Go slow to go fast.

It's a beautiful thing.  Living at that base of the flatirons.  I am pretty psyched about where we live now.

Ran out my door step, about a 1/2 mile to where the dirt starts.

Steve (an ultra runner who lives around the corner) met up with me for my inaugural Boulder run, along with his friend Ricardo and his dog.  It was great running with Steve again, and meeting Ricardo.  Steve is good company and someone to try to keep up with as he is definitely in better uphill running shape than me and has run up and down green lots of times.

Snow was falling lightly, temp was about 30 degrees, felt great with long sleeves and gloves.

It was fitting that the mayor of Green mountain breezed by us on his way down as we were on our way up bear canyon.  Although he had some different looking shoes on than I would have expected.  And in analyzing his tread the rest of the way up the mountain from his foot prints in the snow (the only foot prints on the trail that morning so far) I was almost convinced they were inov-8's he was running in.  But I'm not so sure, and it seems unlikely that he would be running in inov8's...maybe I'll ask him on his blog and see if it was perhaps the new mystery 101's he's been talking about.  But the tread was entirely different than the current 101's and very similar to inov8 tread.  Maybe inov8 is making him an offer?  I doubt he would be switching from NB at this point though...but you never know.

It was snowing less on the peak than down lower, just a dusting of snow on the trails the whole way up really.

12 miles from my door to the top and back.  3000' elevation gain.  2:09 today.  11:01 pace.  Taking it pretty easy the whole way, walking some of the really steep stuff.  My calves were kind of feeling it most of the way up from the tempo run on Saturday finishing my biggest mileage week ever so far last week (52...yeah...not that big for some of you, but for me doing 45-50 lately is a marked improvement).

Easy run at 8:30 pace around the paved trails east of our house on the flat land.

Starting to feel sick...annoying. 

Woke up with a nasty sore throat...have been pounding emergen-c etc., didn't feel like doing anything today

Felt almost back to 100% today...guess the megaloads of vitamins I pounded paid off quick.

Had a really fun, mellow, cruise through the trails at the base of the flatirons in the crisp winter sun this morning.  Very fun run just exploring.

1:25 - 10:20 pace - 1600' vert.  - 85% single track from my door step...I think I am in love with where I live.

Took me a long time to warm up this morning.  I guess the recent influx of hill running during the week must have taken a slight toll on me this week...that and it was a foggy and humid morning at 6 AM and I'm trying to recover from a really annoying cold I got nailed with this week.

Today was to be my last main 'repeat' workout before the 5K next week...but my motivation/energy level for it was kind of lacking due to the above reasons.  Today was one of those days having a group to run with would have probably pulled me through.  As it was, I only made it through 2/3 of the workout before bailing and cruising easy for home.

After my warmup I did a 12 min supposedly half marathon pace.  But it was rough.  I was struggling just to keep it under 7 min. pace and by body just felt lethargic and weird...the speed gear wasn't there.  An on top of that I did the whole 12 minutes at a slight uphill.  Hence the slow pace -  6:55 for 12 min.

Then I was going to do 4 x 4 min hard X 1 min rest X 1 min really hard.

But I already felt like running slow the rest of the way home.  But I sucked it partially up and started my first repeat, going the slight downhill direction.

That felt better, I was more warmed up and now a bit rested and going downhill so I hit a 5:47 pace.  Not where I wanted to be, but at this point I realized today I wasn't firing on all cylinders so I would just make the best of it.

Then 1 min back uphill struggled to hold 5:40 for even 1 min.

Then an uphill grind for 4 min with a struggle to pull off 6:10

Then another 1 minute, downhill direction in which I was determined to avg under 5 and squeaked in a 4:59 for that minute.

Then I had had enough.  Bailed on the final two 4 min and 1 min repeats and just jogged home.

Better than nothing, but not the ideal workout.  Still felt good to get out and do at least some harder effort today though.

I'm waiting to cast judgment on what impact the slower paced hill running is having on my flat speed.  In the short term, it seems to have been detrimental, but I think that's just because I'm tired and sick. 

9.2 Miles - 8:02 avg - 1:14 - HR 145 avg - 320' ascent

Weekly Summary: 42 Miles - 6770' vert