot more flat stuff because of a week of focusing on a 5K race.  Still a good month of training though.  I had a lot of really good flat speed work sessions that I think were really beneficial.

February I'm not going to go after a ton of vertical either, because I'll taper a bit for Moab.  Probably in March I'll get back into the ~10K+ vertical per week stuff again. 

1:02:30 - 8.75 Miles - 7:08 avg - 0 vert. - HR: 155 avg

Negative 8 degrees this morning in Boulder...perfect running weather!!  If you're indoors that is.  Fortunately Jason was up for meeting at the indoor track, which comes in really handy on a day like today. 

Unfortunately, Jason had banged his knee and decided once he showed up that he was going to need to take the bus home to make sure he didn't tweak his knee the week of a race.

But my friend Ryan had shown up, so luckily I wasn't going to be all alone for the workout.

After a warmup, strides and stretching, I jumped into a 4 x 1600 meter with 400m rest workout.

Here were my splits: 5:33, 5:38, 5:26, 5:37.  I threw in 2 x 200 for good measure afterward at 29 and 30 seconds.

Not super even on my mile splits.  I was on track on the 2nd mile for another 5:33 or so, and I kind of slacked on the last 200 and lost 4 seconds.  Kind of lame to give up on the last lap.  So the third mile I went after it the whole time and nailed that one.  Ryan was basically running 2 out of the 4 400's with me, and then recovering.  It was nice to have him to chase during the later laps in the mile.  But after the third mile he left to go home, so I was on my own.  And it was surprising how much that affected me mentally during the final mile.  It would have been easy to bail half way through that last mile, and that mile was definitely a tough effort to hold onto that pace the last few laps.  Mostly mentally.  I think just the fact that I knew I was going to have to write down my splits on here gave me some mental power to push the last few though.  Interesting how that works.

Great workout this morning.  I am really enjoying the consistency of a weekly flat speed workout.  And it has been really beneficial to my overall running fitness. 

6.3 miles - 51 min - 8:07 avg - HR: 136 avg - 810' vertical

Really easy run up to NCAR and back on Table Mesa.  Ran in the afternoon sun so it was way warmer than this morning...it was a scorching 8 degrees by the time I ran.  But really 8 degrees is not bad if you wear enough layers.  It was great to be outside running.  It was cool to watch the shadow extending across Boulder Valley as the sun went farther behind the mountains.  Still no treadmill for me this winter, and I don't see any reason to change that. 

Indulged myself with 4 gloriously slow and flat miles in about 40 minutes.  Recharging the legs.

Well, the training is officially in the bank...not much more to it now than a couple taper weeks.

Today's run I was unsure how I'd feel, because I had kind of a big early week of solid workouts.  But I felt great and everything felt solid and enjoyable today, which was really pleasing.   The last mile or so I started to feel tired in a couple spots, but minus that it was a great feeling run.

18 Miles - 2:48:27 - 9:22 avg - HR 142 avg -  3150' vertical.

The route today was up McClintock to Mesa.  Across mesa all the way to the eldorado trailhead (about 6 miles), then back across mesa to Chataqua, then down baseline and across broadway to home. 

It started snowing right when I started my run and it didn't ever stop.  By the time I came back across the mesa trail it was dumping and all the tracks were filled in.  The fresh, sticky snow provided great traction, and softer than normal surface the entire run, which was kind of nice. 

Weekly summary: 61.5 miles - 9 hr 45 min. - 9500' vertical 

Easy jog to start the week off: 

4.75 - 45 min - 9:28 avg - 400' vertical

I'm going to scale back to the low 40's in the mileage this week.  I'll probably do one flat speed work day, one trip up green, and the rest just easy cruising. 

FAIL!

I finally succumbed to the treadmill this morning, thus failing in my no-treadmill winter resolution.

I was going to do Green mtn. with Jason, but watching the howling wind and snow at 10pm last night, and knowing it would be about 5 degrees outside and plodding through 1-2 foot snow drifts, I decided to turn in my man card this morning and head over to the gym.

Oh well...it was a fun goal while it lasted.  But I have to admit it was nice running in shorts and a t-shirt and running fast without slipping and sliding.  Especially considering the alternative snow slog hiking in 5 degrees.

9 miles - 1:03:30 - 7:03 avg - HR: 150 avg

I put it on level 1 incline,  did a 2.5 mile warmup, then a mile worth of 4 strides.  Then I did a 2 mile interval in 11:30 (5:45 pace) - Then a half mile slow, then 1 mile at 5:45 (170 avg HR).   I was considering doing two 2 mile intervals, but I was ready to be done running fast after the 3rd mile.  The workout felt good though, my legs are feeling pretty recovered right now.

4.75 miles - ~48 minutes - ~500' vert - Watch died 1/4 mile in so I don't know for sure, but what  beautiful sunny morning to be out running in the foot hills!  Absolutely loved the run this morning.  One of those runs where time seemed non-existent and being out moving through the mountains was all there was.  

