Week ending 26APR2020

Monday AM - 8 miles with strides.

Tuesday afternoon - perfect day and was feeling good about getting after it a bit on the track.  20+ minute warm up easy, 4 strides.  12 x 300 on 200 jog.  Goal was 63s, and was sitting around 60-63, most being 61.  Got the itch a bit on the last few  - 60, 59, 56.  Nothing crazy just was having some fun with the buzz.  10.1 miles.

Wednesday afternoon - 10 miles, easy ... sort of rolling at the end.

Thursday mid day - 8.5 miles, last two minutes a bit up tempo and then 4 strides.

Friday - 8.2 miles, with 3.5 at tempo effort (that section covered in 22:16).  Wasn't feeling so hot and considered shifting this until Saturday ... for about a quarter second.  I was fine once I was going, but I could tell it was not an A game day.  It was fine though.

Saturday - 7.2 miles total, including 5 with Cheeto all over the place pace-wise.  Yes - that means some sub 4:45 stuff and some 9:30 stuff.  We finished just the five just under 36.

Sunday - 11.6 miles.  Had to pause to get this bull off the trail.  He was right in the middle of it and was setting up to get whacked by a biker.



Good week.  Just over 63.  I had contemplated waking up early on Sunday and heading to Flag but I slept in (7:30) and felt a bit tired still.  So I stay out in the eastern flats.  Keeping things to seven runs, and a little less overall volume with the 60s but feeling good about getting two quality efforts a week right now.

Week ending 19APR2020

Monday - still snowing, but a nice light fluffy snow.  8.3 miles when done including the strides.  Chilly - humid.



And like that most of the snow was gone on the open stretches on Tuesday.  Afternoon - 20 minute plus easy jog warm up, 4 strides and then 2 x 8 x 200 on 200 rest with 400 rest between the sets.  Hit 39 high/40 low on the first few and then they were all 39, cutting down to 38 on the last couple.  Felt good, and tried to be tall and work on basic form mechanics.  On the last handful I could feel the last 40-60 yards the effort.  10 minute or so cool down - 8.7 miles.  I contemplated how I used to do 50 x 200 at that pace with no rest.

Wednesday afternoon - it seemed to be getting nice but then there was a bite to the air.  10 miles, easy out to Mayhoffer and back.


Thursday - really really snowing again.  Like the heavy spring stuff.  Not sure that shoveling for 2 hours goes into the log but it counts for something.  At least for catching up on some podcasts.  Got out in the afternoon for may or may not be one of the last winter slogs of 8.4 miles with some strides at the end.  Heavy legged.

Friday afternoon - tracks were socked in snow so this was on the roads.  But it was nicely sunny.   As it is a perfect mile around the high school, with it being a quarter on each side, I went there for 2 x 2 miles with a half mile jog in between.  Goal was 6:30's for the first, and 6:25 for the second - so more threshold sort of work.  Of course I jacked it by going 6:21 and then 6:25 for the first set.  Second set was 6:09 and 6:11.  I was definitely not threshold for the last half mile - but I was having fun as I was wanting to hurt a bit.    10 miles all told with the warm up, cool down, strides.

Saturday - recovery day.  6.4 miles - super easy.   Checked in on the donks.  Cheeto pretty much still wants nothing to do with me.  I have some work to do there.

Sunday - best I can tell, I have not been up and down Flagstaff Road in almost FIVE years.  Itching for some vertical, or maybe itching to not post yet again that I need it ... I decided I'd go and hit the road this AM.  I was not gonna fight the trails up Green with the ice, or the entire current circumstances there with current events.  I might have bumped into the Mayor out there, and if we did I can confirm we stayed on opposite sides of the road.  I am definitely a bit off my climbing game - and most certainly felt it in that wall you hit just past the mile 4 marker - but I held up okay for an "easy" run.  10 miles all told.  It was good to feel that burn in the quads when running 13 minute pace again.



A "neat" week for me.  61 miles, a climb, 2 quality workouts and a balance of rest and harder days.  I'd like a long run too but I can only get in so many legit efforts in 7 days.

No live or recorded videos of music this week, but have been "wood shedding" nicely.  The live streams definitely served a purpose in learning for me and nudging me but it feels like it is time to do something different for a bit.  I'll get back to that.  Been plucking at some new tunes, and working on a couple of my own.

Week ending 12APR2020

Monday - headed over to Mayhoffer to check on the situation there and then got Cheeto out for about an hour.  Coal Creek is crowded!




He is a good donk.  Definitely easy going, and there are a few new things we are working through ... bridges, turns, etc.  8.3 miles with a few strides at the end.

Tuesday AM - 20 minute warm up, four opening strides, then 2 sets of 5 x 1 minute, with the first set at a 7 PE on 60 seconds rest and the second set at an 8 PE with the rest at 90 seconds.  About a 15 minute warm down.  7.4 miles.  Good workout.

Decided if Pikes cancels, I'll just focus on a mile - see if I can get under 5:20 again.

Afternoon - 3 easy miles with KZ.

