My training strategy of late has been to get as many miles as possible over an extended period of time while listening to my body 100%. That said, I felt that the only responsible thing I could do after a 60 mile run was to take a very easy week, especially considering that after this past week, I now have 8 big weeks of mileage planned before tapering for Old Dominion 100. Taking this past week hard would've put my legs in jeopardy after such a long run, not to mention that it would ended up putting me on a schedule to do 15 big weeks of training straight without an off week before Old Dominion. Therefore, for the same of playing it safe, recovering 100% from my 2nd place effort at the 12 Hours of Moab, and this past week was well less than half of the mileage I've gotten in any other week recently.
Monday/Tuesday: Off, making sure my legs were 100% recovered.
Wednesday: 9 miles, 1500' gain, no idea what the time was. Bonneville Shoreline Trail, with Adrian. JCC to past 5-way but well before city creek, and back.
Thursday: 6 miles, no gain, easy road jog, 9-ish minute pace.
Friday: 7 miles, 2000' gain. Mill Creek Canyon road, outside the Terraces road entrance, up the road to Terraces trailhead, up and over down to Elbow Fork (through some amazingly fun downhill snow, which was no longer all that deep), back to Burch Hollow entrance of Pipeline, back up the road to my car near Terraces. This run was an absolute blast.
Saturday: 9 miles, 4000' gain, with Adrian. Mill Creek Canyon road, outside Terraces road entrance, up the road to Terraces Trailhead, up and over down to Elbow Fork (the snow on the downhills was perhaps even more fun), up Mt Aire from Elbow Fork, back down, and down the road to my car. I was literally running at 8500' in March! This light snowpack is incredible. Also of note was that we were putting in sub-15 pace on technical snowy trails going up a very steep grade (the top half of the climb up Mt Aire is about a 25% average), but we had a nice conversation going the whole way. We only walked when the snow got very deep (ie thigh deep) in one spot for maybe 200' at the top, and at one other portion for maybe 10 feet when the trail was unbelievably slick with mud. What this means to me is that all of my more moderate approach to my daily effort levels of late, as well as my insistence on incorporating lots of climb into the majority of my runs has been instrumental in helping me develop a better "ultra" type trail gear on steep hills and I've been noticing lately that I can run up very steep grades at a level of efficiency far beyond what I've ever experienced in the past. This bodes very very well for races like Speedgoat and Wasatch, and even in the moderately hilly portions of Old Dominion. I'm excited.
Sunday: Off, took the day to work on a big talk for grad school and, of course, resting up for the first of 8 big weeks in a row. :)
Totals: 31 miles, 7500' gain. Nice and easy, but had a fair amount of climb on the Friday and Saturday runs.
Music for the week is a classic within the realm of progressive/technical music. Spiral Architect of Norway put out "A Sceptic's Universe" in 2000 and this has been the measuring stick of "Thinking Man's Metal" ever since. They're different from most "metal" bands in that they're not focused on sheer heaviness and obnoxious vocals (although many have argued that Øystein's high pitched croons are a bit self-indulgent or even caustic). Rather, Spiral Architect focuses on absolute virtuosity in their playing and writing, while creating intelligent philosophical lyrics to match the music. Without further ado, here is Conjuring Collapse:
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