Couldn't ever get out for a run today until 8:30 pm.  I hate it when that happens.  I always have better days when I go running first, rather than thinking I may not have time to run all day.

But it sure felt good to run when I finally did get out.  

4 miles really easy -  32:56 - 280' vertical

Just ran up table mesa and back.  For road running, I love running up table mesa.  It's really wide with a huge bike lane and a decent amount of incline. 

Really nice easy run with Steve and Brendan this morning.  We all live within a few blocks of each other, but for some reason we haven't all been out running together yet.  

Today the plan was a casual pace up to mesa, and across for a while.  Maybe 10 miles.  Worked out perfectly.  The weather really warmed up this weekend too, which was really nice.  Made it comfortable running in shorts outside for the first time in a while.

9.75 miles - 1:30:57 - 9:21 avg - HR: 144 avg - 1550'

Weekly summary

44 Miles - 6 hrs 5 min. - 3100' vertical.  Good taper week. 

Easy 4 miles - 7:45 pace - 320' vert.  Just ran up table mesa and back.  Already itching to run faster and longer.

And then this....http://ryanwburch.blogspot.com/2011/02/final-race-before-fun-on-slickrock.html

Crap.  He had to do that, and put all this pressure on me!  Fortunately I know he's joking, and that he and I are both well aware that he is likely to obliterate me in a 55K race despite the fact that I beat him at the line in a 5K last month.  But hey, at least now I have a little extra motivation.  And while I cannot claim to have much hope that I'm going to blow by Ryan in the final miles of the race, I'm sure it will be fun trying!  My guess is that I'm going to let him and just about everyone else go ahead early on in the up hills because I will likely need to go slower at first to keep my HR in the range I want it in.  And then just hope after 25 miles I have conserved enough energy and quad strength to blast the down hills all out and catch a few people.

Cool interview with Nan published today on Runner's World

Felt the desire to get some turn over going today.  It's hard to just go slow all the time when you're accustomed to going faster a couple days a week, and Nan convinced me it would be a good day to do a really light easy workout.

So I did an easy run with a number of 45 second strides mixed in just to make sure my legs and heart don't forget their job.

The strides felt surprisingly easy even at a fairly decent pace, which is always nice.  They were so short though, that any pace probably would have felt easy.

Ran with Steve this morning which was great.  He's also doing Moab this weekend, fun to chat about that and other stuff.

paces for the 45 second intervals: 5:16, 5:17, 5:21, 4:11, 4:10, 4:16, 4:18 - I'm enjoying how a quicker pace has become pretty comfortable now after close to 3 months of consistent speed work.  Those paces would have felt really awkward for any amount of time a few months ago.

totals: 7.5 miles - 59:30 - 7:57/avg - 570' vertical - HR 139 avg 

4 slow recovery miles.  Flat.  Slow.  The end.

4 easy miles up Table Mesa and back.  32 min. 320' vert.

Legs starting to feel pretty fresh.  I'm guessing they will be itching to move come Saturday. 

Some easy shakeout miles...last little jaunt before the race tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to actually running again tomorrow...I'm kind of bored with these little 4 mile warm up jogs that end before they begin.  

But todays was a little more interesting because after a mile of like 9:30 pace waking up, Brendan Trimboli caught up with me from behind, so it woke me up and we ran the dirt road loop together in a more normal 7:30 ish pace before I headed the .5 to home.  He's a cool kid, and I imagine we'll run more often this year as we live a few blocks away from each other.

Also, I broke out some new shoes that came yesterday in the mail from shopnewbalance.com that I got for 39 dollars including shipping.  They're pretty nice, I'm pleased.  I really like how soft and comfortable the uppers are.  It's the first pair of road flats I've ever worn.   The heal to toe drop ratio is almost identical to the mt101's, very minimal .  Which is still more than the zero I would like, but good enough.  Plus, I get to stay in the Christmas spirit year round with these beauties!

Great Race!  Loved the event.  Survived the wind, and just enjoyed being out there running through the slick rock.  

Here's a brief race report and pics.  Probably more to follow later. 

Wow...slow running at its finest!  3 miles in about 36 minutes....nice!  At least my knees weren't totally wobbly by the end.  It felt good to get some movement.

Well...still slow.  But not wobbly this time, that's a plus

3 miles flatish in about 32:30. 

And what do you know?  Still slow!  But feeling better each day.  Today I felt totally normal starting out the run.  But my legs still feel like they have a slow governor on them.

4.75 Miles - 47:50 (10:01) - 500' vertical.  

Who knows, maybe by tomorrow I might be able to get my speed down to like 9:30 avg pace at this rate!

I clearly need the slower, easy miles right now though.  Even though my muscles weren't sore at all after the race, my joints (hips and knees) were somewhat tender and are the seemingly limiting factors right now.  Good to take a slow week though to fully recover. 

Very nice morning easy run in the sun with my neighbor Steve (the one who took 8th place on Saturday handily kicking my butt).  We just took it really easy up skunk canyon across mesa and down bear back to lower skunk and home.  Really fun run.  Great to be cruising easy on single track and chatting for an hour catching up on the race and talking about plans for the year etc.

