Winning Back What I Lost

Afternoon:  Boise GB from Municipal Park to Harris Ranch and back.  1 mile warmup, 5 miles @ 8:22 pace; 1 mile cooldown.  My cardio conditioning continues to improve but my overall leg strength is still lacking.  I've known for quite some time that I will not see any significant speed gains until I drop down below 170 lbs.  I mistakenly believed that increased hill training would get me off this plateau but I've been hovering around 180 for a couple of weeks- about 5 lbs heavier than my marathon weight last year.  My main obstacle seems to be that as my weekly mileage increases, so does my appetite, which has effectively cancelled out any potential weight loss. 

AM:  I wasn't sure whether I would get some time this afternoon or evening so I got up for an early run.  I should say, after hitting the alarm clock twice I eventually stumbled out of bed for a run.  5+ easy, slow miles on the TM @ 1% incline. Crossing my fingers for a hill workout this afternoon or evening as well.

PM: 4+ miles of hill intervals w/ 1 mile cooldown.  Weight = 178.5 lbs

At work today I decided that I need to ratchet up my hill training w/ just over a month until Robie.  After last night's hill training on the TM, I ran from where the pavement ends on Shaw Mt Rd to where the road is snow packed and back.  This is about 2 miles from the summit.  I felt very lethargic and kind of nauseous.  I was barely crawling along by the time I hit the cattle guard which is as far up as I ventured last month when the road was still ice/snow packed lower on the road.  I was delighted to learn that about a 1/3 mile above that the grade flattens somewhat before it begins its final assault on the summit the last 1.5 miles before Aldape Summit.  At least I was able to catch my breath a little at that point and I even planned on climbing higher but the snowpacked road after 2.5 miles was a good enough excuse for me to turn around.  Probably won't do any more hills til Saturday when I plan on running from Ft. Boise Park to the summit and back.

Seven easy, slow miles along the GB from Veteran's Park to half mile past Glenwood Bridge and back.  I'm listening to "Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini (author of Kite Runner) right now and it is truly depressing and captivating at the same time.  Hosseini is an extraordinarily gifted writer but I don't think I could listen to his work if I were doing a tempo or hill run- it leaves me too melancholy.   

Late PM:  4.91 slow, easy miles w/ a half dozen pickups in the last mile cuz that's how I roll.  Need to get close to fifty miles this week.  So far, so good.

Lunch hour run on the GB.  Felt very strong today running on flat terrain, in shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt.  Sunny w/ a temp in the 50's and a slight breeze.  Short warmup, 5+ miles @ 8:17 pace, and cooldown. On Sunday, I helped the kids build a snowman.  Today I passed by Bronco Stadium and got a glimpse of some of the big uglies doing blocking drills.  BSU spring football is here already. 

Long hill run today; ran from the first cattle guard at the bottom of Shaw Mtn Rd to within a 1/2 mile of Aldape Summit; the road got extremely icy and snowpacked from about 2 miles from the Summit on; I had to pick and choose the best route from that point which made the already steep grade that much more difficult to navigate; coming down was even worse and I had a few slips where I was certain that I would fall on my arse but I was somehow able to keep my feet; quite a few people running and one group of three actually went higher than I did but they ended up walking as the slush that had developed the day before was frozen solid w/ overnight temps down in the low 20's last night; 

I felt much stronger than any of my previous runs on the Robie course and this is as far up as I've been able or willing to venture this year; I ran at a tolerable pace from the start, not wanting to push it at all and just focused on proper breathing and extending the run; this was my longest hill run thus far in my training, not the hardest but the longest; hopefully we'll get some nights w/ temps above freezing to clear the last couple of miles to the top.