Week of 12-5-11

Monday: 12 miles + PhD Oral Qualifier. Started parking a mile from work to be able to get an extra 2 miles in by jogging there and back, so I had that plus an easy 10 miles on a treadmill at night. Jogged in a mile, took and passed my rather intense PhD oral qualifying exam, jogged a mile back to the car, then went to the gym and did 10 miles. Took it easy (first 9 at 7:45-8:00 pace, then sped up a bit for a 6:00 last mile).

Tuesday: 9 miles, 2000' gain: 2 miles to and from work then 7 miles in Holbrook Canyon with Adrian Shipley. The canyon was ridiculously icy and had a ton of creek crossings, so this run was more fun than anything and took about an hour.

Wednesday: 16 miles, 3000' gain: 14 miles from Jewish Community Center with Adrian Shipley and Holly (the pooch), up dry creek, along shoreline trail to just above the final drop down to City Creek, and back, then the now typical 2 miles of jogging to and from work.

Thursday: 2 miles, was short on time, just did the jogging.

Friday: 7 miles, 3000' gain, + skiing. Didn't actually get to do the extra 2 miles, but I did a nice assault of Grandeur Peak with Adrian, which was iced in quite a bit, but not overly snowy due to the minimal snowfall so far this year. Getting above 8000' for the first time in awhile, was slightly more strenuous than usual, due to loss of acclimation, but it was still a blast. The view from the top is actually the same view that I have pictured in my blog header, only this particular run had less snow and much more ice. I had a few spills on the way down (really need to get microspikes), but nothing serious, so it was a pretty awesome run. Immediately afterwards, I went home, threw on ski gear, and did 80 minutes of night skiing at Brighton.

Saturday: 23 miles, 5500' gain, by myself. City Creek Canyon along shoreline, to 5-way, to research park, back to city creek, 2/3 of the way up City Creek canyon, and back down. I took it out pretty hard for the first time this week along the first two hours and paid for it in the last bit in City Creek when my energy started dwindling due to eating a 200 calorie bar for breakfast and then eating just one small pack of M&Ms 2 hours into the run and nothing else, but I made it through OK, although slightly tired.

Sunday: 12 miles, 2500' gain, with Joe Dean and Holly. Nice and easy run, hogle Zoo along shoreline to Dry Creek, up the canyon, another 1.5 or so along Shoreline, and back. The last few miles weren't so fun. Didn't have breakfast beforehand and didn't eat anything during the run, so I was feeling exhausted by the end, especially after the previous day's effort. That being said, it seemed like a good double, as the 12 miles was entirely on relatively tired legs. Grandeur is a ridiculous amount harder than any other 7 mile run that most people will do and followed up by some hard skiing and a mountainous 23 miler that I ran pretty hard, this was a good simulation for running later in an ultra on fatigued legs. Achieved what I wanted with it, which is good.


Collin's Totals: 81 miles, 16,000' climb, one night of skiing.
Holly's Totals: 26 miles, 5500' gain. Not bad for being one year old. :)

Best week in quite awhile, but I plan on increasing on it this coming week.