And the legs are coming around more and more each day getting closer to normal again.  Felt almost normal today actually...still a bit slow and a minor twinge around my left knee at one point.  But I went to Richey for some ART directly after the run and I can already tell that was really beneficial.

8 miles - 1:13:29 (9:13)  - HR 140 avg - 1080' vertical

My good friend Eric was in town for the Pearl Izumi trail team summit, he was hired as the photographer.  And so he invited me out to run with the group Friday morning.  

It was cool to meet Tim Olson and Ian Sharman, as well as to run and chat for a while with Nick Clark and Scott Jaime.  A bunch of cool people in that group.

We ended up navigating sheets of ice under and inch of fresh powder on the mesa trail which was interesting since nobody had spikes on and everyone was falling all over the place.  It was kind of comical.  But we managed to get a run in.

Although my left knee started feeling pain on the back/side periodically throughout the easy run, and made me well aware that something is going on in my left leg that needs attention.  I made it through the run ok by stretching my hip/glut a couple times, but realized I need to get some knots and junk worked out in my upper calf, hammy, and glut before I should be running on this thing and aggravating it.  

Scheduled a massage for saturday and an extended ART session for Monday. 

no running today...got a good short massage on my left leg mostly.

I'm glad I have plenty of time and no rush to fully recover from Moab, because I obviously need it.  I never felt any pain in the race...but its obvious that the 34 miles of steady effort taxed my left glut/hamstring, and upper left calf.  So I will just take it really easy this next week, and get a couple good ART sessions in, and do very light active recovery.  

Its annoying to have tight/painful spots...but the timing is as good as it could possibly be if I have to have them.

No Running.  Did pushups, pullups, and 15 min. core work via Ab ripper X.

40 min. ART session in the AM with Richey.  There are definitely some knots in various places in my left leg.  He recommended waiting until Wednesday to run. 

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

Easy 5 miles barefoot on the bike paths. About 42 minutes, just taking it easy. In the 60 degree weather going barefoot on the recovery run is hard to resist.

My body is in a weird funk today. My right knee on the lower right side kind of got swollen yesterday, I think from running weird due to my right ankle being slightly tweaked. Then I smashed my hand yesterday putting Nans bike in the car. Oh yeah, and I cut a painful slice in the end of my 'stub' of a left index finger when I trip going up green on Thursday, its really tender to the touch like it was after I chopped it off in the first place. Then, also last night, my chest all of a sudden started to hurt, like a muscle spasm by my sternum in my pec that caused a pinched nerve and made every breath painful. What the heck? Is my body just shutting down shop for the weekend or what? And today is the most drop dead gorgeous day of the year. 75 and sunny.

Anyway...I wanted to run, but my body wasn't feeling that at all. Mostly because of the pain in my chest.

But after the first session of conference I did get out for a sweet ride on my mt bike for 75 minutes on the trails south of Boulder. It felt great despite the chest pain, and was extremely fun.

Then I got home and continued to feel extremely lethargic and weird.

Weird day. But general conference has been really uplifting and that bike ride was incredibly nice.

5 miles easy and slow - 43 minutes - 400' vertical.  Just ran around lehigh and down past fairview and home on the roads.  Thought my ankle was great after a couple days off...but it started hurting slightly after a quarter mile.  Its nothing major and it comes and goes as I run, but its enough to make me want to get it worked out and gone so it doesn't turn into a problem.

I had a satisfying track workout today.  Woke up to 52 degrees and sunny at 6:40 am.  Only problem...30 mph gusts of wind outside.

For the morning: 10 miles - 1:18 - 7:49 avg - virtually 0 vertical.

Didn't do any exercise today and pretty much felt crappier mood-wise as the day progressed.  It didn't help that I spent 3 hours at the city offices learning exactly how much hassle they intend to put me through on one of my remodel projects.   New day please.

This morning, in a surprise turn of events, the vote was unanimous in favor of running up bear canyon to green for the weekly Thursday morning green mtn. jaunt.

OK, I’ll admit, it was easy to get everyone to vote the same since I was the only one that showed up.  I’ll also admit I’m kind of glad I was, because I’m pretty sure I would have succumbed to the ever-persuasiveSchlarb and run up the ampitheater route had he not been sick this morning.  While I enjoy the company, I really enjoy the bear canyon ascent.  It is definitely my favorite route to the top of Green mountain.  Probably because I can actually run the whole way whereas on the steeper routes I’m more efficient hiking in some spots.  So George, hopefully you will post this FKT to a new page with fastest known times for that version of the ascent so I can then hopefully convince Jason to add that one to the rotation.  Maybe he’ll see the light once he tries it out.  Then again Jason, I get why you and other mountain goats like the steeper routes…because you are actually capable of running them.  Maybe my tune would change if I were more fit.  Also, this FKT is only a FKT to me, as I’m certain many people have clocked way faster times on this route that I don’t know about.

