AM - 30 minutes easy with Lucy. 4 miles. A bit stiff to start but loosened up after ten minutes.
PM - 76 minutes. 10 miles. Easy. Kept HR in mid to low 140s. Legs a little tired from the jump up in the volume but that will shake out over the next day or two.
I am a bit surprised at how quickly I have bounced back from Pikes. I was not really sore after the races. This tells me that while my ability to hold up to mileage and vertical is probably the best it has ever been, I am not speed or quick fit to tap into a good race. Call it not being able to squeeze the sponge if you want. I have trouble describing it. I can go long, up and far ... just not as fast as I like or at a deep threshold yet.
Regarding the choices to take it to the next level ... So I get about ten hours a week of training now. I think to take it to the next level I have heard that I need to get closer to 14. I have heard this from the guys who I see as successful in the sport - namely Burrell and Boetcher and Mackey. Hmm ... 14 hours times 8 miles an hour (averaging 7:30s) would be 112 miles a week. Mix in mountains and it is less. 2Bernie ran a 4:02 this year at Pikes - his best ever. I asked him how he made the transition. 
I have been asked ... "so what is next?" It is this: figure out how to train for a 50 miler while getting my 10K faster (sub 35 again). In the interim, think, talk with folks and build mileage back up.
Various ...
- Pikes Youtube videos are starting to go up (1 - showing the marathon and some of the silly conditions on the top for some the mid packers, 2 - Angela's video - I met Angela at the pre-race dinner. I also met Rulf from Vienna who appears about 75 seconds into the video ... this shows how packed it gets back in the early stages of the race for wave 2-ers)
- More epic stories from Rickey G ...
- A great article from the Science of the Sport that while in the context of the men's 800 in Beijing, has great information on pacing.
- There is a good deal of thrash on the PP message board regarding what "non finishers" in the Ascent (as they were turned around due to weather and the carnage that was occurring at the top already) ought to do, get, not get ... should they get finishers shirts? Should they get finisher medals? How do they get standings in the TCR? Apparently Race Director Ron Ilgen decided to give them finisher shirts and medals. Some however have taken to removing the "finisher" word from the stitching while others wear it proudly. I can't speak for those folks as to what is right or wrong but I can say that if I got turned around, I'd not wear the shirt even if I went the 20 miles that those folks did. I am not saying I don't respect what those folks did. I greatly respect what they did and honor it. As I said previously, I think we learn more from failure in the pursuit of a goal then easy success. All that said ... it is just a shirt damn it. Medals and shirts can go away. Memories of the sacrifice and the journey there ... nobody can take that.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. TDR
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