Week ending 18FEB2024

Monday - hills before heading to the airport.  2 mile warmup and then did 10 on the hill (less than 200 meter) near the school.  Was 41'-43'.  Jog home.  6.5 on the day.

Tuesday - didn't get into Atlanta until super late so this one was rough - getting it on short sleep, the time change, and dark.  3.25 in the AM.  Didn't get out that night because of a dinner engagement.   

Wednesday AM - found Piedmont Park again so I trolled around there for a morning wake up.  5 miles.

Evening - hit the park again.  As it was Valentine's Day people were actually getting married in the park.  6.7 miles moving well.  Got on the Belt Line "trail" for a bit of this one too.  

  

Met up with MM from Broomfield (although she lives here in ATL  now) and got in a very nice morning run.  8.4 miles.

Thursday night - a short one ... 3.3 miles.

Friday - flew back to CO early.  Walloped with freezing rain in this run.  5 miles.

Saturday - 8 out and back into Interlocken.  Slippery and sloppy with the snow and ice from yesterday.  Flew to IRL on the overnight.  This one left me pretty wasted for no good reason

Sunday - Flew out to IRL, got to Tullamore and got out on the lovely Canal.

54 on the week - not bad with the travel.  Some hills and quality mid run mid week.  A mile shy of 400 at the end of the week.  

Monday Saturday 11-16SEP2023

Ah, Santo Domingo.

I really don't think I'd say this is a top ten favorite place to run.  It is hot.  It is humid.  It is flat.  It has a lot of trash.  There are some great ocean views though.  Monday AM ... 3 something miles.  Nothing in the evening as we did the corporate weenie dinner,

Tuesday AM - Same thing.  3 something miles.  It takes an hour to get to the site.  And an hour to get back.  Haina is quite an education.  4 something miles in the evening but then it took me 20 minutes to cross the street back to the hotel cuz ... traffic.   Ah well.

Pikes has been apparently blanketed in snow.  And it is supposed to get walloped again on Friday night.  I can't worry about it right now ... just too busy with work.  I guess I will figure out what I am gonna do when I get home Saturday.  

Wednesday was a goose egg.  I didn't run in the AM and then I did dinner with the team down here.  I wasn't overly concerned with miles anyway given the taper / rest up for the week.

Thursday AM - the three something, PM - the four something.

Nothing on Friday because I slept in, packed out and then traveled to Miami that night as we finished with the site.

Saturday - also a zero ... headed back to Denver from Miami, got back to Broomstick mid day.  Then down to Manitou Springs to get situated for the Sunday race.  Picked up my number at Memorial Park as they were doing awards for the Ascent.  

Bonnet broke the Ascent record with a 2:00:20 - which is absolutely insane.  There is video floating out there of him running the final stretches and he makes it look so ridiculously easy.  He is just blasting it at 14000 plus feet.  It is sick.  

That said, his record comes in an Ascent only run, whereas the prior record, Carpenter's 2:01, was in a full round trip.  It was cool to see Matt giving props to Remmy at the awards for breaking a record that stood for 30 years. 

And Matt did it with complete class.  He was not the grumpy guy wanting his record to never be broken.  

Meanwhile on the JZ front, on Saturday he did a burro race in Frederick and took fourth.  

Week ending 20NOV2022

Monday afternoon - 6.3 miles
Tuesday afternoon - 3 miles.  Ugh.
Wednesday AM - 5 miles.
PM - 5 miles
Thursday - snowing - 9.4 miles
Friday - post snow, cold.  4 miles before the AZ road trip
Saturday - we hit AZ about 3AM.  It was early to then bolt over to NXR on the other side of PHX but it was worth it.  Watched the kiddos race, etc.  Got in about 4 and a half there in the races, etc.
Later in the afternoon, explored in Surprise a bit for another 5 and 3/4s.  Beautiful conditions this time of year.
Sunday - 7.2 miles with JZ around Surprise.  

Week ended up at just over 50.  Nothing zippy this week but the runs in AZ were better than usual (nice temps and altitude difference for sure).

Thursday night was Rails Open Mic. It was pretty fun.  SG and I had planned to do some tunes together and when we got there Rob offered to sit in on drums.  Why the hell not?  It was a blast. 

Later Sean and Andrew melted the whole effin' place as a two piece.  

Rolled through 2200 miles at some point this week.  

Week ending 18SEP2022

Well, not a week worth speaking of in running terms.  Long work days, high heat and humidity, and just being worked limited miles.  Hardly a training week, so I won't bother posting here the half arsed runs in the DR where it looked like I had gone for a swim more than a run.

I guess in another reality that would have been fine as I'd be resting up for a PPM but there was none of that this year because of the PE issue.  Also was supposed to play a gig with Spare Change on Saturday but COVID for a band member shit canned that too.  

(side note - 3 guys under 2:10 in the PPA is pretty amazing)

The Dominican Republic trip was good from a work perspective.  These trips are educational - both in work but also in seeing other cultures.  Men at night at a table in the street playing dominoes.  Karaoke singers in front of high end restaurants.  Garbage everywhere.  

After a long day to get back (a story unto itself in getting back from the DR) I escaped up to Summit County.  It was good to be back in the thin air, cooler temps, and low humidity.

Sunday I explored up the Ten Mile Creek trail out of Frisco.

Week ending 11SEP2022

Monday AM - hot.  6 miles with the kiddos.  Feeling the band effort from last night.  Yeah.

