Go slow to go fast.

Week starting Nov 28, 2010

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2009201020112012
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Location:

Westminster,CO,USA

Member Since:

Nov 11, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

Finally started learning how to run in '09 after totally botching it up for the 14 years prior and dealing with chronic IT injury...have had zero IT band pain since fall of '09 and have run way more than ever before in my life...loving it.

PR's

Road Mile: 4:44 - Pearl St Mile August 2011 

2K: 6:32 - Uni HIll 2K 2011

3K: 10:07 - West end 3K 2011

5K - 16:53 - Turkey Leg 5K 2011

10K - 38:38 - Butte to Butte Eugene OR 2003 

Half - Never raced a half

Road Marathon - 2:57:19 - 11/12/2011 - solo.

Trail Marathon - 4:48 - Kings peak August 2011

55K - 4:59:54 - Moab red hot 55K 2011

Short-Term Running Goals:

Be healthy, run injury-free, listen to my body.

Sub 16 min 5K

Sub 34 min 10K

Sub 2:40 Marathon

    2012 Tentative Schedule

  1.  Quicker Quaker 5K January
  2. Boston Marathon - April
  3. ??

Long-Term Running Goals:

Get stronger, faster and more fit as a runner and biker to allow for bigger adventures as the years go on.

Still be running in my 80's.  

Personal:

I'm married to Nan Kennard and she kicks my butt at running.  She has beat me handily in every race we have done together except for a downhill mile we did once.  She is my running inspiration.  I'd like to run a marathon with her someday and actually keep up.  

My Personal Blog

My Family Blog

My Business Blog 

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Bare Feet Lifetime Miles: 282.68
Cycling 2011 Lifetime Miles: 291.40
Altra Instinct July '10 Lifetime Miles: 637.35
Altra Instinct Sep '11 Lifetime Miles: 481.45
Altra Lone Peak Lifetime Miles: 157.50
Altra Instinct Black Lifetime Miles: 69.00
Altra Adam Lifetime Miles: 27.50
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
44.753.400.003.0051.15
NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 31.90Five Finger Treks Miles: 19.25
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.500.000.000.0012.50

Ahhhhhhh....green mountain.  I like it...a lot.

After the normal day off running yesterday, My legs were feeling fresh and itching to go up a mountain.  I was actually kind of bummed that it didn't snow a bunch over night because I really enjoyed the snow running on Friday with spikes...but I wasn't too bummed.  The dry trail all the way up to the top of Green this morning was nice also...and there will be plenty of snow runs over the next couple months I'm sure.

2:15 - 12.5 Miles - 10:56 pace - 3000' ascent

It felt so great to be running up and down a mountain today.  I'm really pleased with where I'm at at the moment.  I don't feel like I'm in great mountain running shape, because I've been running so much flat stuff lately, but my legs feel really good.  I've been consistently getting 45-50 miles a week for the last 6-8 weeks with only a couple smaller week exceptions, and I feel the consistency showing in my ability to recover and feel strong on each of my runs. 

NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 12.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(4)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
7.000.000.000.007.00

Easy run around town through the lower foothills.

Beautiful sunny, 35-40 degree, dry morning.  

7 Miles - 57:50 - 8:16 avg - 480' ascent - really easy, light effort, just cruising. 

Anyone else excited to see how the NF50 plays out this weekend?  That's going to be an epic showdown for sure.  Any predictions on the top 3 places?  I think I'm going with Tony, Geoff, and then Dakota.  I think it would be cool to see the current Coloradoans sweep the top three, but its a tough guess on the win here.  I would predict Geoff if it were 100 miles, but I'm leaning toward Tony in this case.  But really, the field is so deep, there are probably 7-8 others who could just nearly as likely win it.  

Five Finger Treks Miles: 7.00
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
5.750.000.000.005.75

Easy run out marshall road and back in the 48 minutes I had available this morning.

Five Finger Treks Miles: 5.75
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
1.503.400.003.007.90

For some reason I accepted Steve's invitation to a brutal beat down up the ampitheater rock trail this afternoon.  I'm glad I did..it was fun, at least for the masochist inside me that is only allowed out to play once or twice a year.

We jogged up the first quarter mile up the amp. trail until it starts to get really steep, then we made that our starting point for a 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1 min. interval workout.  We went up and down for those intervals with a 1 to 3 minute rest at the bottom between intervals.

WOW - I would not have made it through that workout on my own I don't think.  Mentally it was pretty tough to get started on the 4 and 5 minute sections.

But it felt great to actually do it and bust out a solid workout.

Definitely the hardest 3 miles of running I can ever recall doing.

