Week of 5-7-12: 83 miles, 9500' gain.

Monday: 6 miles, 1500' gain, pretty easy, 60:00 even, in Holbrook Canyon, past the maintained section of trail a bit, and then back, with Adrian, right after getting off the plane back from MN.

Tuesday 7 miles, easy, 60:xx, no gain, roads.

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 44 miles, 5000' gain, pacing Adrian at the Zion 100.  11 1/2 hours or so I guess?  I jogged 2 miles earlier and then picked up Adrian at mile 35.  He had just started puking from going out kind of hard on a hot day (high of 92 during the race).  We got things straightened out and he stayed in 2nd place until mile 44, but the loss of calories, fluids, and electrolytes caught up with him going up the one super steep climb of the race (40% grade for 3/4 of a mile... this was hard even for me and I had 33 less miles in my legs than Adrian).  The next 2 chunks of course were very poorly marked due to some a$$hole mountain bikers that removed all the flags from the course a couple days before the race (because they didn't like looking at them while riding).  Unfortunately, this part was made almost entirely of slick rock.  This was a definite low point for Adrian, who started getting some knee pain, not to mention that we did at least an extra mile due to difficulty in navigation.  I hadn't eaten much and the runners hit the same station for 51.5 and 52.5 miles, so I took off 51.5 and 52.5 to eat a ton and then picked it back up with Adrian through 77 miles.  He finally got his knee in check due to mass amounts of aspirin, acetaminophen, and caffeine, and we picked off a handful of people between 63 and 70.  We spent a bit of time in the station at 70, but then picked off a few more people between 70 and 77, at which point I, getting very tired (it was roughly 11 PM and we only had enough caffeine pills for Adrian), called it a night.  Unfortunately, the next chunk was very poorly marked apparently and Adrian got lost immediately after leaving the station along with a few other runners.  Of course, nothing says "ultra" like getting lost yet again (this time for a lot longer) after mile 90, so his last "10" miles took 4+ hours if I'm not mistaken, but at least his girlfriend was pacing him for the final 10 miles.  Still, I was driving around monitoring the race and trying to figure out where he was over the last 10 miles, so I got no sleep until we were on the way back home, when I got about 20 minutes in the car...

Saturday: Off, absolutely exhausted from only sleeping 20 minutes the night before, but I hate screwing up my sleep schedule with naps, so I just stayed up all day and then got a good 10 hours that night.

Sunday: 26 miles, 3000' gain, 3:42 or 3:43.  AM: 12 miles, 2500' gain, 2:01:xx, holbrook canyon.  Way past the maintained trail, over numerous creek crossings, sometimes on an old faint trail that hasn't been maintained for awhile, sometimes on game trail, most of the way up to the great western trail ridgeline, and back.  PM: 14 miles, road, 500' gain, 1:41:xx, NSL all the way west, back to legacy parkway, up that trail, a loop around bountiful, and back.  Probably a bit faster than I should've gone on the last few miles, but I guess it stretched out my legs.

Totals: 83 miles, 9500' gain.

I've thrown around the idea of a "high mileage hell week" for some time in order to give my aerobic system a quick boost, and, after careful research into the physiology and basic training concepts behind it, I've decided to do it, starting this past Friday (44 miles on day 1 seemed too good to pass up).  I wasn't really planning on not sleeping on Friday and consequently needing to take Saturday off, but starting with 70 in the first 3 days is still solid (and I'm up to 117 now after day 5, with 2 days to go).  It's looking like I'll most likely hit somewhere around 160-170.  Considering that my average daily mileage for the 4 days I have run is 29.25 miles, I'd hit 175.5 if I could replicate the average of those 4 days over the next 2, but I doubt that I'm going to be able to manage 58.5 miles over the next 2 days.

On this note I have chosen the music for the week, which is Dream Theater's "Misunderstood".  I love the line that says "If I seem superhuman, I have been misunderstood."  The bottom line is that, at least to me, a hell week like the one I'm currently doing sounds pretty incredible, but, in reality, it's just a lot of running and pushing myself out of the comfort zone.  While I might have contested this a year or two ago, I now realize that there's nothing superhuman about doing a 160-170 mile week, it's just all about pushing hard for 7 days knowing that I'll be taking a very good rest afterwards.  Without further ado, here's Dream Theater: