Sunday, February 26, 2012

Week of 2-20-12: 114 miles, 20k' gain.

Monday: 17 miles, 2500' gain, 2:35. Up and down City Creek Canyon, utilizing the trail rather than the road up until the trail ended, plus some more out front of the canyon. The road ended up being covered in snow entirely shortly after the road ended, so the whole in-canyon portion felt like a trail run. There was a semi-path blazed for the first bit of the snow-covered road part, but the top mile had no tracks whatsoever, so I got to blaze my way through snow that got up to literally waist deep in a few spots at the very top, which was very slow and VERY cold given that I never wear long pants (literally, my picture in the header of this blog is the only run in over 3 years during which I wore long pants). Fun!

Tuesday: 15 miles, 3000' gain, 2:10. Jcc to City Creek and back, pretty easy.

Wednesday: 16 miles, 3000' gain, 2:17. My building on campus to JCC to City Creek and back, also pretty easy.

Thursday: 10 miles, no gain, 1:04. Ran on a treadmill, kept it at a 2% decline so I could run a bit faster while having it feel easier on the legs. Ran the first 5 pretty easily in 33:30 or so, then decided to throw in a super fast (for me) quarter mile pickup at 13.5mph (4:27/mile pace). Unfortunately, I actually broke the treadmill doing this, so I had to move to the one next to it to finish the run. Kept it easy through 7 miles and then knocked off the last 3 in 5:57, 5:40, and 5:08. Felt pretty in control, though the next day when I had to go out for another long run, I kind of wished I had taken it super easy the whole time as planned.

Friday: 22 miles, 5500' gain, 3:12. My building on campus to JCC to City Creek, up the north side to the saddle, then left a bit from the saddle more to get to the highest point in that area, then back. Legs felt slightly rough in the final climb back out of city creek.

Saturday: 8 miles, no gain, 1:12. Run on roads, and, obviously, this was a super easy recovery run. I skied Snowbird earlier in the day and knew that I had to make that day's run all about recovery to get my legs fresh for Sunday.

Sunday: 26 miles, 6000' gain, 3:40. Jcc to City Creek, up to the north side saddle, along the shoreline trail from there to the low radio towers, then horseshoe back along the ridgeline to a bit past the highest radio towers, then all the way back. Legs actually felt quite good the whole time, which was a bit surprising.

Weekly total: 114 miles, 20,000' gain. I think my gain counts are slightly low for the JCC to City Creek and back runs, so the entire week's worth of gain is probably slightly higher than the listed 20,000'. Overall, this was a great week. I haven't done a good 100+ week in some time and I was originally only planning for somewhere in the 90s, but I felt good and just rolled with it.

For next week, I don't have an exact mileage number in mind, but I'm thinking it'll be slightly less in overall mileage (probably 100-110) with a longer long run.

Yes, I realize this is a big increase in mileage, but I felt 100% in control the whole week and did a great job of listening to my body, so I'm not worried.

Oh, and since the hip new thing for blogging trail runners to do is to post the music you've been listening to, this band has been in my playlist a lot this past week:

Monday, February 20, 2012

Week of 2-13-12

Monday: 7 miles, 500' gain, with Holly. 3 miles up City Creek Canyon with 500' gain, 23 min, 3 miles back down with 500' drop, 17 minutes, 1 mile cooldown.

Tuesday: 19 miles, 5000' gain, with Adrian Shipley. JCC to City Creek on Shoreline Trail, then up to the saddle in the ridgeline above city creek and back. 3:06 (so, easy-moderate). Pace was significantly slowed by copious amounts of mud, especially on the North Side of City Creek.

Wednesday: 10 miles, 2000' gain, 2 mile warmup around campus followed by JCC to 5-way and back, moderately hard on the way out, hard on the way back. 59 for the 8 miles with 2000' gain. Slowed by mud. Ran with the new New Balance MT00 and loved it.

Thursday: 16 miles, 3000' gain, Middle campus to JCC to city creek and back. 2:03, so moderate pace for this loop with a couple relatively serious climbs. Slowed by mud. New Balance MT00 again. Great shoe.

Friday: Off, letting legs recover for a big Saturday.

Saturday: 24 miles, 5500' gain, with Joe Dean. JCC to City Creek to ridgeline as on Tuesday, but then further through the south and west around the mountain and up to radio towers, then back. Took it out easy since Joe hasn't been training climbs like I have. Stuck together until we were nearing the 5-way on the way back, at which point I took off and ran moderately hard for the last 4.5 miles. Total time of 4:13. Very easy effort for all but the last 4.5 miles, overall slowed by mud once again. Ran this in the MT00 again and I think this will be my go to shoe from now on.

Sunday: Off, letting legs recover to hit another big day today (Monday) that I'm about to do since it's President's Day.

Total: 76 miles, 16000' gain. Not bad for only running 5 of the 7 days. If I hadn't been switching up the footwear, I wouldn't have taken any days off, but the MT00s are totally flat and I haven't worn a totally flat shoe in awhile, so I wanted to make sure I didn't overwork my calves. Overall, I'm pleased with the week and will be shooting for at least 15 more this next week.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Last few weeks

I had to take 2 more weeks in there to let a banged up foot heal up (could have cleared up faster if I more religiously followed my stretching plan from Pete Egoscue's 'Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion', which cleared it up within a couple days once I finally decided to use it and stick to it).

I did about 30-40 a week for the weeks of 1-23-12 and 1-30-12 and a 17 mile hard nearly tempo effort run near the beginning of the week of 1-23-12 is what seemed to flare the foot. Training seems negligible, but totals were about 70 between the 2 weeks.

Week of 2-6:
Monday: 6 miles, easy: 3 loops of Liberty Park plus an extra 2 miles.
Tuesday: 12 miles, 3500' gain, with Adrian Shipley. Up the west side of City Creek Canyon, over the ridgeline, down to the meadow that leads to eastern North Salt Lake, back up to the ridgeline north of the radio towers, in and around there, down capital hill, and back through a bit of roads.
Wednesday: 10 miles, 2000' gain: Lower Campus to JCC to 5-way and back.
Thursday: 4 miles: 5k on treadmill at 1% decline (to make up for altitude) in 17:24 (5:55, 5:35, 5:24, and last .1 in :30) plus cooldown.
Friday: 16 miles, 3500' gain: Lower Campus up to JCC, up dry creek to city creek along Bonneville Shoreline, and back, with Adrian Shipley.
Saturday: Skiing for a few hours, no running.
Sunday: 7 miles, 1000' gain, easy, City Creek Canyon.
Total: 55 miles, 9000' gain. A good bridge week to get me back to high mileage.

Current week of 1-13-12 is at 52 miles with 11000' climb after Mon-Thurs, so I'm off to a good start. Foot is finally good after a month or so of occasional mild irritation. It never really hurt too much and never was much of an injury per se, but I decided to be careful so as not to drag anything into a big training cycle.