Tuesday afternoon - still hot.  8 miles with 10 x 100 in the middle over at BHMS.

Wednesday AM - had an athlete that needed to go in the AM so did some work at sub seven pace with them. 5.2 miles.  

Thursday - 8 miles

Friday - 

Saturday - 8 miles at Liberty Bell.  Kids had a blast.  After a few weeks of 80s and 90s, a drop into the 40s and 50s set them up for fast races.  PRs for nearly every kid.

Sunday - Dominican Republic.  Red eye here via Miami so I didn't sleep much.  Got out and it was expectedly hot and humid.  Probably not as bad as Singapore that time.  Certainly not as epic as Dubuque.  The ocean probably helps that.  I could only get five before I relented to no longer swimming in my own sweat.  

The beach playa beauty of the Caribbean was very much offset with ... trash.

Another 50 something mile week.

Certainly thinking about how I am missing Pikes next weekend.  There is thought that I could have gone and done it - as in completed it, and there would have been some accomplishment in that.  But I also know I would have been greatly dissatisfied with such a result.  The loss of the training I had because of the PE's and where I am now ... I am not really to run that the way I'd like to.  I mean, I am nowhere need where I'd like to be but I am really far behind where I was.  It will be a process to get back to some semblance of fitness I was in.  

Week ending 21AUG2022

Monday AM - 5.1 miles morning Eagle jogging.  Warm.

Afternoon practice - 5.4 miles with some weak ass hill strides

Tuesday afternoon - 8.1 miles.
Rain a ridiculous amount the AM.  That is great but for a bit it seemed like we were gonna head the way of 2012 again.  

Wednesday AM - 3 miles easy with GW.

Afternoon 5.1 with a handful of fartlek builds

Thursday afternoon - 7 miles.  Hot.  

Open Mic at Rails.

Played with TC on "Call Me the Breeze" and then did "Poor Life Choices," "Something in the Orange," and "Feathered Indians."

Friday - down in Westminster for a meet:  8 miles easy

Saturday AM practice - 9 miles.  Some strides at the end.  

I am going to have to come to terms with beginning to get back out of my comfort zone again.  It has slipped to 8:30 and 8:40 miles.  I can tell my lungs ain't what they were, but I need to not really give a crap about that and just work.  It may never be what it was (it never is in fact) but I don't have to accept that I am what I am.  

Sunday - travel.

After the welcome diner, got out for 5.7.  It was raining, which was nice but I would have been soaked in any case.  It is a different level of humidity here in the Delta.  

Ended up with 56 and change on the week.  In many ways it was a progress week, better than the last few in terms of miles and even getting on the gas on occasion.  But I recognize it is is also a weak week.  But patience now.  

Week ending 31JUL2022

Monday AM - walked in Waukegan for 1.7 miles.  
PM - walked in Libertyville for 6.  Made six phone calls.  

I'm grateful.  Grateful I have people that care about me in this circumstance.  Grateful I have access to healthcare to help me through it.  Grateful I am healthy enough to deal with it with little repercussion.  

But I am pissed too.  I am pissed it will impact Burro Days.  That I can't run right now.  That I am on a blood thinner that makes me feel a tad different.  That its is not clear why this happened.  It was pointed out to me that I mentioned I was told it could be COVID and then I got sent an article that it could be the vaccine (which I last boosted at two months ago).  That I will have a big ER bill.  That I will have someone that will likely recommend that I am on these meds for life.  Etc.  Some of the pissed is a little logical.  Most of it ain't.  But I am pissed.

And I don't enjoy walking nearly as much but it is better than sitting on my ass.  I guess I am grateful that I got to talk to people during it and grumble about my really non predicament.  

Tuesday - I woke up and felt like I had a hangover but I had not had a drop last night.  So a slow start and no AM walk.  Seems increasingly unlikely that Fairplay is a good idea in regards to running.  

PM - back over to Libertyville.  5 miles of quiet walking.

Wednesday AM = 1.4 miles around the hotel. 

Evening - walked 5 miles.

Thursday AM - 1 mile at wake up.

Evening:  after the biz dinner.  I have avoided the dinner all week.  I do enjoy it, but frankly I'd rather skip it.  If you were with me and are reading that, I am sorry.  I did enjoy your company and I was glad to share it.  But at the same time I was an ass and I was often thinking about being out somewhere. else. 

Anyway, so I got out after that.  After 4.5 miles of walking, where I even saw some lightning bugs, I gave up on the walking and jogged for a bit.  It just felt weird.  But I was a bit relieved to do it.  6 miles.  

Friday - loop around the mall.  1.3 miles in the AM before hitting the site and heading out for travel.  

Traveled home.  

On Saturday, KZ left for Japan for a year.  So there was that.  

Then we bolted up to Fairplay.  I was definitely bummed to not be racing but the joy-task at hand was playing the gig for Burro Days.  We had a blast.  

The harmonica hurt ... probably for obvious reasons.

It was an awesome show.  The crowd was great, and they brought incredible energy - even in the rain.  It was really a great time.

Sunday ... I watched the start of the races ... and was disappointed.  There were 12 starters of the long course.  I am not thinking we would have been in it for the win, but it would have been a good day.  I was irritated by the whole affair.

But anyway ... it just sorta cemented a resolve to get back to it.  

Off to XC camp next week.  Oh yeah, I deferred on Pikes too.