Anyway…The route I clocked today was from the sign posts at the start of the bear canyon single track at the junction of the mesa trail and the bear canyon trail.  I stopped the clock at the summit marker.  I started at chataqua and warmed up for the first 3 miles across mesa over to bear canyon.  I felt a lot better starting the climb after a 30+ minute warm up.

Here were my splits:

• 22:17 to Bear west ridge trail junction
• 12:15 from there to the 4 way
• 3:42 from 4 way to top, plus 7 seconds to the summit marker.
• Total: 38:21
• Stats for the ascent route: 3.01 miles – 1842′ vertical – 950′ vertical for the first 2 miles – 890′ for the last mile.

Totals for the morning: 10 miles – 1:58 – 2700′ vertical.

I ran a really slow warmup, and ran down from the summit to chataqua really slow.  Running up, I ran pretty steady for the first 2 miles, then the heart rate jumped way up from there to the 4-way and I pushed it pretty good.  But the last section from the 4-way up I went as hard as I could.  And I was holding onto the summit marker gasping for air at the top.  It seemed like it took a good 4-5 minutes for my heart rate to settle back down.  Maybe not that long….but that last fifth of a mile from the 4-way definitely got my heart pumping hard.

Based on our comparative times, I’m guessing that Schlarb could run that 3 mile route in under 30 minutes.  Although, I feel like my effort today was somewhat stronger than the 45:06 I did on the greenman route last week.  But this route is shorter and has less vertical than the middle route up greenman.  It’s .2 miles shorter and about 450′ less of vertical.  I am interested to see what others would post on this route.

It was exceptionally gorgeous out there this morning.  Being on the peak in the stillness of the morning sun, alone, gazing at the snowcapped Indian peaks wilderness after I could see straight again, was really, really nice.

And as a trail report, the only ice left on the trail anywhere I could see is just the short section of switchbacks on the north face going down greenman.   And that is almost gone too.

I'm loving the warmer weather...it encourages bare feet and I happen to live where there are seemingly endless miles of paved bike paths complete with tunnels etc.  I ran for 6 miles this morning on smooth, wide, pebble free sidewalks without ever having to stop to cross any streets.  There are 2 or 3 street crossings in there that are just residential small streets.  It's pretty awesome, and has lead to my new weekly Friday barefoot recovery run habit that has started as of late.

6 miles - ~46 minutes - maybe 200' vertical. 

Today was the first day since the red hot 50K where I didn't wonder how I was going to feel.  I've been working through various issues recovering for the last 6 weeks, but after last saturday's run, I could feel that I was back to normal with how easy it was to recover from.  And also, my right ankle pain was gone and didn't show up at all during that 2 hour run.

So today was a great day.  The sun was shining and I was able to cruise easy on the trails feeling 100% normal.  It was highly enjoyable and refreshing.  And it makes me look forward to attacking a workout tomorrow without reservation or pain inhibitors.  I think I'll do 4 X 1 mile with Nan at my goal 5K pace or under.  It will be an interesting test to see how well I can hold sub 5:28's.

7 miles - 1:04 - 9:10avg - 1100' vert - skunk cyn to the end of the mesa single track, then back down koehler.  Threw in 5-6 short hill sprints on the uphills on mesa.

I had a solid and fun workout this morning and am feeling pretty good about it.  And mostly I'm liking how good my legs are feeling during and after.  I don't feel tightness or issues anywhere, which is a pretty great feeling.  Finally feeling fully recovered and normal after Moab in February.

I joined Nan and the RRB for some mile repeats around Coot lake in North Boulder.  After a few miles of warmup, strides and stretching we did 4 X 1 mile repeats.  These were my splits:

5:20, 5:18, 5:22, 5:26

That last mile was definitely tough.  Especially the last quarter mile.  But I feel pretty good that my slowest was a 5:26 and it was on a dirt trail that has ups and downs.  Last time I did 4 X 1 mile was around the indoor track a few months ago and my fastest split was a 5:26 with the others being 5:33, 5:36, 5:37.  So that's some decent progress and I'm happy about it.

Time will tell if I can hold 5:28 or under for 3.1 miles in a couple weeks.  The good news is that this workout has enough time to set in and hopefully by then I'll have that extra bit of fitness that will allow me to string 3 of those together.  It still seems like kind of a daunting task at this point. 

Had a really nice easy run up bear canyon, across mesa, down south shanahan.  Not sure why I waited so long to get "The Postal Service" album...but I felt like some new tunes so I got it this morning and it was definitely worthwhile...some good stuff on there.  

Crossed paths with Johnny T on mesa, then again 30 minutes later on Lehigh as we were apparently running a similar route in reverse.  I turned around and ran with him back up lehigh to fairview to add on a couple miles and chat.

9.5 Miles - 1:20 - 8:28 avg - 1500' vertical. 

I've been loving being back on the trails and hills for my easy days this week.  Its super enjoyable to get up there and just cruise around with no plans or expectations a few days a week.  It adds a nice contrast to hard workout days, which are also enjoyable, in a different way.

