010709 Wednesday 10 miles

Various ...

• The winds continue to blow today.  Jeffco has gusts up to 58mph with a steady wind at 20mph.  It gusted so high that the dirt on the Marshall Mesa whipped up to start to block out the views of the mountains.  No joke.  I was on the third floor of my building (a four story building) and I can feel the building moving.  Seriously.  On the fourth floor - the blinds were moving on the windows because the windows were bowing to the wind.  Co worker Verne posted some pix.
• I am debating whether I should have responded to this post.  MAF ... (by the way, I know that Lucho and I have posted quite a bit on MAF on the past.  FWIW - I think he and I agree more on MAF in terms of running training.  Certainly he is more versed in IM and its applicability there given I have never done one of those).
• THIS is a really bad day.  I am glad that did not happen to me skiing.
• More fun on talent versus work at the SOS.  If they post stuff like this everyday, I will just let the blogroll on the right speak to it.  Their stuff, Fitzgerald's and CV's are some of the best blogs of folks regarding training approaches I know (that don't also serve as "this is what I did for training"). 
• Fitzgerald's post on weight and willpower ... interesting as lots of folks seem to be thinking about weight these days (particularly in light of the dark days of winter.
• I used to run the Certain Death trail all the time ... (if you live in Boulder County and run, you know this trail ... it was also described in Running with the Buffaloes as an Adam Goucher 22 mile run) then it got shut down.  It looks like it might get opened up again! 
• Stupid IPOD question:  my work laptop has had its motherboard replaced a couple of times.  Each time that counts as a registered computer with my IPOD.  I can't get access to those old boards and deregister them with Apple.  Is there an alternative way that I can deregister a computer that is associated with my IPOD/Itunes? (later note skatona suggests - http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/authorization/ - thank you.  Do I know you?)
• Interview with Eric Blake, mountain runner from the US team last year.

Due to the crazy winds ... I hit the treadmill again.  This is the third day on the mill and it is getting to me a bit.  After five miles, I went to 4 x 3 minutes at 5K pace, and then ran sub six for the remaining 9 minutes or so to get to the finish.  I was not really up for this physically ... I probably should have taken an other easy day but I my desire to get this run done over rode that.  6:56, 6:48, 6:56, 6:41, 6:49, 6:20, 5:46, 6:04, 6:08, 5:51.  64 minutes.  I am ready to get back outside ... even if that means running in gale force winds.

Sunday 010409 17 miles and more altitude conversation

Didn't feel real hot - my stomach has been fighting some sort of something.  Decided to go long and real slow, real easy.   17 miles, looping up into Lafayette, Louisville, keep the HR in the low 150s.

Matt asked: "After reading the altitude post, I'm a little puzzled.  The point of training at altitude is to increase O2 carrying capacity and perhaps condition oneself if he is going to race at a similar alt?
And how high does one have to go to get the O2 benefits?

My nickel on this ... sleeping at altitude helps you increase O2 carrying capacity because your RBC count will increase.  But even with this increase RBC count, it does not offset the lack of the ability to get 02 to the muscle cells.  For an extreme example, even if you acclimate at 20000 feet for climbing Everest - you don't suddenly reach your sea level potential.  

Hence, the old adage, live high and train low.  I do think an exception to this is if you are racing high.  There the law of specificity over rules - train your system (body) unto which you will race. 

But even there, I think there is an exception.  If you train exclusively at altitude, you will lose speed that you train (better) at lower altitudes that you can use to your benefit in a race at higher altitudes.  In other words, if you want to run fast, you need to run fast.  Since you are limited in being able to do that by training at altitude, you set a governor of sorts if you always train at altitude.  This can be overcome (running downhill for example, at faster paces) with training lower as a key option.

Exactly where (elevations) this all takes place is probably a matter of some debate / scientific analysis.

Lucho - you got a take on this?

Week in review

M - 4 miles (37 min)
T - 0 miles
W - 13 miles (92 min)
Th - 7 miles (So Bo, Bear, 120 minutes), 5 miles (40 min)
Fr - 13 miles treadmill (87 min) with 6 x 3 minutes
Sa-  7 miles (54 min), 3 miles (10-15% grade - treadmill, 39 minutes)
Su - 17 miles (140 minutes)

Week - 70 miles, 609 minutes
January - 52 miles, 480 minutes

Decent week.  It began to come unraveled from a training perspective with the skiing on the front end, and then towards the end with the pups being born and my stomach aching ...  I got in a good run on Wed, good climbing on Th (but slow), some repeats on Friday ... and a good slow long run on Sunday.   I'd love it all to be faster - but who wouldn't?!  I definitely want to start getting more of a decent long run in more often  ... I tend to eschew that too much.  I am considering having one or two of days in my training that are REALLY light (not goose eggs but like 4-6 miles) so I can really tag it the next day.