Totals:

  • 4.5 miles including a very 3/4 mile warmup and cool down.
  • 2630 Feet ascent/descent (that's a 22% avg grade up and down by my calculations...ummm...kind of steep running)
  • 147 Avg HR including all the rest minutes
  • 1:25 total time (including 23 minutes of stopped/rest time)

Steve was great to run with on these intervals.  I was able to out sprint him at the end of most of the shorter ones, but he had me beat on the longer 4 and 5 min. intervals.  It was great to have him up there as a target on the longer ones.  I went out much slower than him on those and was able to nearly reel him in each time except the 2nd 4 min. interval in which he killed it and went strong the whole way.

On the last 1 minute interval I went completely all out from the get go, and was flying, and stumbling a couple times on the steepest parts, and after 30 seconds everything went on fire and I thought I would be stopped in my tracks.  But I kept pushing for fear of getting caught by Steve, and apparently he hit the wall at 45 seconds and I was able to keep quite the gap on the last lap.

It was super fun and motivating to have someone to push and be pulled/pushed along by...thanks for the invite and the butt kicking Steve!

Now that I'm sitting here...I realize I need to get out and shake out the legs for a couple more miles of flat stuff to loosen up and get out some of the lactate.  That was pretty intense.  On the initial descent on each interval, the legs felt kind of like jello, but it was good practice to run moderately fast down as well.

Good times....and WOW!  How about the weather in December in Boulder today?!?!  Absolutely stunningly gorgeous...we were out there in shorts and t-shirts on a 50 degree afternoon in the sun and dry trails.  So awesome.

A ranger informed us a mother black bear and her cub were lingering at the trail head a quarter mile down the trail and that if we saw them, just to make a lot of noise.  I don't think with all my wheezing, grunting, and heaving they were going to be coming anywhere near where we were though.

Saw JV running up the trail at one point looking strong.

****Later

Ran a shake out 3.4 miles and was surprised by the contrast and how easy it felt.  I ran up Table Mesa to the end before it starts up to NCAR and back home - 340' of elevation gain over about 1.5 miles, and was surprised at how easy it felt to run up that in the 7 to 8 min mile range.  Then coming back home 1.8 miles in 6:00 flat pace felt almost effortless.  Kind of cool what a brutal workout will do to the mind/body in making other stuff seem really easy. 6:58 pace for 3.4 miles...I intended to go for a really easy few mile additional cool down, which would normally be 8:30/mile over that ascent/descent, but that pace felt smooth and easy so I just went with it...kind of a cool feeling.  I like the immediate result of the hard hill workout...I guess we'll see how I feel tomorrow. 

NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 7.90
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.500.000.000.006.50

6.5 miles - 51:43 - 7:59 avg - 138 Avg HR - 150' ascent - windy

Easy cruise around east boulder - unseasonably warm - 56 degrees this am at 6:45, can't complain.  It's probably the warm before the storm though.

Five Finger Treks Miles: 6.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.500.000.000.0011.50

Is it really December? The weather would sure have me thinking otherwise...sunny and gorgeous in the mountains today in Boulder.

I finally got around to tagging the 3 Boulder peaks today and had a fun time.  Steve came along and was gracious enough to wait for me at the top of all the summits and various other times.

Steve and some hikers on S. Boulder peak

The view West from Bear Peak with me obstructing the view

Steve and a random dude on top of Green

Right from the start of the climb up the front side of Green mountain my calves started screaming at me.  They felt like they were so tight they would either explode or lock up, so I suffered through about 24 minutes of pain until they finally started loosening up around the greenman junction.  Ouch.  I guess the hill sprints on Thursday were still taking their toll, and I definitely needed more warmup before launching up one of the steepest hills in town.

Oh well..getting beyond that, I found a decent enough rhythm on the top section up to green mtn.

After that my legs felt pretty decent, but lacked any real bounce in the step...but I was enjoying myself a lot more now that the intense pain of the calves had subsided and everything was moving smoothly.

The west ridge up to Bear peak is quite the hike! Pretty steep stuff to get up to the peak there.  And I was glad to finally make my way up to S. Boulder peak for the first time.

We came down Fern canyon which was a nice change of scenery.  I wasn't sure if it would be too icy, but it was totally fine, not much ice at all.  The worst patch of snow/ice for the day was going up to S. Boulder peak from the saddle.  Steve smoked me going down fern, he is really fast going down the technical steep stuff.  And I took a super minor fall, which was no big deal.

That was a great cap off to a pretty solid week of running for me, a mile off my biggest week in mileage ever, but with a lot more vertical this week.

For the day: 11 Miles - 4750' ascent - 2:49 including a lot of stopped time on each peak

Weekly totals: 51 Miles - 11,400 feet vertical.

NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 11.50
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments(2)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
44.753.400.003.0051.15
NB MT101 - Green 11 Miles: 31.90Five Finger Treks Miles: 19.25
Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
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