Go slow to go fast.

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.