Its hard not to enjoy how much easier it feels to run fast at sea level.During my warm up on the River path (where every single Boston marathoner happens to be running in the days before the race) I couldn’t help but notice how easy it felt to be running 6:30 ish pace on my warm up. I saw Josh Cox run past going the other way. Didn’t realize he was running this weekend…or is he?After about 4 miles of warmup and stretching and strides, I decided to do a few miles of tempo at whatever pace felt good. I pretty quickly settled into a 5:45 pace that I felt I could sustain for quite a while, so I just went with that.In the last mile the tempo I passed Ryan Hall and wished him good luck on Monday. I finished the 3 miles in 17:12 (5:44 avg) feeling like it wasn’t all that hard, but it was just the right amount of effort for today. As a comparison, I ran that pace in January when in a 5K race, and that was an all out effort. Sea level, and some increased fitness are definitely the factors there. I’m still not sure if I can hold 5:28 for 5K at altitude, but I think I’ve got a good shot at it. I’m pretty sure its going to hurt pretty bad the last mile of that though.After I finished my tempo run and was stretching, Ryan caught back up to me so I introduced myself and we ended up running 3 or 4 miles together along the path and back into town.It was great chatting with him. He’s a very nice dude. We share a lot of beliefs and convictions both being Christians, and it was cool to relate to him on that. I commend him for being so straightforward and open about his beliefs.It was kind of interesting to be running with him in that setting where we were passing by dozens upon dozens of other runners, because everybody knows who Ryan Hall is, and tons of people give him greetings and wish him well. That can’t be too bad of a thing I guess. I sometimes think it could be kind of annoying to be famous, and so I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that…but seeing from that perspective, I could see how it could be very motivating to feel so much support from so many people wherever you go

PM - we met up with Anika and Emily, two of Nan's former BYU teammates this evening, so they could get their final pre-marathon run in. I tagged along. We just ran easy, did 4 strides, then 4 x 1 minute at marathon race pace for Nan, which is like my 5K race pace. 5.5 more miles for the day. It was kind of cold and pretty windy out this evening.

Easy cruise on the Charles river path after seeing Nan off on the bus to the start of the Boston Marathon.  It felt kind of cool to be running in toward town on the way back and imagine all the runners who would soon be doing the same.  Although I was glad to partake of that moment without the pain that most would be experiencing right there.

Back in Colorado.  Glad to be home.  Tired.  I didn't sleep much the last couple nights.

Tried out the new 507's I got for 40 bucks thanks to Faceless G.  So far so good.  I really liked the zero drop and they have great rock protection and a super low profile.  What's not to love? They are still slightly narrow for my liking, even with the 2E width...but they're not bad.

Just ran an easy 4.5 miles up skunk canyon part of the way and back. 

By the time I got out the door for my run for the day at 5:30 pm, my legs were basically jumping out of my shorts to go running.  I felt kind of cooped up all day.  And also, I missed my regular workout yesterday.  So I guess my body is just itching to get out and run faster.  Hence I think I'll do a speed workout tomorrow morning.

But today I just started heading up table mesa, and decided to run up to NCAR and back.  Its a nice steady road run that gains over 700' over 2.7 miles.

As I looked down at my pace early on I realized I must be feeling pretty good because I was running about 7:00 pace.  I just went with that, and it was one of those runs where everything just felt amazing.  Zero soreness, lots of strength.  Maybe it was mental...I couldn't get all those world and american record setting runners from Monday out of my minds eye as I was running.  It seems I often feel faster or better after I witness really fast strong runners for some reason. 

Anyway, I cruised up the entire ascent feeling pretty incredible and hit the sign at the top in 20:44.  As I just looked back at my previous best time up that route from my house, I beat it by nearly 5 minutes! And I wasn't running all out.  Just a steady, really smooth feeling run. It's kind of cool when that happens.  The stats for the ascent are 2.7 miles, ~725' vertical, 7:41/mile.

At the top I added a slow easy mile out and back on the trail up toward the mesa trail, then headed back down on the road.

Total: 7 miles - 52 minutes - 7:26/mile - 1020' vertical.

Thought I would do a speed workout today.  But was a little unsure if I would have the motivation because I may have run too hard of an effort yesterday up to NCAR.  

Decided to go for it because I was feeling good when I woke up.  Was going to do an 800, 1600, 800 and then 4-6 X 400.

It was a pretty steady drizzle of rain on me during the warmup, and about 43 degrees out.  So the warm up actually felt kind of like I got progressively colder, wetter, etc.  My jacket was heavy and soaked and my gloves after the warmup and stretch.

Did the first 800 in 2:45 - just getting the legs moving.  Then I went into the mile and the 1/4 splits were progressively slower until I just kicked it into gear the last 400.  I did the 1600m in 5:24 with splits of 80, 82, 83, 79.  But finishing with that 79 kind of sucked my energy out.  I walked it off, then jogged a bit and started into the next 800, but after 400 of it in 81 seconds, I threw in the towel.  I had lost my motivation to run fast in the rain.  I decided to hold off until Saturday to get an easy day in and then I'll feel fresh for the workout.