Wednesday - 10 miles, out and back to Mayhoffer to check on the donks.  JZ joined me.  Easy day.


Thursday- 8.1 miles along Coal Creek with strides post.


Thursday night did the Rails End Virtual Open Mic again.

In case I needed a reminder of how amateur I am at this ... check this out.  

I have been shifting a tiny bit on my music - and will likely take a break from regularly posting on-line "shows" (it sounds a bit weird to call them that), and focus a bit on some tunes I am writing, and  building out some other tunes I have been working on.

Friday - 3 mile warm up with strides, then 20 minute tempo on the track.  Covered 5100 meters on the nose.  10 minute cool down.  Was a bit apprehensive coming into this but figured I'd just try to start at 6:40 pace and carve down from there.  First mile was probably just under 6:30, and I slowly picked it up.  Felt really controlled and on top of it and only had to "think" about it a bit at maybe 3 minutes to go.

Saturday - 10 miles with Cheeto, getting this in on Saturday before the snow blows in on Sunday.  Took almost 90 minutes to warm Cheeto up to the halter ... a complete shift from where he was earlier in the week.  JZ finally sweet talked him into it.  Once we got going it was a fine run, but I did start to feel a bit of the work from yesterday in the last couple of miles.



Sunday  - 10 miles - super easy in the snow.  Tired.  Yeah, it was one of those typical Colorado spring things - a 55 degree swing in a day.



64 miles on the week, but two good workouts on Tuesday and Friday.  Also got in two burro runs, which usually means a little less mileage for the per minute buck, but a different workout in its own way.   The Friday workout was probably one of my better ones in the last year or so.  Normally I'd say that a 6:20 mile is no biggie but I have not really run that fast for three in a long time. Rolled through a 1000 miles on the year this week too.

This next week should be more of the same - a little less quantity and bit more focus on the quality of specific efforts.  Third winter is here so it will be a bit of more of a challenge then the perfect stuff we got dealt last week.

Clearly some of the turn in my fitness as of late is because of some more time.  This is not directly because of the current pandemic events, but indirectly - I am not focused on coaching the HS kids and so I get to focus more on my training.  An interesting ripple.

I have totally done crap for any sort of upper body work since the start of March because of this turn of events, so I need to get to doing something on that.  I was giving thought to heading to Boulder next week for some Green Mountain, but apparently the scene out of Chautauqa is rather nuts - so I may avoid it for a bit and if I hit any hills, they will be elsewhere.

Been doing some work related podcasting too.

Week ending 05APR2020

Monday - 10 miles, playing on a few of the hills in the area.


Tuesday afternoon - windy out of the west and so I did 10 x 300s on 200 rest at the MS track leveraging the wind as much as I could.  Slowest was 62 (5), and fastest was 57 (last), with nearly all the rest coming right in at 60.  Fun workout and a bit better than I expect.  I was sort of thinking I'd be around 65-67 for these.  8.8 miles when all done.  JZ was out there doing quarters and so he did part of his work to coincide with mine.  More fun.



That finishes March - with 311.4 miles, 41 and a quarter hours, and just about 10k of vert.  All the weeks were pretty solid.  The travel to California week was a bit of down week on whole.  I had 2 decent long runs in the month, and managed to start to get in some quality (3 in the last two weeks and 4 on the month.  In some regards, current events have helped training.

I hope to start to shift some of the training up in April - a few more trails, some more vertical, a bit less focus on miles as the measure and a bit more on minutes and vert.  Other stats so far on the year:  885 miles, 119 and a quarter hours, 29k of vertical, 2 days off, 28 travel nights, 2 camping nights, and an average velocity of 7.4mph.  I have gone running 119 times so far this year.

Yeah it is probably a bad coin flip to consider that even August races like Pikes are gonna happen but I'll train anyway.  It just feels good.  Oh, there may be some more donkey running soon.

Wednesday - 10 miles.  Got out mid day on a shirtless sort of day.  Wonderful.  Legs were tired but I was just moving well.  So good for the head.  I had a biker flip me off though.  I think it is because I passed him and he got pissed off.


Thursday AM - 5.2 slow miles in a freezing mist before heading to Edwards for a post op review with TZ.  Her review went well - and the doc is happy with her progress (although it has only been a week).  PM - 4.3 miles in the snow, back in Broomstock.  Easy easy.

Friday afternoon - sort of tired but rolling pretty good once I committed to it.  11.3 miles, with a 25 minute progressive sort of tempo, 6:45 down to 6:20 pace.  Felt solid.



Saturday AM - 10 miles.  Tired and slow.


Sunday - 12 miles at RFNWR.  First time there and it is pretty nice.  And I went on a first date with Cheeto.  He can move.




A run with a donkey like this might be the purest form of fartlek ... you go slow, you go fast, except you have very little control over it - the donkey decides.   I was nicely worked at the end of our first outing.  There will be others.

Good week.  70 plus miles, 2 workouts and a run with a donkey that sort of was near a long effort in terms of time.  Need to get to the hills soon.