Weeks of 1-19-09 and 1-26-09

Neither of these past 2 weeks were particularly high mileage. The focus of each week was just on getting my body as recovered and healthy for next weekend's race as possible. I decided not to post anything last week since my mileage wasn't very high and there just wasn't really much to post. I did 40 and 52 miles in the 2 weeks, which is really low for me right now and only a few of the runs are worth really mentioning in much detail.

Week of 1-19-09:
Monday: 12 miles: Towson loop. I had done 36 miles the day before and this wasn't all that bad, but the fact that it had snowed a lot during the day made it less tolerable. I think I was more sore after this than I was the previous day. I still managed to do the run fairly fast and was around mid 6's per mile.

Tuesday: 4 miles: Quite sore from doing 48 miles in the last 2 days, especially with the previous day in the snow, so I just ran to the gym to lift, ran around campus, and then ran home, untimed, slow.

Wednesday: 7 miles: Zoo loop, very easy, untimed.

Thursday: 9 miles: Was going to do one more long run, but decided after a couple miles to keep it short and turned around early. I was pretty sore and I needed to start recovering, so I decided that a long run wouldn't be beneficial to me much anymore. I had run around campus, the Gilman trail, and a bit farther up Charles before coming back along the trail and going back to Hampden.

Friday: Rest.

Saturday: 8 miles: a bit of a long zoo loop, easy, untimed.

Sunday: Rest.

Total: 40 miles. Feeling a bit better already by the end of the week, especially after only doing 8 miles over Friday-Sunday.



Week of 1-26-09:
Nothing timed unless noted otherwise.
Monday: 7 miles, Gilman loop from Hampden, easy.

Tuesday: 7 miles zoo, easy.

Wednesday: 9 miles, can't recall what my run was... I'll edit this if I remember. I have 9 miles logged, but didn't make a note of where I went. All these easy runs seem to blend in to one another... lol...

Thursday: Rest, flying out to ASU.

Friday: 6 miles, tempo. This was my first fast run in a while and I felt almost completely better after all my rest, tapering, and easy runs. I did about 6 minutes per mile and I ran this down in Arizona by the ASU campus. I definitely could've gone faster still, but I didn't feel like really pushing myself into oblivion since I wasn't at 100% yet.

Saturday: Rest, did some fun hiking down in Arizona though.

Sunday: 23 miles of crazy trails (oops...), 3:05. I had said that I wasn't going to do more than a half marathon or so on Sunday, but the amazing trails I hiked on Saturday in Phoenix got the best of me and I went for a little over a 3 hour run on Sunday. Atlantic Ocean 4-woman rowing world record holder Sarah Kessans brought me out to the South Mountain Park, about 7 or 8 miles away from campus, and she mountainbiked with me as I ran. Some of the course was way too technical to ride on a bike, so I spent roughly 10 minutes of the run standing around at summits waiting for her to catch up, which I didn't really mind cause my heart rate was almost always through the roof by the time I got to the top of any of those climbs. I ran a bunch of National Trail, which is considered one of the most technical and well-known trails in the country apparently and spent additional time on the Mormon Trail and the Desert Classic Trail. I felt great at the end, probably partly thanks to the couple gels I ate during the run, one of them containing 100 mg of caffeine (that's a lot in case you don't know...). I feel like I could've done around 35-40 miles at the pace before I would've had to slow down, so that's a good sign for Rocky Raccoon this coming weekend, which will be run considerably slower. My favorite part of the run was definitely racing up the steepest ascent of National right before the end of the run, covering roughly 1000 feet of gain in under 6 minutes. Wow did I have to stop to catch my breath before I tore right back down the trail... Sarah was really fun to run with and it sounds like there are a ton of other really cool endurance athletes down at ASU, so it would probably be an amazing place for my training (not to mention my PhD... haha...) This may have been the single most fun run I've ever done, but the one downside was that a ton of time spent sitting down in the plane on the way home a couple hours later, caused some really irritating cramping in my legs. Oh well... Either way, it was probably stupid to do this long of a run 6 days before Rocky Raccoon, but I'm still glad that I did and I wouldn't change the run even if I could.

Total: 52 miles. I was a bit sore on Sunday night when I got back, but that run was well worth it. I'm not worried about still being sore at Rocky, so it shouldn't matter, as long as I'm not crazy and doing long runs in the next couple days.