Jogged home with Patrick Hunt who was finishing up an easy workout at the same time. 

Barefoot Friday.  The sun came out this morning for my weekly barefoot jaunt which was nice of it.  Although, I really enjoy running barefoot in the rain too.  I didn't know where I wanted to run until I got out about a mile.  Then I started feeling really good so I decided to head up toward Boulder Canyon on the bike paths.  I made it up part of the way into the canyon a half mile past EGF park before hitting 5 miles and deciding to turn around.  It was a super enjoyable smooth feeling easy run where I just felt like I was gliding effortlessly through town.   I love those runs!  And I really love the creek path network because I can run for miles in every direction without crossing roads or having to stop at all.  And its an especially smooth and comfortable surface to run barefoot on.

10 miles - 1:14:55 - 7:29 avg. - 400' vertical

I think I got too much sleep last night.  I slept from 9 - 7.  That's the only explanation I can come up with for feeling lethargic and weird all day.  This was the first day in as long as I can remember that I had a hard time getting myself out the door to go run.  Weird mental funkyness going on today.  I finally did get out for a run at 5:30.  It took a mile or so of seriously slow trudging along that my body and mind finally started to warm up to the idea.  It wasn't until about mile 4 that I actually noticed how beautiful the fowler trail was as I was heading east toward the mouth of Eldorado canyon approaching the massive cliffs that stand as gates to the canyon.

There's nothing like a run through a beautiful wooded single track in the canyon to snap me out of a mental funk.  Felt a million times better afterward...just wish I would have run first thing in the morning so I would have felt better all day. 

5 miles - nice and slow. 

Easy.  Slow.  Marshall to s. boulder creek, up to mesa, to lower big bluestern and home past fairview.

8.1 miles - 1:13 - 9:00avg - 650' vertical. 

That felt really good.

After 3 days of feeling sluggish and lethargic it was really nice to feel normal again today.  

Met George at 6:15 in broomfield to preview the kohl elementary 5K course and get a final workout in before the race this Saturday.  Its fantastic now that the sun is coming up at 6:00 am, makes getting an early start a whole lot nicer.  It was great to run the course and test out race pace for 2 min. intervals on the various sections.  I'm feeling decent about my chances of hitting sub 17 and getting excited to give it a go.  I'm also feeling pretty good about the chances of mile 3 hurting really bad if I do go sub 17.  But fortunately it finishes on a slight downhill for 3/4 of the last mile which is definitely my preference and better for my 'larger stature'.

my 2 min. pace splits on the course: 5:35, 5:20 (downhill), 5:50(uphill), 5:29, 5:24, 4:53 (only 1 min.).

My first three intervals only averaged 5:35, which is not sub 17 pace.  So that's a bit disconcerting.  But I wasn't going all out of course, and I kept feeling better as the intervals progressed.  I feel good about not having worked too hard today.  In the last 2 5K's I've done I think I pushed too hard in the workout the week of.  Today's workout was just the right effort I feel.

10.2 miles total - 1:12:40 - 7:08 avg - 240' vert. 

Easy and flat.  Marshall, S. boulder creek to Cherryvale and back.

8.25 miles - 1:09:28 - 8:25avg - 250' vert

8 Miles - 1 hour - 7:30avg - 430' vert

Easy run with 5 x 1/4 mile pickups in the middle.  3 up hill, then 2 down hill.

Pace splits:  1:28, 1:30, 1:28, 1:14, 1:16

Feeling really good.  Also it was gorgeous, sunny and 60 degrees when I went running at noon today.  Thoroughly enjoyable. 

Easy run on the bear creek path plus 4 strides and then 4 x 1 min - all between about 5:10-5:15 pace.  Feeling ready to lower my 5K time tomorrow.  60 degrees and sunny this morning.  Doesn't look like tomorrow's temp forecast is quite as warm, but should still be sunny.

6.25 miles - 49:43 - 7:57 avg - 230' vert 

This morning started as a slow easy run up table mesa to skunk canyon, to mesa.  Then at the top of the hill, 30 minutes and 3 miles in, I realized I only had a little over 20 minutes to get back home in time for Nan to take Abe to school.  I still had 3.5+ miles to go on my loop.  It was all downhill though, so with a little more steady effort of a 5:31 and a 5:40 mile in the middle I made it back with plenty of time.

6.5 miles - 53:29 - 8:13 avg - 910' vert 

Green Mountain.  1.5 mile warmup up and down gregory trail.  Then ran a steady effort up Green via gregory/greenman (the middle route up green).  Turns out flat speed training doesn't seem to help when it comes to running up steep mountains.  Not that I thought it would.  I definitely don't see any progress in climbing speed lately.  But that makes sense since lately I have only been doing a solid hill climb once every couple of weeks.  But I'm going to shift gears slightly now with Logan peak coming up at the end of next month.  I'm going to start doing a lot more vertical each week.

