Week ending 30AUG2020

Monday AM - four miles while the kiddos did hills.

The best breakfast...

Monday evening - late with GW on the Ridgeview Trail.  5 miles.  Still stupid hot and smokey. 

Tuesday AM - 5 miles between calls

Tuesday PM - 3 miles super slow

Wednesday AM - met up with Greg and E and did 7.2 miles with 10 by a minute in there.  First time rolling in a couple of weeks and it felt good (and that it didn't feel good but it felt good to not feel good sort of way).

Thursday AM - 5.1 on Ditch Ridgeview.  In the afternoon, marked the course for the Broomfield Battle meet (our home course), and then biked it 5 times (at least) for the races - a bit of work in the grass.

Friday afternoon - a half dozen at the Mountain Vista Meet.  Hill.  Achilles was a piece of crap post this.  Rainy - which was nice to knock the smoke and temps down.

Saturday AM - 8.3 miles including a dozen or so 100 strides and 3 of the 500s (of a larger set) that Eryn was doing (5:30 pace).  Achilles sucks but I will continue to ignore it.  I was fine for the most part on the 500s (a bit faster than 1:45 per) and felt I could roll that for a mile (just under 5:30) but it was probably equally as likely that I'd fall apart after a kilo, or that a rubber band would snap.

Sunday AM - more running drudgery with the Achilles.  5.2 miles.  Lake Link and Ditch.  Need to obviously shift something up. 

Sunday PM - an easy four before some guitar dueling with CG. 

Low week ... I guess I got some quality in and that is good.  The meets threw me a bit more than I expected. 

Week ending 24AUG2020

Monday PM - ass kicker of a work day (if I can have such a thing) and never felt great.  9.1 miles. TZ biked most of it with me.

Tuesday PM - Greg popped by and we did half an hour on the ditch (mid to upper 90s) and then I tacked on another round out there and bit to get 9 miles.  I still feel like garbage.  Achilles is a piece of crap.  Ah well.  2100 miles on the year as of this run. 

Wednesday evening - loooong day on Zoom.  That is the nature of it these days:  don't travel but on it on the intertubes.  Jogged over to the HS and scoped out a 5K XC course of sorts.  5.2 miles.

Thursday AM - attempting to get back on a little bit of the morning train to avoid the afternoon heat.  3.7 miles on the ditch. 

Thursday PM - holy crap a spit of rain.  7 mile loop.  Still feel like hell baby.

Friday PM - hot again.  9 miles.  Didn't wear socks. That was dumb.  Achilles is a worn out steel belted radial gator raider.

Saturday AM - back to practice.  9.7 miles, including wheeling off the XC course.  Achilles bleh.

Sunday AM dragging ... 9 miles.  Out along the ditch up into East and Central Park.  Slow. 

Body was just beat this week. I ought to take the cue.  But whatever. 

Week ending 16AUG2020

Monday AM - good news:  the gracilas feels fine.  Bad news:  the Achilles is still shit.  6.6 miles with a couple of handfuls of hills with the kids. 

PM - hot - 3.7 ditchin'

Tuesday AM - 4 miles and this was all I got.  Booked all day and was fried at the end of it.

Wednesday AM - first official day of practice.  Clearly practice impacts my ability to get my true stuff done.  5.7 miles.  Achilles felt a little better.  Gracilas seemed fined. 

Wednesday PM - smokey.  I ran to the car shop to pick up the car and then added on.  5.3 miles

Thursday AM.  Still really smokey.  10 miles.  Was definitely feeling beat today, in the gracilas, the Achilles, and just ... tired.  Days like today make me realize that Pikes is a stupid idea for me right now. 

Friday AM - 6.4 miles.  Not feeling it. 

Friday PM - HOT.  Smoke has subsided a bit.  3.9 miles ditchin'

Saturday AM - back down for the TT from Tahosa (early baby, early).  Post the TT I did 8 miles.  Slow

Sunday PM - hot as Hades.  Stopped at Rails for mid run beverage and to listen to Shawn for a bit.  7.5 miles.

Yeah, I am too broken to do Pikes.  Any thought of that pretty much evaporated this week.  True bummer. 

=

Week ending 09AUG2020

Monday AM - 5.6 miles out towards Sterns Lake, super easy and with the team.  Things certainly on the mend but not doing anything to aggravate.

