Week of 4-9-12: 92 miles, 14,000' gain.

Monday: 15 miles, 2500' gain, 2:15-ish, with Adrian. The standard JCC/CC/JCC route, which I apparently haven't done much in its exact form lately.

Tuesday: 9 miles, 1500' gain, forgot time. Maybe 90-ish? Don't remember Lots of steeps. JCC to middle of dry creek, up the steep trail (something like 2/3 of a mile at 32% grade, so yeah, pretty steep) to the ridgeline before Little Black, along a super hilly outcropping and back, to the 5-way, and back via standard route.

Wednesday: 15 miles, 2500' gain, with Adrian, 2:10-ish. JCC/CC/JCC.

Thursday: 8 miles, 1500' gain, high 60's for time. JCC to 5-way and back. Didn't have time for more. Tried out my new MT110s in a blizzard and liked them, although the traction isn't 100% in snow. Was disappointed to have gotten yet another snowstorm, but it was actually pretty fun to run in.

Friday: 10 miles, moderately easy (low 7's pace), 0' gain, only minimal trespassing, with Adrian. Ran on the Jordan River Parkway Trail (paved) most of the way except for a few gaps, where we ran in odd places to try to find the shortest possible connection. Passed through a bum tent city, right next to an electric fence, and across numerous train tracks. Adrian stopped in multiple portal potties on a 10 mile day. This run was, umm, very different from the norm.

Saturday: Off, resting for Sunday.

Sunday: 35 miles, 6000' gain, 5:29 (slow, difficult, although that time includes breaks), with Adrian. First leg: City Creek to JCC to Red Butte to Emigration Canyon/Hogle Zoo, and back, following virtually the longest route possible. Had a water bottle with 3 Hi-C Fruit Punch juice boxes in it (270 calories), another water bottle with plain water, and 18 whoppers (285 calories) for this chunk, with only 4 salt pills. Finished this leg feeling like I needed more salt, water, and calories in me (especially since I ate nothing before the run started since it was an AM start), so I took 15-20 minutes to sit on my butt, eat, and drink before the next leg. In that break, I consumed 5 oz of water, a rice cake (45 calories), 2 more Hi-C juice boxes (180 calories), and roughly 15 ounces of Sprite (180 calories), in addition to 4 more salt pills. Starting off the next leg, I was planning for a 3rd leg to put my total at 50 for the day, but Adrian immediately decided he would only do 2 since he already had a huge week going and didn't want to do more mileage. This, combined with not feeling that great the entire day, plus the fact that I had already gotten pretty behind on fluids and salt, made me decide to just also *only* do the 35 miles in the first 2 legs, so we went up to the top of City Creek, following the longest possible route with trails, and then came back down. Both of us felt like crap most of the way up the canyon, but I popped 4 more salt pills plus a handful of starburst jelly beans and actually felt good on the way down. We picked up the pace a ton in the last 2 miles or so (ie, dropped to low-6 pace) and this felt surprisingly good. I finished the day feeling like the 50 would've been easily doable given better nutrition early on, but decided to listen to my body so that I could not be wrecked for the coming week (which will include an unofficial trail race that I can't really discuss... you probably know what it is if you live in SLC and run trails much...).


Totals: 92 miles, 14,000' gain. Overall, the week was marginally disappointing. In addition to wanting to do more miles on a couple days earlier in the week, I especially wanted to feel better and do more miles on Sunday, but I didn't feel spectacular from the start and I made the right choice of listening to my body rather than hammering it for what would've been nearly 8 hours. I felt a little crappy/sick for a couple of days (Wed-Fri or so), so I guess I should just be grateful to have gotten in 92 miles, although in reality, it seems a bit week. My diet has been relatively poor over the last few months (I do have a decent amount of fruits, veggies, and protein, but I eat WAY too much sugar), and this past week was worse than normal, so I think this was a factor in why I felt crappy (ie, it was avoidable). I have made the decision to no longer consume products with high-fructose corn syrup or other added sugars between now and the racing season this summer, and I'm hoping that this should aid with my recovery times, my day to day energy levels, and my general health. We'll see I guess!

9 week running total (this includes 2 weeks of training not at full force): 800 miles, 130,000' climb.
7 of last 8 weeks running total (not including the recovery week): 693 miles, 106500' climb.

Music this week is more from Ukraine's forgotten super-genius Sergei Bortkiewicz:

I love it.