8.5 miles - 1:47:00 - 12:35 avg - 3190' vertical

Gorgeous morning.  50 degrees at 6 am and sunny and calm.  Ran over to lower big bluestern, up to the upper bluestern, to mesa, down north shanahan and home.  Could have stayed out there running all day today it felt like.  Except I thought I was doing an 8 mile loop to get home in time to help get the kids ready so Nan could get out the door, but it was actually a 10 mile loop.  Oops!  Hard to correct for that when you're 5 miles away from home and you don't know that.  I opted not to do the accidental tempo run and try to cram 5 miles into 25 minutes since I have a speed workout planned for tomorrow.

10 miles - 1:21:36 - 8:09 avg - 1100' vertical

I met up with Brendan pre-sunrise this morning for an interval session out on the lower Bluestern trail.  Bummed that Schlarb is getting deployed to Iraq this week...but I'm glad to have Brendan wanting to get together for weekly speed sessions now.  He had to be home by 7, so 5:40 am we were on it.  The cool thing is that sunrise is already nearly upon us by that time.  It is really nice getting out that early now that its already light.  By the time we finished our warmup at 6am the Sun was out.  I love this half of the year (just a little bit more than I love the other half)!

The workout today consisted of the following:

warm up ~21 min. then stretch a bit

3 or 4 strides.

Then the following, with 2 to 3 min down hill recovery between each

• 1/2 mile up hill - 3:03 - 50' ascent
• 1 mile - 1/2 up, 1/2 down - 5:53 - 70' ascent, 70' descent
• 1/2 mile up - 3:06 - 55' ascent
• 1 mile - 1/2 up, 1/2 down - 5:56 - 80' ascent, 80' descent
• 1/2 mile up - 3:05 - 65' ascent
• .3 mile - 1:46 (5:53 pace) - up and down pretty steep with 27' net ascent

Then we cooled down easy across lower shanahan and down lehigh street.  

11 miles -  1:24 - 7:43 avg - 700' vertical

It was weird to be getting home from my workout at 7 am when the family was still just finishing breakfast.  Nice though to get after it early.  The workout felt great too.  

4 miles barefoot easy and slow this morning on the bike paths.  Didn't have time to go any farther because I woke up too late...oh well.  It was a nice 36 minutes anyway.

Picture rock trail at Heil Ranch, looking toward Lyons 

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!  

(Interpretation: that was half scream-of-summer-mountain-running-joy and half sigh-of-winter-abated-relief)

Such a gorgeous day to be out running through the mountains.

A section of the nicer smooth single track at Heil 

The new-to-me single track at Heil Ranch was pretty cool.  A bit rockier than I like best, but still pretty cool.  It did have tons of sections of just smooth rolling single track that were really nice.

Came within inches of stepping on this guy.

About 30 inches long

I prodded him off the trail with a stick and he got freaked out and started rattling like crazy as he slithered away.

I'm really happy about the 75 degree May sunshine right now.  And I'm also stoked that Abe and Breanne learned to ride without training wheels this week on their bikes.  This weather calls for our first official bike ride together for sure.

Weekly Total: 58 miles - 8 hrs 46 min - 8400' vert

April Totals: 199.5 miles - 28 hrs 30 min - 17000' vert - 975 push ups, 390 pull ups, 6 days core workout

Ow.  I used the NormaTec MVP compression boots that my buddy Eric has a few times over the weekend, and my legs must have been over compressed or something.  My calves and everything were pretty tight and I was sloooooooooowwww.  Wow...super slow run.

6.5 Miles - An hour and something - ~1000' vert.

But it was a gorgeous morning.  I sat down at the top of skunk canyon gazing over the beautiful valley in the sunshine for a while...liked that.  Also I finally warmed up after about 6.5 miles, which was great timing....er... 

OUCH!

Had to sit down for about 10 minutes to recover after that one.

Way harder than it should have been to run that time.

HUGE plate of chile relleno, beans, and enchiladas for lunch at Racines in Denver today?  Check.

Good idea?  Nope.  I was feeling that on the run.

Stiff headwind the second half of the race??  Double check.  Thank you mother nature!  Awesome.  I must be a much stronger person now.

Yeah that would have been fine and dandy if character building were the goal of the evening...but the actual goal was to get closer to 17 minutes vs. farther away.

Oh well.

At least it wasn't a very competitive race so I got away with 3rd overall and a free rolfing session, but most importantly, a miniature candle in a jar!  HURRAY!  Candles are so amazing.  I just love candles.  Can never get enough candles in a jar. 

I got totally stuck in no-mans land on the 2nd half of the race with the entire 1.25 miles of head wind all to myself.  It's kind of a tough situation for me, when the leaders are a minute ahead, and the people behind are 30-40 seconds back.  Late in the race it didn't help my motivation at all to keep running faster knowing my place wasn't going to change at all.  That extra motivation of having someone to chase or push me can go a long way in those painful stages sometimes.

Instead, I was left to my own non-devices.  I didn't have a watch on, so I didn't even have that to distract me or tell me how slow I was plodding along.