Monday PM - taking a risk, rolled out again and felt good.  Did the ditch loop and started at 8 minute pace but nudged down comfortably to 7:20.  Got me thinking about if I could get my crap together for PPM, but still not gonna gamble on that.

Tuesday AM - easy seven with the team.

Tuesday PM - easy 3.3 on the ditch.

Wednesday late AM - easy 5.1 on the ditch / Lake Link loop solo.  Legs still don't feel zippy but I am increasingly moving past the hammy issue.  Easy averaged to 7:50 today.  Someday that will be an unattainable mile.

Wednesday PM - easy, same route as t-storm blew in.

Thursday AM - 4.3 miles with the team.

Thursday PM - 5 miles, mostly floating around the HS trying to imagine a course on the confines of that property.

Friday AM - ugh.  Late night with music and such last night.  4 miles at practice.  Getting hot.

Friday PM - HOT.  5.1 miles.

Saturday AM - 7.5 miles, some part of practice, some post solo.  

Mid day Saturday I saw Mark again and he worked on the gracilas manually, with microneedles and e-stim.  Much better than last week but he can still light me up pretty easily.  

Bibs for PPM are up.

Saturday PM - hot.  3.7 on the ditch.

Sunday AM - 7.1 miles solo, out through the Commons

All very basic easy miles this week - just keeping it basically glued together.  Lot of contemplation over the last few days if I could pull off Pikes.  The hammy seems to be coming around and so I have been considering it.  But outside of that, I am suddenly aware that I am pretty tired, unfocused, and fighting the Achilles bark on the other side.  It might be a blessing to miss Pikes but I am also wondering if I should just jump on it anyway.

I have also tended away from most social media platforms for a bit now.  I have not taken a complete sabbatical.  There are enough work related items or even items related to the HS XC that I am still gonna have my nose in my phone, but I have look to reduce what I do with it because it suddenly feels pretty unnecessary (that said, I still feel compelled to post some music on the H9 page on FB periodically).  

Week ending 02AUG2020

The wheels came off this week for the most part.  The hammie was too jacked to do any running through the most of the week.  On Monday I jogged four strides and knew I had no chance of getting anything in.  I tried on  Wednesday jogging for about a mile and it was really aggravated after that.

I was on the bike everyday, guessing from about 7 to 20 miles, sometimes twice in a day, but it is just not my jam.  It was good to get out an breathe, but it is clearly not running.

As expected the soreness and pain got a bit better throughout the week, but slowly.  On Saturday I went and saw Mark P.  He lit me up good.  He determined I had a torn gracilas muscle, could see significant remnant bruising underneath it by the back of the knee.  He played with the collagen like a guitar string and that made for some significant squirming.  I got some microneedling and then electrostim on it.  Microneedles to the inner thigh was certainly a new experience.






































































































I managed on Saturday to get in two short jogs though - both an easy 25 minutes on the track, lane 8, opposite direction.  A touch of stiffness but in that space that is on the mend side.  Sunday was more of the same - two short runs, easy and flat.

It would seem with this injury that Pikes is out.  I can't imagine getting back to where I can handle a marathon on a rocky trail like that in twenty something days.  It is a bummer, but these things happen.  I am pretty disappointed, but I can see this was something that "just happened."  Perhaps I could have seen it coming if I was hyper attuned to that body part, or perhaps I could have avoided it with some other strength training or better care of self (Mark thought I probably was lacking electrolytes).  I don't know.  But I am old enough and have done the race enough times that I don't ascribe the same level of self worth to it as I used.  I am disappointed, but I can "see" it with a perspective that I certainly did not used to have.

Of course not running always does a reboot for me regarding perspective.  When I can't run I am sort of befuddled as to what to do.  I can easily see a life without that wonderful habit, and seem to lose motivation to do other things (say like core) but I also yearn for the ability to just easily jog and not care about performance.  I can realize again how running is a cornerstone for my mental well being more than my physical one.

July ended on a skid of course ... 8 days off, with 6 being in the last week.  219 miles and about 1940 on the year.  August will be focused on getting back on the horse, versus vying for an AG placing at PPM.

Some recent tunes

Biking with JZ


Kids getting strides in.


Hair is getting a bit long in these COVID times.