Anyway, it was fun to get out.  Met some new people.  Felt momentarily way cooler than I really am for placing in the top 3 in a race.  And got to play with the family at the park for a bit and hang out. 

Good times. 

Easy and slow reverse loop from yesterday

We had an odd stretch of rain for Boulder this week.  48 hours of straight rain in Boulder??  Odd as it was, it was kind of a cool break from the normal sunshine.  The morning misty runs with the Flatirons encased in fog or snow or both were really nice.  It looked kind of like this:

I did a lower week of overall mileage, but got two pretty solid workouts in still, spread out by 5 days of easy running.  My legs were feeling really sluggish on the easy days…it definitely wasn’t a good week for getting 3 hard runs in for me.

Started at 6:30 this am in cool and cloudy temps – 14 miles – 2:06 – 9:03 avg – 2850′ vertical

First attempt at a Logan peak simulation tempo run.  Had a really fun run this morning.  It took me a good 30 minutes to get warmed up from my house up to the entrance of Bear Canyon.  Then I did 11 miles of tempo running.  I went up and down the trail from the trail marker to the green-bear junction and back twice.  It gains 1000′ vertical over 2 miles, and is a really fun section of trail to run, which is why I chose it.  Above the junction it gains 1000′ over 1 mile which is a little too steep for what I was looking to do on this run.  My splits were 23:15, 15:37, 21:37, 15:23.  I felt a lot better after the first lap and was almost 2 minutes faster up the second time and it felt easier.  After two laps up bear canyon I continued the tempo pace and ran the last 3 miles from bear canyon to my house in 16:50 (5:37 avg, but with 850′ descent) which felt pretty good.   Got home at 8:30am feeling really great after about 95 minutes of moderately hard hill running.  The actual 11 miles of tempo stats were 1:34:20 – 8:35 avg pace – 2000′ gain and 2850′ descent.  I could definitely improve my uphill running fitness, but also my downhill technical trail running speed isn’t all that solid I don’t feel.  I do feel pretty good about being able to pretty easily hold 5:30's on straight, smooth downhills though.

Weekly Totals: 45 Miles – 6 hrs 30 min – 5000′ vertical – 450 push ups, 225 pull ups, 3 days core work.

7 ish miles - 1:04 - 1000 ish feet vertical - Skunk to mesa down McClintock.

By the last half of my run this morning I simply couldn't help but feeling really really grateful to be alive.  To be healthy.  To be running free from any pain.  To be moving effortlessly across the ground.  Then it extended into feeling grateful for a ton of other things, my family, home, business, friends, etc, etc.... I love runs like that.  Each day is invariably better when I start it out running.

Nothing like the accidental time trial to get the blood pumping.

Its easy to lose track of time meandering through the flatirons foothills trails.  I was running with Brendan this morning and we got all the way down the mesa trail to Bluestem and almost back to shanahan before I realized that we had already passed the 1 part of our 1 hour run.  I had about 15 minutes to get back home on time for Nan to leave and I had over 2.5 miles to run still.  Oops!

As soon as I hit the top of lehigh I bid farewell to Brendan.  I took off and covered the last two miles to home right at 11 minutes (~375' descent).  Only ended up being 2 or 3 minutes late after all.  

And I got some speed work out of the deal!  So I guess it worked out OK.

9.5 miles - 1:23 - 8:44 avg - 1400' vert

Such a beautiful morning.  It still feels kind of odd to see the sun already high in the sky when I start running at 6:20.  I would have to start running closer to 5:30 to see a sunrise these days. 

Easy flat jog around the south boulder CU loop, south boulder creek, home on bear creek path.  Feeling great.  Getting pretty excited to be leaving for France for 10 days tomorrow.  Some epic bike rides and runs are bound to make their way into the mix.  We're going to ride Alp d'huez, mt. ventoux, the tourmalet, and I'm definitely going to see about fitting in some running up some of those as well (or instead of biking).  I'm not entirely bummed about not getting to work for a couple of weeks.  It took some time to get used to the idea, but I'm warming up to it.

 8 Miles - 1:03 - 7:57avg - 200'

Easy six miles early before driving all day to Utah

7.5 miles at the airport in Dallas around the upper deck of the parking garage.  Did 12 x 200 meter repeats at around 33 seconds each.

10 miles easy exploring the town of Nyon Switzerland.  Really cool town, saw a lot of it, and a lot of varying terrain.  From lake side flat trails to winding trails through the hills and forests...very cool run.

3 miles easy on the roads up to Alp D'Huez - 550' vertical

24 miles on the road bike riding Alp D'Huez. - 2:34 - 3600' vertical 

53 miles cycling - 6000' vertical.  Up Mt. ventoux, down to carpentras and velleron.

Easy 5.5 miles through Arles France with Nan in the AM - 400' vertical. - about 50 minutes

7.5 miles - 1:12:42 - 10:00avg - 1600' vert

farmlands and singletrack above Aste, France, base of the tourmalet. 

26 miles on the tourmalet- 4800' vertical - 2:45